Every Chess Opening Explained in 12 Minutes

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0:00 Queen's Gambit
0:23 King's Gambit
0:39 Italian
0:56 Caro Kann
1:17 Spanish
1:35 Sicilian
1:57 London
2:21 Blackmar-Diemer
2:36 Danish
2:59 Scandinavian
3:19 Modern
3:35 Smith-Morra
3:48 Benoni
4:03 Grob
4:14 English
4:28 Benko Gambit
4:46 Evan's Gambit
5:05 Dutch
5:25 Bird's Opening
5:40 Englund Gambit
5:53 French
6:11 Elephant Gambit
6:34 King's Indian
6:55 Ponziani
7:11 Alekhine's Defense
7:27 Latvian Gambit
7:43 Philidor
7:58 Scotch
8:11 Queen's Gambit Declined
8:26 Nimzo-Indian
8:38 Polish
8:56 Vienna
9:10 Stafford
9:29 Dragon
9:45 Barnes
10:00 Pirc
10:13 Nimzo-Larsen
10:28 Indian Game
10:43 Russian
10:56 Slav
11:10 Reti
11:24 Najdorf
11:43 Blackburne-Shilling
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[@exranz2552]

damn i was waiting for the intercontinental ballistic missile

[@Bruhecc]

Yeah same… sad

[@MrSanTang]

click-bait 🤨

[@Heinz6432]

Same or at least the tennision gambit

[@vharmi.]

Hmm, I do wonder who that silhouette is for the Stafford gambit...

[@ZDTF]

Whats the joke

[@rainykee]

@@ZDTF i think its eric rosen, who likes to play stafford a LOT, and i mean a lot

[@jimurban5367]

Oh no my silhouette!

[@ZDTF]

@@rainykee 😮

[@Lukas-ht9xm]

Karl Stafford?

[@lol101lol101lol10199]

Missing some serious mainstream openings seen a fair bit at the very highest level (and various other levels). The Grünfeld Defence, the Catalan Opening, the Marshall Attack, and the Bongcloud, to name three. Ok, three and _a half_

[@customlol7890]

at first i thought bongcloud oh the opening magnus and hikaru both played and then realised oh

[@SRPSKIGANG]

Also he missed wind gambit

[@danielq2358]

I love the Catalan opening tbh

[@Parthian6]

Yeah missing the Catalan and the Grünfeld is inexcusable given how relevant they are in modern chess

[@milesking3897]

@@Parthian6The funny part is that both of those are my favorite openings.

[@st0rminecraft62]

Why is the Nimzo-Indian’s picture a minecraft pig 😂

[@technoturnovers7072]

I find it hilarious how the silhouette for the Queen's Gambit Declined is literally just the word "no" in all lowercase, lmao

[@auxuriousz]

Didnt even mention tennisson gambit: ICBM variation, fell of fr

[@sc4775]

He forgot the North Korea gambit, the gambit where you can only use half of the chessboard and can’t cross the border😂

[@Justforvisit]

But at least all your pieces are going to gloriously parade around that part of the board while all the pawns have to be taken off the board after three turns due to starvation...

[@canadianballmapper]

Isn't the North Korea gambit d4 e5 if dxe5 then you nuke the board and win the game?

[@rose_blue1]

Very funny

[@shubanvarkar7080]

WHERE IS BONGCLOUD!?!?!?

[@Blurten]

WHERE IS BOMBOCLATT

[@user-hd8dy6mr8l]

Where is Fred?

[@Justforvisit]

@@user-hd8dy6mr8l Where's Waldo?

[@plutonotdead]

Hows waldo ​@@Justforvisit

[@CarrieSun-nd9xu]

Why is Waldo?

[@ferdinandionita1216]

The dedication you have is incredible. Great vid as always

[@edoggo1887]

That is not the modern, that just transposes to the pirc. An actual modern defense generally follows the tiger’s modern which is g6 bg7 d6 *a6* preparing b5 nd7 bb7 c5

[@BenjiTheGerman]

The picture for the grob 💀💀💀

[@Gon1924]

As a beginner, I can say that this video opened my horizon of possibilities to keep in mind, excellent content, part 2 please !

