Chess Zoo, Part I
- Chess Friends Books
- Sep 12
- 5 min read
Howdy! It’s the Chess Friends!
If you are reading our blog, you would probably agree that the chess crowd is a creative bunch with a good sense of humor.
All the content creators!
And their knee-slappers!
And hundreds and hundreds of chess openings with the most unique names!
Today, we want to start a new series of blog posts, discussing chess openings named after animals. Let the animal party begin!
The Legend Vivaan: The Cow!
The Cow is a famous chess opening invented and popularized by one of the most creative chess streamers, WFM Anna Cramling.
In the GIF above (thank you, Chess.com!), you can see the moves:
1. e3 e5, 2. d3 d5, 3. Ne2 Nf6, 4. Ng3 Bd6, 5. Nd2 0-0, 6. Nb3
White concedes the center control to Black but sets up their pieces to challenge it eventually! This opening won’t look too good on an engine because Black gets a lead in development, but psychologically Black will want to over press, and White will be totally fine. Ideas for White moving forward are Be2 and Bd2 and notice that this position kind of looks like the head of a cow!
It's a fun opening to play in fast time controls because it’s super solid, easy to remember, and, chances are, particularly if you’re a beginner, your opponent will over press and you can gain some advantages. Pawn to c4 is a very nice idea here to get the center space back!
There is another reason I like The Cow! When I was a toddler, I asked my parents: “Do Brown Cows Make Chocolate Milk?” (fun fact: they don’t!), but what followed was an amazing journey of learning. We even wrote a book about it a couple years ago (check it out here).
OK, now say “silk” five times with me: “Silk-silk-silk-silk-silk.”
Say it one more time: "Silk."
What do cows drink?
Did you say or think milk? Cows don’t drink milk, they drink water!
The Myth Sarang: The Bird!
Ok, technically, this chess opening is not named after a bird-bird, but after Englishman Henry Bird, who came up and popularized it in the middle of the 20th century.
The Bird opening happens after 1. f4! The idea is to control the e5 King pawn center square. You follow it up with Nf3 (putting the Knight behind the pawn). Here is a typical position that comes out of the Bird.
I like the Bishop on b5 to pin the Knight on c6, potentially double the Black c-pawns and then have ideas like b3, Bb2, fianchetto-ing your dark squared bishop. Then castle and you have a great position! For those familiar with the Dutch defense as Black, the Bird has very similar ideas except for White.
Mr. Bird also created the Bird’s defense vs the Ruy Lopez, which is 1. e4 e5, 2. Nf3 Nc6, 3. Bb5 Nd4, shown below.
Note that this Bird defense is quite dubious because if N x N, White is better because Black has doubled pawns and less development. That said, it’s trappy, because if White plays 4. Nxe5 (that is the White Knight takes the Black pawn instead of the Black Knight), then you can either play 4… Nxb5 (Knight takes Bishop) or reply with 4… Qg5, which skewers the Knight and Bishop, also winning you a piece! If 5. f4 then 5… Qxg2 will win either a Rook or Bishop. This is shown below.
Happy Birding!
The Man Benji: The Whale!
Before writing this blog, I haven't had any experience with the Whale opening, but I still wanted to write about it because whales are pretty cool! They are amazingly big! Blue whales are by far the largest animals ever existed on Earth, even if you count titanosaurs, the largest dinosaurs! There are two different types of whales: baleen whales and toothed whales. Baleen whales filter in different foods through special plates in their mouth called baleen plates, while toothed whales munch on their food just like us humans do.
Is the Whale opening a chess opening with teeth? Let’s have a look...
The Whale Opening comes from 1.e4 e5, 2. c4. (The same position can arise from the English: 1.c4 e5, 2. e4). This is what the beginning of the opening looks like:
The plan for White is to take immense control over the d5 square. A typical way we may continue is
2… Nc6, 3. Nc3 Bc5. These are probably the only moves that give Black a slight edge, and the reason is because they have a big grip over the d4 square:
A possible continuation is 4. d3 Nf6, 5. Be3 d6, 6. Nf3 O-O, 7. Be2, preparing to castle kingside as shown in this GIF:
In this position, Black still has big control over the d4 square, so White eventually wants to push the pawn to d4 themselves. Even when Black is careful, this opening still leads to very dynamic positions with various attacking chances for White. But when Black wants to contest White for the d5 square itself, fireworks for White can happen!
While preparing this blog, I played a couple of games with the Whale, with a blitz rating of around 1800, and I got some games with interesting attacks. My wins came when my opponents didn't try to control the d4 square. Even when I lost, I still thought there was a lot to learn from the positions that came out of this opening!
Now, to go back to our question of whether this opening is a baleen or a toothed whale, I would still call this one a baleen whale. Not an opening with teeth, but since it hasn’t been studied a lot, it can filter many players out of their opening prep, leading to interesting games!
After all those new ideas, I know we are hungry for some knee-slappers to grow our collection! Here they are, from the chess animal edition:
Have you seen that game The Legend Vivi won with the Cow opening?
It was legend-dairy!
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Why was it legendary?
Because the game had 5 brilliant mooooves!
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Why does the bird always play the Bird opening?
Because it knows how to wing it!
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Why do birds like chess?
Because toucan play it!
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Why did the whale get 0F after the game?
It was caught using a shell phone!
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Impossible! Whales don’t have phones! What really happened?
He was whaley late!
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So that’s why he threw the chess pieces on the floor…
Nah, he didn’t do it on porpoise.
Three Cheers, Fellow Future Master Chess Friends!
The Man Benji, The Myth Sarang, The Legend Vivi
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