Three answers to one bishop on b5
The Ruy Lopez is a five-hundred-year-old argument about whether a bishop is worth a knight, and it splits into three completely different games depending on how Black answers it.
- 3 motifs
- 360 positions
- Section Ruy Lopez Lines
Every line in this section starts from the same question. White's bishop attacks the knight that defends e5; Black asks the bishop what it intends. The Morphy Defence keeps the tension and produces the slow, piece-heavy middlegame that most Spanish games become. The Exchange takes on c6 immediately and converts the whole game into a structural argument. The Berlin trades queens early and produces an endgame with the clocks still full.
Because the three end up in such different places, the tactics do not transfer as neatly as they do inside the Sicilian or the French. What does transfer is the underlying question: whose structure can survive the pieces coming off, and whose needs them on.
Every motif in Ruy Lopez Lines
- Morphy DefenceThe a6 move every Spanish gets
- Exchange RuyDoubled pawns against two bishops
- Berlin DefenceQueens off, king in the middle
Other sections
- First MovesMate in one, free pieces
- TacticsForks, pins, skewers, traps
- Checkmate PatternsBack rank, smothered, mate in two
- Sharper TacticsDiscovered attacks, deflection, x-ray
- Sacrifices and Quiet MovesSacrifices, zwischenzug, zugzwang
- EndgamesPawn, rook, queen, minor piece
- AttackingKingside, queenside, mating attacks
- OpeningsTactics from real openings
- Blind SpotsNo hint, and the rule nobody sees
- The Ladder1200 to 2400, four rungs
- Open Games1.e4 e5, and the argument over f7
- Sicilian SystemsAnti-Sicilians and main lines
- French VariationsAdvance, Exchange, Tarrasch, Winawer
- Caro-Kann VariationsExchange, Advance, Classical
- Sidelines and SurprisesGambits that should not work