Chess Openings - Elephant Opening

Hey guys. I just wanted to show an interesting opening I ran into. If you are Matt Pullin or jrobi: Thanks for inspiring me to do a chess video!

GreenCastleBlack has mentioned that there is an Elephant Opening game in mjsharks videos and you can watch that here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfwALatPZK0
This video is about the Elephant Opening, an opening for black

The Elephant opening is characterised by the following short move order:

1. e4 e5
2. nf3 d5!?

Now the reason why this move d5 gets a questionable (!?) is because, at below Master level play at least, it has a quite respectable win percentage for black. The reason I am focusing on this particular opening is because when I was testing wiibrew chess (link in sidebar http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Chess) it was the opening that the Wii used against me and it absolutely threw me having never seen it before. In that game, I got stomped by the Elephant

The reason being: All I could see after 3. exd5 was ... Qxd5 and I could gain tempo on the Queen with 4. Nc3, attacking the Queen.

After a horrific defeat in under 15 moves by the computer, I went back to the drawing board to work out just what exactly went wrong. I couldnt find alot of solid material about the opening, so I decided to strike out on my own and see if I could discover the concepts of the Elephant Opening.


Psychologically: The opening appears to be a pointless sacrifice. This is one of the Elephant openings strengths and one reason behind its good lower-level win percentage. Unlike its White counterpart the Danish Gambit (1. e4 e5 2. d4!?), the Elephant Gambit fights for both tempo and position rather than simply tempo and development in the case of the Danish.

Tactically: The opening is SOMEWHAT unsound. I say 'somewhat' because the game is pretty much a free-for-all attacking experience for both sides. Good play by white will practically force blacks moves but even then the game will remain tense. I found that this opening created one of the most tense games of chess I've ever played.


Blacks aims to scare white into playing something passive like 'd3' or 'Nc3'. d4, a counter-gambit of sorts, is playable but leads down very familiar opening theory so I will not deal with that here. Whites best bet is to simply take the pawn

3. exd5 e4

Instead of retaking the pawn immediately, black puts pressure on whites Knight by threatening it with a pawn. This was one of my first mistakes: Moving the knight. The knight doesnt have to move because the Queen can simply pin the pawn to the king

4. Qe2 Nf6

Defends blacks pawn and attacks whites pawn

5. Nc3 Qe7

Nc3 is the mirror move to blacks Nf6. Qe7 defends the black pawn. Situation seems even right? Well. No. For starters: Black is behind a pawn. Secondly: White has developed two pieces. Thirdly: Its whites move

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Chess
• Elephant
• Opening
• Openings
• Tiwaking
• Tiwaking!

[Tiwaking]

One person doesnt know how to play chess.

[SleepingInAshes]

I can't hear anything..

[Tiwaking]

@SleepingInAshes Hmm. Maybe there is an elephant in the way of your speakers..

[varishnakov]

simple and elephant....thank you

[GreenCastleBlock]

Ah, I left some comments on your other video, didn't notice this was a more general Elephant gambit vid

I think mjshark, who was one of my inspirations to do chess videos, has one about the Elephant gambit. You should check that one out.

Also maybe look at some games with 3...Bd6 as this is a more solid move than 3...e4. The idea is to blockade the d pawn and advance Black's kingside pawns as Black now has a "fake majority" 4 on 3 on the kingside.

[JNeedels]

Interesting opening. It seems like a rush to exchange queens.

[Tiwaking]

@MrAceFab Hehe. Thats cool. I thought you might have mistaken this opening as the center counter gambit which is similar, but not as annoying.

[MrAceFab]

@Tiwaking i'm so sorry for the comment u r completely right , comment deleted i knew this opening as the center countergambit but the scotch is something else shure !!! sorry also for the rude way ;)

[Tiwaking]

@MrAceFab The Scotch Game is a chess opening that begins with the moves

1. e4 e5

2. Nf3 Nc6

3. d4

This is wikipedia, not my personal point of view.

[cirosuperiore]

@Tiwaking oddly enuff my experience has been that good players did not react as well as low rated players. i think it's because good players assume you dont know what you're doing and underestimate you when you first use it.

i've beaten my share of 2000+ players with it. (they usually were ready for you the next time around and were not fooled again)

thanks for the videos...