Let's play the english!
Let's learn the English! Instead of pushing our central pawns, we umm... we push our non-central pawns. It's the greatest breakthrough in chess since en passant! To start, we push our c-pawn to c4
As always, we are going to put our knight on c3 behind our c4 pawn, making sure black can never go to d5.
Black is walking into some very dangerous territory. We can play pawn to e4 and enter something called the "Mikenas-Carls" variation. If they don't play PERFECTLY from here on out, we'll win the game. You'll see what I mean in a second. Pawn to e4.
BOOM! Black just made a HUGE MISTAKE. Notice how the black bishop just left the defense of the g7 pawn? We'll punish them for that. First things first: we need to get the f6 knight out of the way. Let's play pawn to to e5
That's fine. B-pawn takes bishop on c3 and we're still threatening the knight on f6.
Beautiful. Can you find the fork? Yup, queen to g4 forking the e4 knight and the g7 pawn. Black can't save them both...
...well looks like black can TRY to save them both. But a simple pawn to h4 and black is 100% losing a knight.
Well done! We're winning that knight :D
OK so how do we punish black's huge mistake of abandoning the g7 pawn? Simple! By attacking the g7 pawn with queen to g4.
Beautiful! Black has a few ways to save the g7 pawn, but they all come at a cost of pawn structure or development. The computer loves our position so much that we get a +1.3 point advantage.
The name of the game is to attack the d5 square. Let's do it again with knight to c3.
We'll continue with developing our knight to f3, adding a bit of pressure to the e5 pawn.
Ooooooh. Now we can play one of my favorite moves in chess: Knight takes pawn on e5, SACRIFICING our knight. Don't worry, we'll win him back.
Can you spot how we'll win the knight back? With a pawn fork! Pawn to d4 forks blacks bishop and knight. This is a super common tactic that shows up in a bunch of openings, so keep your eye out :D
And of course, pawn takes bishop on c5. We have to win back our material.
Nice! Even though material is equal, black's knight is so misplaced that the computer gives us a +2 point advantage.
Now that the d5 square is covered, we can attack the e5 pawn. Knight to f3.
We've entered the Four Knights English. It's called the four knights english because the first time it was played was in England over the course of four nights. From here, we play pawn to e3 with hopes of playing pawn to d4 next.
Black is threatening to take our knight and mess up our pawn structure. Honestly, its a valid threat. We should move our queen to c2 so that if black ever takes our knight, we can just recapture with the queen.
I like the idea of planting our knight in the center, just to be a little annoying... Knight to d5.
HUGE mistake! Black just lost the game. First, we capture back with pawn takes knight on d5. Black HAS to move their knight on c6 out of the way.
Now we can win a bishop. Do you spot the tactic? That's right, queen to a4 forking the king and bishop
Then queen takes bishop on b4 :)
You just won yourself a free bishop :D
Woahhh. The whole POINT of the english opening is to stop black from playing pawn to d5 and black just... did it anyway? Well, obviously we are going to capture it. No d5 allowed! Pawn takes pawn on d5.
This is kinda like playing against the Scandinavian Defense (i have a course on that too) but its actually WAY better for white since we have both our central pawns. Let's play knight to c3 next, gaining a tempo on that queen.
This position looks like the beginning of a chess game, except way better for us because we've already developed a knight and black is missing a central pawn. Let's stop black from developing their last central pawn with knight to f3.
Now we can start developing OUR central pawns. Pawn to d4.
And let's develop the other one too. Pawn to e4.
Black has pinned our knight, which means our e4 pawn is no longer defended. The best move here is to develop our bishop and re-defend our pawn, with bishop to d3.
Our development and our center are soooo much better than black's. Even with equal material, the computer is giving us a +1.3 point advantage. Awesome job!