♞Reflex Chess

Openings that should not work, and win games every day

Objectively worse and practically dangerous are different things, and at club level the second one is what decides games.

Every opening in this section is rated somewhere between slightly dubious and outright bad by an engine, and every one of them has a winning record against unprepared opposition. That is not a paradox. A gambit trades a pawn for a position where the defender has to find several accurate moves in a row with no map, and finding several accurate moves in a row is much harder than being half a pawn better.

So there are two reasons to work through these. If you play them, the positions here are the ones where the initiative has to be converted before it expires. If you face them, the same positions show you exactly where the natural-looking move loses, which is worth more than a list of names.

Every motif in Sidelines and Surprises

Work through the section in order Gambits that should not work and win games every day. Five graded levels per motif, four positions a lesson. Open the course

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