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Chessblood

Learn · opening guides

Chess opening analysis

Eight major openings, each with a validated main line, the variations you will actually meet, plans for both sides and the traps that decide club games. Read the guide, then drill the moves on the board.

1.e4 for White

Classical king's pawn openings built on quick development and pressure on e5.

1.d4 for White

Queen's pawn systems, from the classical gambit to a low-theory set-up.

Black against 1.e4

Three different answers: the fighting Sicilian and the solid French and Caro-Kann.

Black against 1.d4

A hypermodern counterattacking defence: let White build a centre, then strike at it.

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Reading a line is not the same as knowing it

  • Play your side of any guide line while the board answers with the book move
  • Learn mode shows the moves; drill mode hides them
  • Lines you complete without a hint are remembered in this browser
Open the opening trainer No account, no download.

Analysing your own openings

A guide tells you what should happen. Your games tell you what does. The fastest way to improve an opening is to review the games you played with it and look at the moment you left familiar ground.

  1. Review the game. Import it from Chess.com or Lichess, or paste the PGN, and run the game review. The report names the opening from its ECO table, using the deepest named position reached in the first twenty moves.
  2. Find the first graded move. Moves that reach a named position in the first fifteen moves are marked Book and left out of the accuracy score. The first move after them is where your own preparation starts to be tested.
  3. Compare with the guide. If you deviated from the main line, check whether the variation section covers your move and what the plans are. If the opponent deviated, look at the engine's preferred reply and add it to your notes.
  4. Drill the line. Open the opening trainer and play the line until you can do it without a hint.

Once you have reviewed a few games, the coach points out the opening you play most often and links its guide when there is one.

How the guides are built

Each guide follows the same structure: an introduction to the ideas, one main line of 12 to 14 half-moves with notes, 6 to 7 key variations, strengths and weaknesses, traps, advice for newcomers and common questions.

The moves are standard opening theory, chosen to show typical plans rather than the latest grandmaster fashion. Every sequence is stored as plain moves and replayed by the chess.js library during the build. The diagrams are drawn from the replayed positions, so the board you see is always the position the moves produce.

Theory changes slowly at club level, but it does change. If you spot a line that has been refuted or a plan that no longer holds, please tell us.

Opening questions

Which opening should I learn first?
One answer to 1.e4, one answer to 1.d4 and one opening for White is enough for years. For White, the Italian Game or the London System teach sound development with little theory. Against 1.e4, the Caro-Kann or French give solid structures with clear plans; against 1.d4, the Queen's Gambit Declined is the classical choice. Pick what suits your style, then stop collecting openings and start playing them.
How deep should I memorise the lines?
Learn the main line of each guide well enough to play it without thinking, and know the plans for both sides. Beyond that, learn from your own games: when an opponent surprises you, look the position up afterwards and add that one move to your notes. Ten moves you understand beat twenty you have memorised.
Are the lines in the guides checked?
Yes. Every move sequence is replayed by the chess.js library when the site is built. A line with an illegal move, a typo in a capture or a wrong move number would stop the build, so it cannot be published. Diagrams are generated from the same moves.
Why does my game review say I left book earlier than the guide?
The review marks a move as book when the position it reaches is one of the roughly 3,600 named positions in its ECO table and the game is still in its first fifteen moves. The table names openings; it does not contain every line of theory. So a perfectly good theoretical move can be graded on its merits rather than as book, which is useful: you see what the engine thinks of your preparation.
Can I train my own repertoire?
Not yet. The trainer drills the main lines and variations from these eight guides. To study anything else, paste a PGN into the analysis board and step through it with Stockfish.