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1. Nf3

Modified by  Chris 13 Oct '06 21:29

The Réti Opening (also called the Zukertort Opening and the King's Knight Opening) is named after Richard Réti, a Czechoslovakian chess player who used it to defeat the world champion José Raúl Capablanca in 1924. In the Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings (ECO) Réti Opening is classified A04-A09.

According to ChessBase, out of the twenty possible opening moves, 1.Nf3 ranks third in popularity. It develops the knight to a good square and prepares for a quick castling. White maintains flexibility by not committing to a particular central pawn structure, while waiting to see what Black will do. The slight drawback to the move is that it blocks the f-pawn. This is not a problem if White does not intend to move it in the near future, but it rules out the possibility of playing systems with f3 and Nge2, which is a fairly popular setup against the King's Indian.

Usually 1.Nf3 will transpose into an opening with 1.d4, such as the King's Indian or the Queen's Gambit. If White follows up with an early c4 a transposition to the English Opening may be reached. Even the Sicilian Defense may be reached if the game opens 1.Nf3 c5 2.e4.

This text has been taken from Wikipedia.

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