1 e4 e5 with GMs Olivier Renet, Nigel Davies and Paul Motwani (Mr Mo)
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Welcome to the definitive modern grandmaster guide to
and lifetime e-pawn expert |
1 e4 e5. Your hosts are GM Olivier Renet, who has been in command since June 2005.
GM Nigel Davies who took over this site at the beginning of 2003, and who had previously been the 1 e4 .. expert,
GM Paul Motwani (Mr Mo!), who had written it for the preceding 3 1/2 years.Dear Reader,
Together we are about to experience endless energy and excitement emanating from 1 e4 e5. In preparation for this chess adventure, I have studied literally thousands of fascinating games, from which I then selected and annotated a nice sample featuring very effective weapons to net us lots of points in our own future battles. A reasonable number of my personal encounters crop up, thereby providing practical examples of some opening lines which I particularly recommend.
Games galore, and much more...
The irresistible feast of exciting annotated games which awaits us is also enriched by a spread of puzzles throughout.
In future, I would really welcome your favourite games (either personal or otherwise) involving 1 e4 e5 or some suitable transposition, and preferably with notes. Also, please don’t be too shy to attach a photo of yourself (in a "gif" file, for example) and send it to: NigelDavies@chesspublishing.com
13 memorable groups
Of White’s 20 possible first moves, 1 e4 is the most popular choice in practice, and there is no sounder reaction for Black than 1...e5. We then have a large mouth-watering menu of ways to continue, and just for luck, I have divided the full range of possibilities into 13 (!) groups, as follows shortly. A chess encyclopaedia normally uses "ECO" codes from C20 to C99 to classify the numerous lines stemming from 1 e4 e5, but personally I also like to have a memorable title phrase for each of my 13 chosen groups. I hope and feel that the phrases will become even more meaningful when one sees the actual moves of the games within each section, and each main game gets introduced by its very own distinctive one-line caption.
| Group # | ECO Code | Title Phrase |
| 1 | C20-22 | "White knights hardly jump" |
| 2 | C23-24 | "Bishop in a hurry" |
| 3 | C25-29 | "The vivacious Vienna" |
| 4 | C30-39 | "f for forward" |
| 5 | C40 | "The black minors stay at home" |
| 6 | C41 | "Pushing the Philidor pawn" |
| 7 | C42-43 | "Can the Petroff be perturbed?" |
| 8 | C44 | "A little tree at move three" |
| 9 | C45 | "The independent Scotch" |
| 10 | C46 | "Three leap while one sleeps" |
| 11 | C47-49 | "Quick quartet: all four head out the door" |
| 12 | C50-59 | "Italian fashion in or out?" |
| 13 | C60-99 | "Non-stop Spanish" |
Group 13 is clearly a king-size section which in theory deals with every line of the Ruy Lopez (2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5, often called the Spanish Opening, or simply "The Spanish"), but my main approach will be to focus primarily on certain special lines which are interesting, reliable, fun to play, and rather compact because they eliminate the need to get involved with a myriad of other lines in the same opening. Still, I have heard of many people who won’t go anywhere near 1...e5 as Black for fear of the King’s Gambit, 2 f4, more than anything else. Games in group four will provide us with helpful answers, and we’ll also be meeting (at least) one of my favourite chess heroes...
To get going
If you want to see where to find your favourite openings, then check out the Index of Openings.
Dedication
My work in preparing the original material for this site is dedicated to Marc Holsteyn and Hugo "Boss" van Steenwinckel, who helped me to acquire many necessary computer skills so that I could undertake such a major "1 e4 e5" internet project.
"Enjoy!"