Fighting Against Englishmen

We all have those days when we face a less common opening, and we don’t know how to play against it. Although some may disagree, I like to choose how I play in an opening instead of following a book of theory. When I choose what moves I play, it feels more like real chess. This past weekend, I had the opportunity to play against the English Opening, an opening that I have not prepped myself against whatsoever. Here’s how it started:

Westfield Quads 03/31/2019, Section 6 Board #1 Round 1

Even if you are not familiar with the English opening, you may recognize that this is like the Sicilian Opening with the colors swapped. Although I play the Yugoslav Attack against the Sicilian, I did not want to play this against the English. I noted that white is playing for the d5 squares, and maybe even a possible d4 pawn push (made more clear after 3.g3, where a g2 Bishop will eye d5), so I started by trading the white knight off.

After just 8 moves, Stockfish evaluates this at -0.7, with Black at an advantage! I first focused on developing my kingside pieces so I could castle quickly, and then I tried to keep the center contested with my rook on e8 and the pawn tension on d4 and e5. Black has the advantage because of white’s doubled pawns on the c-file, and because white does not really have a good square for its dark squared bishop.

After all development is complete, a few things should be noted:

Here, black has an advantageous position. The white pawns on c3 and c4 blocked the a3 bishop, and even after moving the bishop to a3, white cannot push its pawn to c5. In addition, white’s pieces are closed off on the queenside, where they are not very active. Because of this, as well as the facts that white was playing very passively and did not have much time left (from a G40/5 game, we each had less than 10 minutes around this time), I decided to promptly start a kingside attack.

The attack has started, and it is clear that the white king is in danger. My queen and knights are putting pressure on g6 and the e5 knight has good potential outposts at c3 and e3, and can possibly be sacrificed for an attack. In addition, black’s rooks can be maneuvered through rook lifts, like Rf8-f6-g6 to attack the kingside. White is too slow to stop the attack (especially in time pressure), and I get a decisive advantage fairly quickly.

The game continues on after this position, although due to time pressure, notation was not taken for the moves that came after this one. In the end, the best way to deal with an opening you are not familiar with is to figure out what your opponent is “fighting for” - the d5 and e4 square, and queenside play. Then, find out the weaknesses in the position - the lack of activity on the kingside. If you know both of these things about your opponent’s opening, you will have good opportunities to counter the opening efficiently and effectively.