[@enderjester1494]

This is no where near every chess opening there are 1,327

[@jaxtonanderson2443]

☝️🤓

[@Randomguy12773]

Probably just theory or random openings that were just made up for no reason

[@lipschitzlyapunov]

I'm just surprised this video didn't have the Grünfeld, Trompowsky, and Catalan

[@jvseilaoq6939]

​@@jaxtonanderson2443"☝️🤓"-🤡

[@nikolayselivanov6321]

No Bongcloud Attack? The strongest opening in the world.

[@eswarisiddapureddy2320]

I appreciate ur hardwork...keep making videos...

[@CPSingh-bd6di]

10:12 as someone who has won almost 80% of his matches in Pirc defence I’m offended 😂😭

[@MagicRecords-de4ul]

What is the best opening for me? How to decide?

[@lillithplays6514]

I absolutely love the Blackburn Schilling. At three digit elo, even when white plays the best move (going for the knight trade according to Stockfish) the position is basically equal because no one at that level knows how to exploit the central space advantage.

[@dyw__]

Bro did the pirc dirty smh i love that defense

[@nickashton3584]

love the 4 seasons background music

[@dankness420]

This was a cool video, but I’m not sure how to feel on it, on one hand, it’s amazing you managed to sum up most chess openings so quickly, but on the other hand, you decided to cover variations, like in the Sicillian, you mentioned the Sicillian, then you mentioned the smith-morra, then you mentioned the dragon and the najdorf, a similar thing happened with the queens gambit, you mentioned it, then went over the Slav and QGD independently, and if you had done that for all openings and all variations, we would’ve been here until the heat death of the universe, and that’s just the Sicillian variations, great video overall though

[@ianstopher9111]

The Smith-Morra variation of Sicilian but not the Alapin variation? Additionally, what about the Alapin's opening? There is only so much that can be crammed into a video.

[@vlr6342]

Nice speedrun idea is to play every opening to explain each idea behind it

[@UpsidedownUtopia]

Check out the top theory speedrun by Daniel Naroditsky. He focuses on openings in that speedrun to the top

[@A_Pillow-profile]

I love and I mean LOVE the london system, it’s just a quick develop and it even develops pawns and gives you good control over centers and defense I also call it a pyramid opening since the pawns shape as a pyramid

[@DarkSygil666]

I really enjoy it, too.

[@LivingHuman_Nathaniel]

...so what do you play as black?

[@DarkSygil666]

@LivingHuman_Nathaniel I'll use the French sometimes. Queens Indian the other way. Most people I play against like king pawn openings, so like Morphey's, or my absolute favorite, the Evan's gambit.

[@farouqbaiti4315]

It was interesting to watch.😇 It's exactly what I needed.👌🏻

[@MachuSayTruck]

Great video

[@4rthurzz]

4:04 lmao. Bro Straight up said the Grob is garbage. Respect

[@MuseseekerMan]

No, that's not straight up.

[@adrianfyi]

I love how you applied this format for chess 😂

[@LJLMETAL]

My two favorite ways to play against the Sicilian are the Alapin, and the Kopec System.

[@kiitc]

Thanks for the video. On my way to comment on the Candidates Tournanament tomorrow!

[@unholyXromance]

didn't go over the bong cloud, or the cow

[@NeonBeeCat]

My favorites are catalan and italian on white and caro kann and slav on black.

[@stefansivev1517]

My favourite opening (as white): I move my E pawn two spaces forward, then my opponent makes a turn, then i grab my horse and place it at the pawn's previous place. I call it ,,The horse rampage'' and with that opening it is sure to make your opponent mad!

