so i've been playing chess for a long time, i just never really knew there were names for different openings. Well in order to set up my game i've been reading about openings, but there is one thing that confuses me. That is when i'm looking at an opening how do i know if its for black or for white? and if an opening is for white, can it be used for black? i know this question might be a beginner question, but like i said no one ever taught me openings or names, just how to play.

thanks for the replies.

James

You can almost always tell the color the opening is being played by the last move played. So 1.e4 c5 would be the sicilian, an opening for black. There are many named variations after that, for white or black. An opening for white cannot be used by black, unless white purposely loses a tempo in the position to give black an extra tempo sort of switching the colors. But that rarely happens so the short answer is "no".

Oo boy. Well first let's start with the most important thing to remember about opening nomunclature:

It does not make sense.

That said, there are generalities that help;

Classically, you could say that 'attacks','openings' and 'gambits' are initiated by white, 'counterattacks', 'defenses' and 'countergambits' by black.

For instance:

White: Austrian Attack, Ponziani Opening, King's Gambit
Black: Marshall Counterattack, Pirc Defense, Falkbeer Countergambit

That's not always the case for gambits however, there are a number of black gambits, the Budapest, the Icelandic, the Benko, the Elephant, the Blackburne Shilling, the Grünfeld (gambit) come to mind.

Annoyingly, you'll find that that most opening subtheory gets labeled 'variation' which is no help whatsoever in discovering who initiated the line. To make matters worse, transpositions can make it even foggier


There is no real help for anyone there, if you're not familiar with the opening variation at all and it's named variation or gambit you'll be clueless as to 'who started it'. The only way to find out who initiated the variation then would be to look it up; wikipedia is an excellent source for looking up casual information on opening theory. Or you could always ask us.

Though you can often replicate different opening scenerios as either white or black, often you can determine a white opening as an attack and black opening as a defence.

Didn't I just say that?

lol let's just say i summarized it

Can a white opening be used by black? I believe what one would label the Bird as white would be called the Dutch as black. Same basic idea, just colors reversed.

So to answer to your question, for all practical purposes yes, you can use the same opening as both black and white, the difference is that they get different names.

While you could use f4 with white and make the claim that it'll lead to a Dutch setup, there are a few differences:

1) The Dutch is in response to 1 d4. With this move not played yet, black will have the oppurtunity to play d6 instead. This in itself allows this gambit to be effective: 1 f4 e5 2 fxe5 d6.

2) Black could also do a slower buildup with d6 and play for ...e5. It's certainly a different game altogether as white will find it much more difficult to keep control of e5.

3) Of course, black may just response with 1...d5 and then yes, it'll lead to Dutch positions with an extra white tempo.

Tidbit: 1. f4 d5 is the Dutch variation of the Bird. Yes, the Bird allows From's gambit which is quite good.

There are many reversed openings, a fair number are possible for both sides because they are 'non-confrontational' as I call it. The King's Indian Defense and Attack for example, the Modern Defense/Benko Opening etc.
Some rely on the opponent to agree to it. Like the Reversed Sicilian, Grünfeld Reversed etc... meh..

All of that is pretty obvious and boring, what's more interesting is that the extra tempo can be a bad thing!

for the replies. That really helps. I should have thought about it a little more. Also what does it mean when something is "accepted" or "declined"?

James