What is the Center Game?
It is a chess opening that starts by us pushing our King Pawn forward two squares.
This is a great move for us because it follows fundamental opening principles.
The first being, it is always good start off the chess game
by moving either your King or Queen Pawn first
And the second, being we gain control over
the four center squares.
By us having control over the center of the board, we can easily swing our pieces to
other areas of the board as needed
Now our opponent isn’t going to let us do what we want.
They will respond by pushing their King pawn
two squares forward as well.
It is actually a great move for our opponent to copy what we did,
since they can get the exact same benefits that we get.
Our opponent also gains control over
the four center squares.
Which will allow them to easily move their pieces to
other areas of the board as needed.
Remember, in the initial position, we
get to move first in the opening, we have a slight advantage.
Our goal while playing ANY opening is to use this
first move advantage to secure a better position.
While our opponent is just trying to reach
a position of equality.
Since our opponent just mirrored our moves,
the board is symmetric.
And any advantage that we have,
our opponent also has.
As long as our opponent can maintain symmetry,
we are going to have a hard time converting our first move
advantage into something more concrete.
So if we can,
we want to break this board symmetry.
The other thing that would be great, was
If we could have our opponent give up their center pawn.
With that pawn gone, we
would could gain control over all four central squares
And easily swing our pieces to
other areas of the board, while our opponent can’t.
We can achieve this by pushing our Queen’s
Pawn forward two squares.
When we do this, we’ve reached the
center game opening
