Irregular Chess Opening

Irregular openings are chess openings with an unusual or rare first moves from White. Such openings include:

  • 1.a3 (Anderssen's Opening)
  • 1.a4 (Ware Opening)
  • 1.b4 (Sokolsky Opening, also known as Polish or Orangutan Opening)
  • 1.c3 (Saragossa Opening)
  • 1.d3 (Mieses Opening)
  • 1.e3 (Van 't Kruijs Opening)
  • 1.f3 (Barnes Opening, also known as Gedult's Opening)
  • 1.g4 (Grob's Attack)
  • 1.h3 (Clemenz Opening, or Basman's Attack)
  • 1.h4 (Desprez Opening, or Kadas Opening)
  • 1.Na3 (Durkin Opening, also known as Durkin's Attack or the Sodium Attack)
  • 1.Nc3 (Dunst Opening)
  • 1.Nh3 (Amar Opening, also known as Paris Opening)

The above openings are all categorized under the ECO code A00. Openings that are not "irregular" comprise:

  • 1.e4 (King's Pawn Game)
  • 1.d4 (Queen's Pawn Game)
  • 1.c4 (English Opening)
  • 1.Nf3 (RĂ©ti Opening or Zukertort Opening)
  • 1.f4 (Bird's Opening)
  • 1.g3 (Benko's Opening) and
  • 1.b3 (Larsen's Opening).

If White plays a regular opening and Black responds in an unconventional way, the opening is not categorized A00. For instance, 1.e4 a6 is classified as B00 (King's Pawn Opening).

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