[@csatimaci]

Nice collection, but the main idea behind the Réti (and not Retí) opening is 1. Nf3 d5 2. c4, if dxc4, then 3. e4 takes the center and good luck trying to defend the c4 pawn

[@Very-Cute-Cat]

"The sicilian is the most exhaustively studied opening" The Grünfeld defense: 😬😬😬

[@braniiikk4774]

Vivaldi's four seasons in backround >>>

[@bennyalvarolim5209]

bro missed king fianchetto

[@LynzuAnderson]

I just played an Alekhine defense and it went surprisingly well. I ended up with a b4 early check to start chipping away at his pawns with that pinned pawn. I did have to sack my rook but it was m1 if i didn't. He ended up blocking his own queen in allowing me to run the 4th rank and force a back rank knight queen mate after his knight danced with my king abit. It really does allow your opponent to push early but if you're being careful with what you sacrifice, it's actually amazing. I was very surprised as I don't think I've had a better midgame before. I usually use one of the Sicilian variations but wanted to try something new. The biggest problem I see with it is if they develop their white bishop and queen early. Not like a scholars mate, but after they get control of the center, if they start pinning your pieces early I think it'll get too tight and harder to play, but I have a sample size of 1 so I can't say if it's great or not. I'm about 75% w/r using the Sicilian so I'll probably keep with that, I've been studying variations for almost a year now so I've gotten okay with it, but the Alekhine was quite fun.

[@homernightlight5342]

I encountered a very rare opening for white years ago from a practice game against stockfish and I lost as black. It's 1. Nf3 d5 2. b4. I researched about it then found that it's name was Santasier's folly. Correct me if my spelling is wrong. It was accidentally moved by the player named Santasier, his intention is to move a pawn to c4 instead of b4. But,I think his overall skills can contend against Frank Marshall if he has pursued more in his chess career.

[@bidyasihnadakua6573]

I use the englud gambit a lot, d4? Take e5, either i take their queen, checkmate them with that trap, or maintain a better position and win.

[@debiaagu2635]

If you see a child competing with you in chess, the best advice is not to compete

[@nethcarlisle2941]

A minor nitpick: the move sequence shown for Benko Gambit was actually a separate opening, the Blumenfeld (Counter-)gambit. The most common Benko setup involves ...d6 and ...g6+Bg7 instead of early e6. Also, the Evans Gambit is named after William Evans, so there is no apostrophe in the name.

[@suryaarun1129]

THANK YOU, i noticed it and was gonna point it out(i spent wayyyy too much time studying the benoni and benoni gambit positions)

[@ohadish]

where is my homy the baltic defense

[@gelatsitelauri5787]

I love reti opening

[@iwuedfh]

my favourite opening is the reti opening, whenever i play white, i ALWAYS use the reti opening because knights are my favourite piece in chess

[@suryaarun1129]

i used to play it alot, i mainly transposed into santasieres folly(the polish but u play Nf3 first)

[@momenel-atroush257]

Bro forgot the intercontinental ballistic missile gambit

[@jackweslycamacho8982]

icbm is not a gambit and scandinavian literally isn't popular after move 1 lol

[@janhrcan8906]

Is that Eric Rosen's silhouette for the Stafford Gambit icon? xD

[@GeraldM_inNC]

