Best Unusual OTB Openings

you'd be surprised, but I've had good success with the Sicillian Najdorf against 1.e4 and I think I'll try the snake as previously mentioned against 1.d4 🙂

I've seen interesting games caused from 1.b2-b4 (Polish).Bobby Fischer played it once.I wish he played it more often.It's not my style of an opening though.

Originally posted by Player163829531
I've seen interesting games caused from 1.b2-b4 (Polish).Bobby Fischer played it once.I wish he played it more often.It's not my style of an opening though.

I thought that was the orangutang... The polish I know goes 1.d4 b5!? I know spassky has played it occasionally.
Speaking of the Kings gambit, I still remember the first time I met KG in OTB (long time ago). Since my openingknowledge was very limited I played (me as black) 1.e4 e5 2.f4 f6?? (suicide move no1). Can you figure out how white is winning in all lines, it isn't too hard? I think it is very instructive!
I think white won in under 10 moves. Still I wasn't too upset since my opponent was rated nearly 500 elo more. That is the kind of games you remember.

as white, an unusual opening is 1.c4 e5 2.f4! called the double whammy

As white...the Urusov gambit!!
1. e4 e5
2. Bc4 Nf3
3. d4!?


play continues from there, but it's VERY sharp and effective. If black plays 2...Nc3 then 3. f4 gives a good bishop's KG


As black, the Albin takes the prize.


Against 1. e4 the best suprise is probably the Latvian; i play the Caro, which is common. However, against the advance (which is very common) i play 3...c5, which is a pretty rare move but gives black an unusually good game

Originally posted by bikingviking
I thought that was the orangutang... The polish I know goes 1.d4 b5!? I know spassky has played it occasionally.
Speaking of the Kings gambit, I still remember the first time I met KG in OTB (long time ago). Since my openingknowledge was very limited I played (me as black) 1.e4 e5 2.f4 f6?? (suicide move no1). Can you figure out how white is winning i ...[text shortened]... upset since my opponent was rated nearly 500 elo more. That is the kind of games you remember.

1. b4 is known as the Polish Opening (and other names too) whereas 1. d4 b5 is the Polish Defence.

Halloween gambit. Looks awful, but hard to figure out once you get going.

Originally posted by Sam The Sham
Halloween gambit. Looks awful, but hard to figure out once you get going.

There was an engine (I think Crafty) on one of the chess servers years ago that played the Halloween Gambit every game. I played about twenty games with it and had pretty good results, scoring about 50%. The Gambit is definitely worth a shot at our level.

Yes, once you learn the Halloween very well, it's quite a weapon

1 a3 and 1 e3 and 1 d3 are probably a bit too passive. IMO, there is no good reason to play a system with White that allows Black to immediately equalize in a number of ways.

1 f4 is a good choice that I've tried because it is a bit unusual (most chess players don't burn a lot of midnight oil trying to find a way to beat the Bird Opening), it is easy to learn (As White you can usually achieve your desired piece setup or something very close to it no matter how Black procedes), and it can be very aggressive in that the f2-f4 advance can help you to go on a King-hunt if Black castles that way.

Grandmaster Danielsen plays 1 f4 all the time as White.

Originally posted by diskamyl
Hammerschlag really, really disgusts me 🙂. I can't even stand analysing it.

there are 1.d3 or 1.e3, which could transpose into a sound opening but still has the effect of a surprise.

The fact that you don't know how to play it doesn't make it a bad opening.

I like the Barcza as white.
(1.Nf3 2. g3 3.Bg2 4. O-O)

Originally posted by Fat Lady
There was an engine (I think Crafty) on one of the chess servers years ago that played the Halloween Gambit every game. I played about twenty games with it and had pretty good results, scoring about 50%. The Gambit is definitely worth a shot at our level.

Yes it was crafty that had a Halloween Gambit only opening book for the internet as an experiment, it's mentioned here:

http://www.chessville.com/UCO/Halloween_Gambit/Part_1.htm

It's a good read on this interesting opening.

Originally posted by Sam The Sham
Yes it was crafty that had a Halloween Gambit only opening book for the internet as an experiment, it's mentioned here:

http://www.chessville.com/UCO/Halloween_Gambit/Part_1.htm

It's a good read on this interesting opening.

Of course - Brause - how could I forget that name? It's scary that my games against Brause must have taken place ten years ago. I chatted to the controller of Brause quite a bit once he noticed I kept on coming back for more games. I liked the idea of playing someone 300 points higher than me with what was basically piece odds. I found a database of Brause's games from 1996 to 1998 and I'm going to see if I can find any of mine to remind myself what a great player I was then.

Originally posted by Fat Lady
The Wing Gambit isn't seen that often in OTB play - 1.e4 c5 2.b4.

A friend of mine plays a strange variation - 1.e4 c5 2.a3 and gets positions which are almost playable some of the time.

A Russian GM, whose name I forget (there are so many!), has brought out a book on the variation (1.e4 c5 2.a3), so I suppose it can't be too bad. I think the idea is to play for b4 and get Wing Gambit type positions which may be improvements on the originals.
Although 1.b3 is too passive and easy to play against, I have on occasion tried 1.e4 c5 2.b3!? I can be combined with moves like Bb5 and f4. Also well playable is 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.b3!? In my opinion it's at least as good as 3.c3.
Against the French I sometimes play 1.e4 e6 2.Qe2 c5 3.b3!?, which hardly seems to have been played since the 1880s in the Tchigorin-Tarrasch matches. The move isn't even mentioned in ECO Vol C 5th edition.