Irregular Chess Openings

[King]

Irregular openings are chess openings with an unusual first move from White. Such openings include:

• 1.a3 Anderssen's Opening
• 1.a4 Ware Opening
• 1.b4 Sokolsky Opening (also known as Polish or Orangutan Opening)
• 1.c3 Saragossa Opening
• 1.d3 Mieses Opening (or Pirc Defense reversed or King's Indian Attack)
• 1.e3 Van 't Kruijs Opening
• 1.f3 Barnes Opening (also known as Gedult's Opening)
• 1.g4 Grob's Attack
• 1.h3 Clemenz Opening (or Basman's Attack)
• 1.h4 Desprez Opening (or Kadas Opening)
• 1.Na3 Durkin Opening (also known as Durkin's Attack)
• 1.Nc3 Dunst Opening
• 1.Nh3 Amar Opening (also known as Paris Opening)

[Tartajubow]

Of all these the Grob Attack is one of the most tactical and dangerous. That is, dangerous for both players! I have successfully used it against players as high as 1900. Against players rated above that it’s just too risky to play. You can download a 32 page pdf booklet that I edited from Claude F. Bloodgood’s The Tactical Grob which is a collection of pgn games played by him.

Bloodgood wrote in the introduction: "Grob's Attack is a basic gambit unlike anything else in modern chess theory. Every basic concept of development and piece placement must be discarded once 1. g4 has been played, and this applies to the player with Black even more than to the player with White. Accepting the gambit pawn in the Grob is accepting immediate problems, but it has been my experience that players facing this for the first time are most likely to do just that."

Download pdf version

Robert T. (1.N-QR3) Durkin

[Kieran]

I have only once faced the Grob - and I agree with Tartajubow, if you haven't got some prep you can easily get into trouble. In my experience 1 b4 is the most common (particularly given there have been two recently published books on this line), and is worth preparing against as you can't simply base your play on sensible developing moves.

[King]

I also think 1.g4 is a good move for psychological reasons. From my experience I can tell that a lot of lower rated player underestimate that move and start to play badly with black. And of course they have never really prepared some lines against 1.g4.

However, in a rated OTB-game I would never dare to play that move with white. In blitz and rapid chess I have

[Meister]

Of all the aforementioned first moves, 1.Nc3 is probably best. Then one line Black should avoid is 1...e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 ed4 4.Nd4 Nf6 5.Bg5!.

I noticed you didn't mention 1.g3, which is sometimes called the Rat.