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:

    “When the weather is bad as it was yesterday, everybody, almost everybody, feels cross and gloomy. Our thin linen tents—about like a fish seine, the deep mud, the irregular mails, the never to-be-seen paymasters, and “the rest of mankind,” are growled about in “old-soldier” style. But a fine day like today has turned out brightens and cheers us all. We people in camp are merely big children, wayward and changeable.”
    —Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)

    “It’s a great huge game of chess that’s being played—all over the world—if this is the world at all, you know. Oh, what fun it is! How I wish I was one of them! I wouldn’t mind being a Pawn, if only I might join—though of course I should like to be a Queen, best.”
    —Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)

    “With two sons born eighteen months apart, I operated mainly on automatic pilot through the ceaseless activity of their early childhood. I remember opening the refrigerator late one night and finding a roll of aluminum foil next to a pair of small red tennies. Certain that I was responsible for the refrigerated shoes, I quickly closed the door and ran upstairs to make sure I had put the babies in their cribs instead of the linen closet.”
    —Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)