I have invented an opening for White that bears no resemblance to any of these openings. Traditional openings are designed to gain a strategic advantage. My “no knights” opening has one and only one purpose: to force the tradeoff of Black’s knights within 10-12 moves. I resolved upon this purpose because Lichess level 5 was consistently demolishing me with the superb quality of its knights’ play. Sooner or later a Black knight always either infiltrated my back ranks and combined with another piece to checkmate me, or a Black knight forked my queen and my king forcing me to resign. I found that getting both Black knights off the board quickly vastly increased my chances of not losing. However, trading off my bishops for Black’s knights was killing me in the end game. So I evolved by experiment an opening that forces Black to consent to trading off its knights for White’s knight or, at worst, to accomplish this by giving up only one of White’s bishops. If a bishop must be traded for a knight, it is crucial to immediately prioritize trading a knight for a Black bishop in order to equalize the end-game. (It is damned hard to win the end-game if your opponent has a bishop pair and you don't.) This opening does not provide any strategic advantage, and it is not possible to assault Black’s king directly at any point. However, it seems to lead frequently to weakened Black pawns that are obvious targets. If one can take one or two of those weakened pawns, then just trade down everything as quickly as possible to go into the end-game. Then queen a pawn or two. I would say that I win about a third of my games using this opening and it is invariably accomplished by queening a pawn. The first three White moves are P-d4, N-f3, P-e3. If Black P-d5 and N-f6, then immediate White N-E5 preparing to take the other Black knight the instant it makes its first move. Often Black responds with P-c5 to remove the protection for the advanced White knight, but one responds by taking the c5 pawn and next P-f4 to protect the White knight until it is traded off. If Black’s white-square bishop attempts to molest the Queen, then trade the bishops off. If not, B-d3 followed immediately by N-d2. You then try to make e4 safe for the remaining White knight, at which point you trade off the second set of knights. This may also be prepared by P-h3, leaving the Black knight no square to escape to, thereby forcing it to accept the trade. It is often very worthwhile to intersperse among these moves P-b3, B-b2 and R-B1. This helps set up the occupation of e4 by a White knight or bishop. Omitting R-B1 preserves the option to castle queenside, as Lichess often responds to my “no knights” opening by sending its G and H pawns far forward. I recommend holding off on R-B1 until it’s clear that Black isn’t going to send its G and H points far forward. Prior to evolving this opening I was losing at least 90% of my games on Lichess level 5. After I evolved and perfected this opening percentage of wins tripled and my percentage of losses dropped by a third. This opening does not lead to many draws, unless you make a conscious effort to lock the position by continuous trench-lines of pawns. As I said, you win not by assaulting the Black king’s fortress but by eating an underprotected pawn or two and advancing it to queen. (BTW, the Lichess engine has a slight tendency to push too hard in drawn positions, especially against entrenched pawn-chains, and sometimes throws away a guaranteed draw by attacking a defensive position recklessly.) I would be very interested to hear anyone's thoughts. It may well be that there is some flaw that would enable this opening to defeated consistently by a grandmaster rated higher than Lichess level 5.

[@Lunarcheese72]

I can't be the only one who saw the thumbnail and came to learn about the gun opening. I don't know shit about chess but already know that's the opening for true warriors.

[@klauspoetsch1841]

Very well explained!

[@ScoutrunnerTopic]

All I play are the cow hippo and crab :(

[@MishaChorniy]

Bought several books about chess openings did not maanaged to process them

[@Th3_Hispanic_panther]

Holy shit I finally found the alekhines defense after a while

[@AlgaeNymph]

No Ruy Lopez? I remember Chessmaster 3000 doing that _all the time._

[@yurizahard4696]

That’s the also known as the Spanish 1:32

[@Zvoosh25]

I see Rosen as the silhouette for the Stafford, I click the video. I'm a simple man.

[@corkystorky]

mentioned king's indian attack as white version of king's indian defense, should mention that the opposite version of Grob is Borg 😁

[@Cyphule]

You can recognize it by the Polish trees

[@2rare2die26]

As a big fan of the Blackburne-Klooster gambit, i am saddened

[@maya-cc2sx]

Scandinavian modern italian Benoni englund

[@PeaceRoblox1]

Where is intercontational ballistic missile gambit

[@MishaChorniy]

Incredibly wondering that among chess champions only Alekhine has own debute name

[@krackel4982]

how did you forget the king fianchetto, it was the like the only opening I played for like my first 50 games.

[@babygerman2800]

No four knights or Halloween gambit

[@dsgdhanitha]

Is Stafford a picture of Eric Rosen?

[@slowhand]

you forgot bongcloud opening😂

[@wertigon]

You missed the cow and hippo :)

[@thecubedexterity]

As an intercontinental ballistic missile gambit player, i take this as a loss.

