Opening Theory for a Game With No Second Move

Chess opening theory runs thirty moves deep. Carress opening theory runs one move deep, because after your first shot there are pieces sliding everywhere and the position no longer has a name. This article is therefore the complete literature on the subject. You're welcome.

The one law: every shot costs the shooter

Fire a piece and it's gone when the dust settles — hit or miss. Every attack is a suicide mission. There are no survivors, only good trades and bad ones.

One piece is exempt, and it's the one you'd expect: the king is never spent by firing him — but he isn't allowed to fire at all until he's the last piece you have left. Until then he's cargo, not a cannon. So the whole opening is played with fifteen expendable pieces and one you must keep alive.

This leads to the most un-chess-like idea in the game: attack with your big pieces, defend with your pawns.

Think about it. If your queen just stands there looking regal, sooner or later a 50-cent enemy pawn knocks her over, and you got nothing for her. She was always going to die — the only question is whether she dies doing something. So spend her. She hits harder, flies faster, and smashes through crowds that would stop a pawn cold.

Your pawns, meanwhile, are terrible cannonballs but excellent furniture. Eight little bodies standing between danger and your king. Leave them home. They're working.

The queen is not a treasure to protect. She is a cannonball with a crown. Cannonballs are for firing.

The setup: sixty seconds, one square each

You build your own army before a shot is fired. The board opens in the standard chess formation — with one deliberate oddity: both knights start shoved into the front corners, a wink to remind you the chess placement rules have left the building. From there you drag pieces wherever you like in your own half, one piece per square, and the sixty-second clock starts ticking a few seconds after the board appears. White builds first; Black answers having seen the whole plan.

There is a 🎲 Shuffle button that drops you into one of four ready-made formations, and pressing it again cycles to the next — a decent opening if the clock is eating you, and a decent starting point if it isn't. But the shape is ultimately yours to invent, and that is the theory. In practice two instincts fight over the board.

The turtle. Wall the king behind a thick wedge of bodyguards, heavy pieces tucked safe, pawns bristling outward. Boring? Its critics keep ending up toppled, and the turtle keeps not caring.

The charge. Slide your heavy pieces up toward the midline, cocked to fire on turn one. Maximum aggression, minimum patience — wins fast or dies loudly, either way great noises. Just remember Black sets up second and gets to aim at whatever you left hanging out front.

Most strong setups steal from both: a hard shell around the king, and a gun or two leaning toward the centre where its first shot can actually reach something worth hitting.

One useful trick: shoot the pawn in the way

Sometimes your rook has a perfect line to the enemy — except your own pawn is standing in it. Don't groan. Fire that pawn at the enemy. The shooter leaves its square when it flies, so one flick both attacks and opens the lane for the heavy gun behind it. Two jobs, one pawn. He'd have wanted it this way.

A model game

1. Qd4→ xNc6 xPb6! White opens with the queen — correct! — and flattens a knight and a pawn on her way out. A queen for a knight and change isn't a jackpot, but she was going to fall to a pawn eventually anyway. This is what dying with dignity looks like.

1… Qg5↖!! Black replies in kind, and now four pieces are sliding at once, two of them are airborne, and both players are out of their seats. Is this theory? It is now. And that, dear reader, is why we are here and not on chess.com.