The Spanish Opening

There are over 20 responses to this, but This section only covers one. This is better known as the Ruy Lopez. You can see it to the left. The main line follows 1. e4, e5 2. Nf3, Nc6 3. Bb5. The man who wrote about this and claimed credit was a Spanish priest named Ruy Lopez. He also suggested that when you play an opponent, place the board so that the sun is in his eyes. Not bad advice!

The Spanish Opening

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1

He suggested that you respond with 3...a6. Why is this good? White wins a pawn. But this is not so. 4. BxN, pd7xB 5. Nxp. This is looking better for white because of the won pawn. You can see the position once again on the left. The reason you take with the d pawn is to release the light bishop and strengthen your queenside pawn structure. Black has 3 ways of winning back the pawn: 5...Qd4, Qe7, and best of all Qg5. Black will ruin white's kingside, strengthen his queenside, and take a shorter time to castle unless white castles kingside (a stupid move).

Position After Black's Move 5

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1

When you castle queenside, your rook is ready to attack the uncastled king and the center. You will notice that all black needs to do to castle queenside is move the bishop. After that, black should castle queenside because it is very strong and controlling. Then, he can go for a fast attack on f2 before white can castle. This is great for black, bad for white. You can see a typical game after a few moves. Clearly, black is way ahead.