Let's play the Petrov defense.
Let's learn the Petrov Defense! Petrov? Petroff? However you say it, this opening will take white completely by surprise. They'll be on your turf, and there's barely any moves to memorize. We start by playing pawn to e5.
Let's continue with the Petrov defense.
Instead of defending our pawn, we'll attack white's with knight to f6. This is the Petrov defense.
Most chess courses will tell you NOT to copy white and take their e4 pawn because it's dangerous. Well, most chess courses are BORING. Chess is a game. Games are fun. Knight takes pawn on e4.
What I love about this opening is we can just... copy our opponent! Queen to e7, SACRIFICING our knight.
OK we can't copy our opponent anymore, but we CAN win our knight back: pawn to d6. If white tries to move their knight, we win their queen.
Pawn to c6 blocks the check and makes white have to retreat their bishop
White's most common move is LITERALLY just a blunder of a piece. I can't even explain it. Just knight takes bishop on c6 and we have a free piece.
We really can't go wrong here - but the easiest move is just pawn takes knight.
I can't believe white blundered a piece like that. What were they thinking??
Let's take our knight back with the pawn.
OK, it looks like we're just a pawn down — right? But in practice, that extra pawn is incredibly hard for White to hang onto. Most players over-focus on defending it and end up in a worse position because of it. Knight to c6 adding an attacker.
White has two attackers on our knight. We need two defenders. Bishop to d7.
We should probably copy white and castle too.
Let's try and trap that bishop in the corner - pawn to g5.
White plays that move 85% of the time and it literally just loses them their bishop. Now we have Pawn to f5, hitting the queen. Once she moves, the bishop is trapped on the next move.
Pawn to f4 to finally lock that bishop in jail :)
That bishop is as good as ours!
White defended their pawn. Harmless, right? WRONG! They just LOST the game because of this very tricky line: first, pawn to g5 hitting the bishop.
That bishop looks like it can get trapped. Let's trap it! Pawn to f5 hitting the queen, and once the queen moves, we can trap the bishop with one more pawn push. Oh yeah - and white can't take en-passant because then we win their queen!
The queen moved and now we can trap that bishop! Pawn to f4.
Meh - this doesn't really scare me: queen to f7 blocking the check.
White wins a pawn? We win a bishop. Pawn takes bishop on g3.
Being a piece up never hurt anyone!
White took back with the queen this time - which means we want to send this game to an endgame where we can create a lot of problems for white. Queen takes queen on e5.
First things first, let's get our pawn back: knight to c6.
White really wants to keep their e5 pawn - fine! Let's switch our focus to their c2 pawn with bishop to f5.
Looks like white defended their c2 pawn right? WRONG! We have a winning sequence now: first, bishop takes bishop on d3.
Now knight to b4, and we're threatening two things: capturing the d3 pawn, and forking the king and rook on c2.
White was so desperate to protect both squares they moved their king into the middle of the board - big mistake. Now we simply castle queenside, and in one easy move our king has become safe and their king is under fire from our rook!
Let's take the d3 pawn with our knight. Now we're attacking the undefended bishop on f4 and the undefended pawn on b2. Oh yeah - and we're threatening a discovered check too!
Let's throw in bishop to c5 check - just bringing another piece to the party.
We're spoiled for options here. Let's take f2 with our bishop.
The eval bar gives us +3 points here. We're crushing.
White has a serious threat on f7 - let's block out the bishop with pawn to d5.
With white's light-squared bishop gone, we have this incredible fork: queen to g5. We're attacking the g2 pawn and white's e5 knight, and white can't save them both.
White's most common move here just... wins us a knight. Queen takes knight on e5.
Here's the only tricky part: if we just move our knight away, white's rook will come to e1 and pin our queen to our king. That's why here, we play knight to f2 and threaten THEIR queen.
Last move to ensure us the win: bishop to c5, pinning the rook to the king.
Well done! We navigated through some tricky traps white had for us, and now we're completely crushing.