Irregular Chess Opening

Irregular openings are chess openings with an unusual or rare first moves 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)
  • 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 or the Sodium Attack)
  • 1.Nc3 (Dunst Opening)
  • 1.Nh3 (Amar Opening, also known as Paris Opening)

The above openings are all categorized under the ECO code A00. Openings that are not "irregular" comprise:

  • 1.e4 (King's Pawn Game)
  • 1.d4 (Queen's Pawn Game)
  • 1.c4 (English Opening)
  • 1.Nf3 (Réti Opening or Zukertort Opening)
  • 1.f4 (Bird's Opening)
  • 1.g3 (Benko's Opening) and
  • 1.b3 (Larsen's Opening).

If White plays a regular opening and Black responds in an unconventional way, the opening is not categorized A00. For instance, 1.e4 a6 is classified as B00 (King's Pawn Opening).

Famous quotes containing the words irregular, chess and/or opening:

    “I am one of those who hold that poetry is never so blithe as in a wanton and irregular subject.”
    —Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)

    “The sailor is frankness, the landsman is finesse. Life is not a game with the sailor, demanding the long head—no intricate game of chess where few moves are made in straight-forwardness and ends are attained by indirection, an oblique, tedious, barren game hardly worth that poor candle burnt out in playing it.”
    —Herman Melville (1819–1891)

    “The current of our thoughts made as sudden bends as the river, which was continually opening new prospects to the east or south, but we are aware that rivers flow most rapidly and shallowest at these points.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)