Openings

The English Opening in Chess (Complete Guide)

Following Tigran Gharamyan's methodGrandmaster, French Champion 2018, peak rating 2676Updated September 202611 min read

This is our guide to the English Opening. If you're looking for an opening that takes you off the beaten path and unsettles your opponents, you're in the right place.

Here is what this guide to the English Opening in chess covers.

What a system opening is, and why the English is such a good one
The core principles behind it
The reversed Sicilian idea that connects the two openings
The most famous games ever played with it
A solid plan for meeting it as Black

The English Opening as a System

The English Opening is a system. It's a set development pattern, a guiding plan you impose on your opponents. You force them onto your home turf, where you feel comfortable, and ideally, where they don't.

The English Opening is defined by its very first move, 1.c4.

Black rook — Diagramposition after 1.c4, the move that defines the English Opening

Black knight — Diagramposition after 1.c4, the move that defines the English Opening

It's a legendary opening. Every chess fan still remembers the great duels between Karpov and Kasparov, and Kasparov famously used the English to win a crucial game and hold on to his World Championship title. It's also an opening that will sharpen your understanding of positional chess.

We always like to stress understanding an opening, its logic, rather than rote memorization. The English is an opening to understand, not to memorize. (And the players who rely purely on memorization are the ones left stranded the moment they draw a blank.)

The English is about as close to an ideal opening as you'll find. A system has the drawback of locking you into one style of play. The English, by contrast, is wide and rich enough to give you the advantages of a system without the drawbacks. It's also the opening you turn to when you want to step off the beaten path. As Black, most of our preparation goes into meeting 1.e4 or 1.d4, so the moment the English shows up on the board, we suddenly feel far less comfortable. It's no surprise people so often ask us how to play against the English Opening.

The Core Principles of the English Opening

Now let's go through the core principles of the English.

Another Way to Control the Center

The four squares marked with a red circle below are what we call the center of the board.

One of the great principles of chess is to control this center in order to squeeze your opponent's position. The main method for doing that is to start by placing pawns there. The most common first moves are therefore pushing the king's pawn two squares, 1.e4, or the queen's pawn two squares, 1.d4. In both cases the goal is the same, building a pawn duo in the center of the board on e4 and d4.

That's how things were seen for a very long time, until the arrival of Richard Reti at the start of the twentieth century. Reti helped found the hypermodern school, which proposed a different way to develop, leaving the d and e pawns at home for now and controlling the center with pieces instead. The pushes d4 and e4 come later, and they hit even harder once they're backed up by pieces.

Controlling the d5 Square

How do you place the pieces to control the center? Start with the first move. c4 doesn't put a pawn in the center of the board, but it controls it all the same. Next, the knight on b1 can come to c3, and White has the choice of developing the light-squared bishop in fianchetto on g2 or not.

With this kind of development, you can see White has good control of the center even without a single pawn placed there.

Let's talk a little about White's other minor pieces. The knight on g1 has options. It can develop to f3 to add more control over the center, but it can also be quite clever to leave the g2 bishop's diagonal open and place the knight on e2 instead. That requires the preparatory move e3.

The bishop on c1 is probably White's worst piece, at least in the very early stages of the game. There are two possible strategies. Many players like to trade off this slightly awkward bishop, pushing the pawn to d3 and developing the bishop to g5 to swap it for the knight on f6.

But another way of looking at it is that you can simply be patient. If the bishop has no great squares right now, that doesn't mean it won't find something useful once the position opens up later. You can leave it on c1 for the time being and decide what to do with it once you see what kind of position you get.

Queenside Play

By playing the pawn to c4, White has already grabbed space on the queenside. The white bishop on g2 also bears down hard on Black's queenside. A classic White plan is therefore to keep gaining space there by pushing the pawn to b4, often backed up by a rook placed on b1.

Black bishop — Diagramposition illustrating White's queenside plan, arrow showing the pawn push from b2 to b4

The pressure on the queenside can be increased further, for example by pushing the a and b pawns even more, but also by opening up the g2 bishop's diagonal, for instance with the knight move to d2 at some point. The bishop on g2 becomes especially strong once that happens. One classic plan for Black is therefore to try to trade it off by forming a queen and bishop battery, bringing the bishop from c8 to h3.

A Reversed Sicilian Defense

The Sicilian Defense arises after the moves 1.e4 c5.

It's a very famous opening, played by some of the best players in history, from Kasparov to five-time World Champion Magnus Carlsen to France's Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, a former World Blitz Champion.

By playing 1.c4, you can quite happily transpose into a reversed Sicilian, a tempo up, after the black reply 1...e5.

So the big themes of the Sicilian Defense apply in this position too. If you'd like to go deeper on that subject, our complete guide to the Sicilian Defense covers it in full.

The Flexibility of the English Opening

If White chooses 1.d4 as the first move, the second is very often 2.c4.

That means when you start with 1.c4, you can play d4 at any moment and transpose into a queen's pawn opening. This lets you play with your opponent's nerves a little, since they don't know whether they're facing a pure English or a more classical opening, and they have to be ready to meet both systems at any point.

