The opening is the initial stage of a chess game. It usually consists of established theory. The other phases are the middlegame and the endgame. Many opening sequences, known as openings, have standard names such as "Sicilian Defense". The Oxford Companion to Chess lists 1,327 named openings and variants, and there are many others with varying degrees of common usage.
In chess, a smothered mate is a checkmate delivered by a knight in which the mated king is unable to move because it is completely surrounded by its own pieces.
The Bogo-Indian Defence is a chess opening characterised by the moves:
The Queen's Indian Defense (QID) is a chess opening defined by the moves:
The Philidor Defence is a chess opening characterised by the moves:
Bird's Opening is a chess opening characterised by the move:
The Catalan Opening is a chess opening where White plays d4 and c4 and fianchettoes the white bishop on g2. A common opening sequence is 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.g3, although various other openings can transpose into the Catalan. The Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings (ECO) lists codes E01–E09 for lines with 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.g3 d5 4.Bg2; other lines are part of E00.
Adolf Albin was a Romanian chess player. He is best known for the countergambit that bears his name and for authoring the first chess book written in Romanian.
The Budapest Gambit is a chess opening that begins with the moves:
The Elephant Gambit is a rarely played chess opening beginning with the moves:
The Marshall Defense is a chess opening that begins with the moves:
The Englund Gambit is a rarely played chess opening that starts with the moves:
The Lasker Trap is a chess opening trap in the Albin Countergambit. It is named after Emanuel Lasker, although it was first noted by Serafino Dubois. It is unusual in that it features an underpromotion as early as the seventh move.
The Rousseau Gambit is a chess opening that begins with the moves:
In chess, the Maróczy Bind is a term alternately used to refer to an opening or its associated pawn structure, named for the Hungarian grandmaster Géza Maróczy. When the Bind is discussed as an opening, it is defined as 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 g6 5.c4. The Maróczy Bind opening is a continuation of the Sicilian Defence, Accelerated Dragon, where 5.c4 is the characteristic move.
In chess, the Cambridge Springs Defense is a variation of the Queen's Gambit Declined that begins with the moves:
The 1978 World Chess Championship was played between Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi in Baguio, Philippines, from July 18 to October 18, 1978. Karpov won, thereby retaining the title.
