← Openings

King's Pawn Game B00

B — Semi-open games · Family: King's Pawn Game

1. e4

🎓 Train this family

The King's Pawn Game (1.e4) is the most human of first moves: it grabs central space, opens diagonals for the queen and the king's bishop, and — as Steinitz put it — has proven "best by test" for two centuries. Because 1.e4 commits to an early fight, it leads to the most tactically charged openings in chess: the Sicilian, the French, the Caro-Kann and the classical 1...e5 are all reached from this square one.

B00 is the great fork of chess practice: after 1...e5 the game enters the open classical centers (the C-volume); after 1...c5 the half-open Sicilian battlegrounds; after 1...e6 or 1...c6 the structured French and Caro-Kann. The player who chooses 1.e4 chooses active piece play and early contact — preparation matters, but so does the courage to play positions where both sides can hit back immediately.

Play through the moves on the board above, explore the variations tree below — click any move of any branch — then test yourself against the engine from the position you picked.

• Position after 1 half-moves — Black to move.
• Material is balanced.
• Family “King's Pawn Game” contains 38 recorded variation(s) here.

Variations tree of the King's Pawn Game family

Click any move to jump to that position; switch branches at any point with the alternative moves. Test your knowledge plays the shown position against the engine.

Variations of this family

Related openings

Nearby ECO codes in the B — Semi-open games volume — compare the move orders:

• Barnes Defense (B00)
• Borg Defense (B00)
• Carr Defense (B00)
• Duras Gambit (B00)
• Goldsmith Defense (B00)
• Hippopotamus Defense (B00)