The Bird's Opening

Important variations are animated at the bottom of the page.

There are many openings to choose from. As white, if you do not choose a good one, you will lose. Out of about 200 openings, about 15 of them are better for black than for white. The bird's opening is one of them. We suggest that you never open with this as it seems to do absolutely nothing for you. The Bird's Opening is simply 1. f4. We suggest that you almost never move the f pawn for your king's safety.

The Bird's Opening   A B C D E F G H 8 7 6                 5                 4               3                 2   1

The most common and best defense to this is the Dutch Defense 1...d5. This has a much higher win record than any other variation. The other variation is the From Gambit. This goes just like the Green Gambit from the Queen's Gambit. The From Gambit goes as so: 1...e5 2. pxp, d6 3. pxp. This has an equal win record for white and black. I have my own variation which I call the American Variation. I really have no clue why it works, but I haven't lost a game while doing this. It has no real record. I sometimes play Nf6 to this. It is mainly to prevent e4 next move, but it always seems to help to respond this way. There isn't much information on this opening because it is rarely played (rightfully so). However, if white does this, he has just given you the upper hand.  Most often, I play the From gambit because of the endless kingside attacks that black gets.  If black plays right, he can toss white's king right into the middle of the carnage every single time as well as render white's queen useless for the first 15-20 moves or so.  Commonly found is a pawn push on the h and g files to get a passed pawn or dislodge a knight.