TL Chess Match - Page 6

For less-informed voters, viable options include e7-e6, d7-d6, and g7-g6 as people have already voted. c7-c5 and e7-e5 are possible but perhaps messier.

Hmm. This is probably wrong, but what about 2 ... d5 ? Well, I've never been that good with openings, though.

d5 cxd5 Nxd5 e4 advantage white.
d5 cxd5 Qxd5 Nc3 advantage white.

Personally I'm a big fan of e5 [I mostly only play blitz / bullet in person, hustler-like ], but it's not a particularly sound opening so I'd go with g6 personally. I'm not on the team though!

the 'knight first move' is used in response to d4 to stop d5. And it leads to many other great openings because you're developing a knight to a great square etc.

to which he'll probably reply d5, as taking on that pawn is a terrible mistake - from here, we can say b5 (Benko gambit), to which he'll take, undermining the d5 square, leaving him somewhat overextended and give us a lot of queen side freedom with moves like a6, giving us options to swing over the white squared bishop and queen with long diagonals and rook support - it will become a race between his king side and our queen side, but the pawn gambit gives us a huge head start, the classic Benko strategy