Of course, as White, you can also decide to stick to pure English structures and never enter a queen's pawn opening at all. But your opponent has no way of knowing that in advance.

Famous English Opening Games

Here are a few games that helped make the English so popular.

Botvinnik vs. Reshevsky, AVRO 1938

This game has everything going for it. First, it pits two geniuses of the game against each other. Mikhail Botvinnik was a World Chess Champion, one of the rare players in history to reconquer his title after losing it (he actually managed it twice), and he left his mark on chess history through the scientific precision of his opening study. The American Samuel Reshevsky was a child prodigy who became extremely strong at a very young age. He was the strongest American player before Bobby Fischer. And as the cherry on top, this game was played during the legendary AVRO tournament of 1938, one of the strongest tournaments in history.

Watch closely for three things in this game.

The delayed d4 push, which lands with real impact and lets Botvinnik seize the advantage in space
The queenside pawn push
The gorgeous double sacrifice on e6 and d6, winning the bishop pair and unstoppable passed pawns

Enjoy the game.

Right at the end of the game, after the pawn on c7 promotes to a queen, if Black recaptures on c8 with 37...Qxc8, White finishes with 38.Qxg6#.

Pretty, isn't it?

Kasparov vs. Karpov, Seville 1987, Game 2

This one is a treat too. Seville hosted the fourth World Championship match between Garry Kasparov and Anatoly Karpov, organized by FIDE, the International Chess Federation. Kasparov's choice of the English caught Karpov by surprise, yet it was Karpov who produced the big novelty of the match, the move 9...e3.

The idea came from Igor Zaitsev, Karpov's long-standing second, who hit on it once the team was already in Seville. The point of 9...e3 is to plant a thorn in White's position and prevent a smooth, harmonious development. Kasparov thought for a full half hour after seeing it.

Here's the game.

White's castled position is far too weakened, and with so little material left on the board, the white king still gets mated. Here are the lines.

If 33.Qd2, guarding g2 against the kiss of death, 33...Qf1 is mate.

If 33.Qf2 instead, 33...Qd1+ 34.Qf1 Qxf1 is mate on the back rank this time.

Kasparov vs. Karpov, Seville 1987, Game 24

We're now at the very last game of the match. Kasparov had to win to draw level with Karpov on the scoreboard and keep his title. A win was mandatory. Under the rules of the time, if the match ended level, the reigning World Champion kept the title.

And of course, Kasparov reached for the English.

Those are the games that made chess history. The English is still very much played at the highest level today. Not so long ago, most of the clashes between elite top-ten players like Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana and Levon Aronian were fought out on English Opening battlegrounds.

How to Play Against the English Opening

Playing against the English is no small task. It's easy to feel lost when the subject is this big. So instead, we'll give you a system, a way of playing you can apply no matter how your opponent handles the English. Once again, we'll call on Kasparov to show a fairly dynamic system for playing against the English.

Pay close attention to the position after Black's 13th move. That's the setup you should be aiming for. Black has cleared the long h1-a8 diagonal and is ready to play g5 followed by a queen transfer from e8 to h5 to launch an attack. In the game, White tries to react in the center but never manages to stop Black's attack.

English Opening FAQ

What Is the English Opening in Chess?

It's an opening for White that starts with 1.c4. Instead of occupying the center right away with pawns, White controls it with pieces, usually the knight on c3 and the bishop fianchettoed on g2. It's a flexible, positional opening that keeps plenty of plans open.

Why Play the English Opening?

Because it lets you step off the beaten path and take your opponent onto ground they usually know less well than the main 1.e4 openings. It sharpens your understanding of positional chess, stays playable at every level, and keeps the option of transposing into a queen's pawn opening by playing d4 later.

Is the English Opening a Good Choice for Beginners?

Yes, as long as you play it by understanding the ideas rather than memorizing lines. A simple development plan (c4, Nc3, g3, Bg2, Nf3) is enough to get you off to a good start.

What Is a Reversed Sicilian?

After 1.c4 e5, White reaches a Sicilian Defense structure but with the colors reversed and an extra tempo. The same big themes from the Sicilian apply, only now with the advantage of the move. That link is one of the reasons why knowing the Sicilian helps you play the English.

How Do You Play Against the English Opening?

A reliable method is to set up the same system regardless of White's move order. Fianchetto the bishop on g7, develop harmoniously, then launch a kingside attack with g5 and a queen transfer to h5, exactly as in the Kasparov game shown above. The idea is to have your own plan instead of just reacting.

Is the English Opening Played at a High Level?

Yes, very regularly. Kasparov used it in decisive World Championship games in Seville in 1987, and more recently Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana and Levon Aronian have all made it one of their favorite battlegrounds at the top.

Your Move

Browse our complete guide to chess openings to see where the English Opening fits in
Learn the basics of the Sicilian Defense, the opening that mirrors so much of what you just read
Find a clear, step-by-step path for getting started if you're new to the game

That was our guide to the English Opening. Feel free to share it if it helped you.