[@tarangsaini5501]

Sargossa opening is missing

[@R0B0TUK]

Queens gambit is the best

[@flashfocusbruh5144]

Bro is the actual chess master

[@Nexylve]

No.

[@jamaljamalius6067]

Owen's defense is missing.

[@mrnoblemonkey8401]

i know its crazy but if you ever feel stuck with black play the elephant for like 10games it will be very fun

[@stevejohn7459]

Didn’t mention Albion counter gambit…

[@redenmarcastaneda3998]

Wheres the icbm? And also the Bong cloud lol

[@miguelamorim1734]

i was waiting for the trampoviski opening, another way to call this opening for brazilians is the brasilian opening 😅

[@leusmaximusx]

why no Rat's attack or Vienna Defense ?

[@hiraya3689]

I thought the pyramid was an opening

[@Effect_channel]

Hey wheres french defence boudler variation

[@subtovinz]

Ty

[@hollaanneyog5308]

Hippo Gambit is best

[@rolandasgrigaitis708]

What about coca-cola's gambit? Or the drake opening? Only true chess addicts knows about these openings.

[@BlueJay618]

BRO YOU FORGOT THE FOUR KNIGHTS GAME

[@umuhyacinth6144]

Ive played the Scandinavian more than 60 times and i know hoe to respond to Nc3 just do Qa5 this puts pressure on the knight the moment you bring out your bishop attacking the knight and if they dont know what to do and a random move just take the knight with your bishop if they take with the pawn you take with the queen forking the king and the rook (yes i knoe they can just play Bd2 blocking the check and defending the rook and attacking the queen but in the position ur almost inevitably winning

[@Lexr294]

Thank you

[@SRPSKIGANG]

Where is wind gambit?

[@klaushoward9158]

So what about the wayward queen opening? I'm 300 and everyone seems to be playing it

[@kaszaspeter77]

Is this the same guy from thechesswebsite?

[@ricardoibarra2189]

Where is the cow opening?

[@russki_dabb872]

The Queen's Gambit is the top notch opening for beginner's as White? I have never came across anyone so far playing this gambit. People just play the 10 Golden Moves, the London System, or rarely the Vienna Game.

[@Overdoseplus]

BONG CLOUD?

[@user-ht6or1vm4m]

Where’s the creepy crawly

[@francargeric1]

Center game?

[@goldenty34lol]

where's halloween gambited

[@paiilon3249]

@volclus Could you make a "Not Petrof but Petrash" video when you guide white through the petroff defence? ❤♟It would be perfect!

[@Eobard_Thawne123]

Please explain benoni defense 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

[@suryaarun1129]

theres a bunch of videos about the benoni, ive been playing it for a while, volclus even made a video on it, but when i was learning it for my repertoire i looked a a lot of videos, The Hanging pawns made a good one, same with the chess website and most people probably dont have the time or energy but i reccommend you get a book on the benoni, now listen if you dont want to spend money on books DO NOT GO TO PDF DRIVE AND LOOK FOR OPENING BOOKS AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DONT GO TO LIBRARY GENISIS(theres a guide for using it its a bit complex, all u need is a e book reader(i use calibre) and use the safe website for libgen the guide has em)

[@JawadAhmadCodes]

Come and let me introduce you to my opponent. He will come with some nasty shid, you would have never ever expected in the world of shit and makes you forget all of your opening knowledge

[@jacobhood5770]

No Budapest??

[@ragingflasker14]

why no van geet opening?😢

[@szkozielekkozielek496]

Where is Van't Kruijs Opening? My favorite...

[@ChrisMaster2]

Why no fried liver

[@battlnerd2128]

*every* chess gambit?

[@BambinaSaldana]

1:54 Isn't a6 the Najdorf? One of the most confrontational and theoretical variations of the Sicilian?

[@Volclus]

I was referencing the Kan sicilian

[@BambinaSaldana]

@@Volclus Ahhh, I see.

[@MarbleLUL]

You forgot the cow opening.

[@isaki4869]

Where's bongcloud?