Chess openings are broadly classified into six types. Open games, closed games, semi-open games, Indian defenses, semi-closed games, and flank openings.
Open games start with the moves 1.e4 e5, and usually lead to positions with open lines, and tons of tactical ideas.
Closed games start with the moves 1.d4 d5 and usually lead to slow, positional games where each player strives to gain a long-term advantage.
Semi-open games are games which start with 1.e4 and any other move black chooses to employ with the exception of e5. The Sicilian, French, Scandinavian, and Pirc openings are examples.
Indian defenses are games which start with 1.d4 Nf6. These openings usually adhere to hyper modern strategy (control the center with your pieces and attack your opponent’s overextended pawns). Examples are the Modern Benoni, King’s Indian Defense, Nimzo-Indian, and others.
Semi-closed games are the same as semi-open games but instead, white plays 1.d4. The Old Benoni and Dutch Defense fall under this category.
Flank openings are games which start with white moving one of his flank pawns (c-pawn and f-pawn) at the start. These include the Bird’s Opening, and the English Opening.
All other openings come under the ‘unusual’ section (the orangutan, grob’s opening) but I’m not gonna include them in the six.
For an entire list of all known chess openings, here’s a link - List of chess openings
Another interesting discussion is the number of variable chess positions after 7 moves. The number of positions after White's first move is 20 (16 pawn moves and 4 knight moves) There are 400 distinct chess positions after two moves (first move for White, followed by first move for Black). There are 5,362 distinct chess positions or 8,902 total positions after three moves (White's second move). There are 71,852 distinct chess positions or 197,742 total positions after four moves (two moves for White and two moves for Black).
Now it starts getting crazy . . .
There are 809,896 distinct positions or 4,897,256 total positions after just 5 moves. There are 9,132,484 distinct positions or 120,921,506 total positions after 6 moves (three moves for White and three moves for Black). Ready for the grand total of chess positions after 7 moves? 3,284,294,545!
One of the many reasons I love Chess is that there is no random component. Most games including card or dice games have random components. With random games there is a base of strategy along with the randomness, which means you can win or lose purely by luck. Chess is among the few games without randomness and with full information that is easy to learn but hard to master. That is one of the many reasons it is still in high regard.
Chess has no random component. Card or dice games have one. Some random games allow you to strategize on top of the randomness, some have you lose or win purely by luck.
Chess is among the few games without randomness and with full information that is easy to learn but hard to master. That is the reason it is still in high regard.
There are 9,132,484 distinct positions or 120,921,506 total positions after 6 moves (three moves for White and three moves for Black). The total number of chess positions after 7 moves is 3,284,294,545.
