Spain, home of tapas and the Ruy Lopez

Robert Ek
Dec 22, 2017
2 min read

Hey everyone! We're gonna have a good time because today is another OPENINGS day. I love openings. We're going to start with one of my favorite openings for White and one that I would, hands down, recommend to anyone looking for a jumping off point in opening play - the Ruy Lopez!

The Ruy Lopez is the chess opening named for a 16th century Spanish clergyman who published his own book on chess around 1561. What makes this so much fun is how quickly White gets to come out swinging and how fast it lest me cross off my opening checklist.

If you read my first post int he "Opening Acts" series, you remember that we have three jobs we need to accomplish with our opening: challenge for central control, develop our pieces, keep the king safe. With that in mind let's look at this opening.

1. e4 - e5

2. Nf3 - Nf6

3. Bc5 - Nf6

At the end of the third turn our board looks like this:

Let's talk about what is great about this. First, with that first push of our pawn to e4 we've started competing for the middle of the board. This push is then reinforced with the follow up of the Knight to f3. Our third move is what makes the Ruy Lopez special, here, the bishop slashes across the board to b5 and is now in a position to threaten the King, and immediately forcing Black to think about defending his King early.

So, challenging the middle? Yep. Developing pieces? Well, we still have a long way to go with the Queenside pieces still not yet doing their fair share of the work - but we are well on our way with a very active light squared bishop and our knight on f3.

King defense? We're all set! White is ready to castle to the kingside on turn 4, but we can put that off a little longer to further develop our pieces if we want to.

So, the upside of the Ruy Lopez is that it gives us rapid development, gets us into the middle of the board fast, and clears out the kingside of the board for a quick kingside castle which helps us get the king to safety and launch an attack of our own. There are TONS of openings, when picking an opening system that works for you, make sure that you are focusing on your jobs. Some openings help you complete your jobs faster than others.

Thanks for reading - and go give the Spanish Game a try!