Queen Pawn Openings: The Queen's Gambit

The Queen's Gambit is also one of the oldest chess openings players will find with records dating up to the late 14th century. This is classed under Queen pawn openings but plays a gambit on Black. Some players would like to compare how the Queen's Gambit fares compared to the King's Gambit and one can, on the onset, find some parallels between the two since it is a fact that Queen Pawn openings in a way mirrors King Pawn openings.

The Queen's Gambit is an opening that starts as 1 P - Q4, P - Q4; 2 P - QB4. The strength of this gambit on the Queen side of the board is the fact that White now immediately poses a threat in the form of 3 P x P. This play is still quite popular in contrast to that of the King's Gambit. The Queen's Gambit is still much a part of a master's bag of tricks that can be brought out just in case.

If we move off to the continuation of Black's current dilemma of 3 P x P, Black is left to choose among many defensive alternatives that lead into many different variants of the Queen's Gambit. To easily put them in all mind, take note that the variations as a response to White's immediate threat are based on four basic principles behind the Queen's Gambit.

First would be to go for a strong point and by all means, try to maintain a Pawn on the Q4 position for Black. Two interesting approaches to achieve this would have to be 2 ... P - K3, which goes along the lines of defenses allied to the Orthodox and Tarrasch Defense, and 2 ... P - QB3, which strikes its mark along the lines of the Slav Defense.

Second option for Black is to simply just get rid of the problem and eliminate the center once and for all. Defenses that exemplify this approach includes 2 ... P x P, which agrees with the progression for Queen's Gambit Accepted, and 2 ... P - QB4, which also accomplishes the said task very well.

The third option would, of course, be to stage a counter attack. Options will verily include 2 ... P - K4, running along the lines of the Albin's Counter Gambit, 2 ... Kt - QB3 and 2 ... B - B4 that works nicely given the said approach.

The fourth and last approach will be to let White build that center believing it will be vulnerable in a certain way. Examples of such an approach will be 2 ... Kt - KB3 and 2 ... P - KKt3. The important thing to remember is that Black should find a release by getting to ... P - K4 if not ... P - QB4.

By understanding the principles behind the Queen's Gambit and its allied variations and chess openings, players will easily grasp the rest of the concepts of this opening.