The Italian Game: Introduction

When I play chess with beginning players, a common problem they face is knowing what they should be doing in the first few moves of the game. In this post, we’re going to go over a solid, reliable opening you can play with the white pieces: the Italian Game:

I’m planning to write a series of articles exploring different ideas in the Italian Game. This first article will cover the ideas behind the first few moves, and will work through one full master game move by move.

In reading this article, keep in mind the basic things that both players want to achieve in the opening in chess:

1. Controlling the center of the board
2. Safeguarding your king (usually by castling)
3. Making sure your minor pieces (bishops and knights) have useful functions

The Italian Game starts with the move 1.e4

With this move, white increases his control over the center (the pawn on e4 controls the d5 square) and opens diagonals for his queen and light squared bishop. Black will often follow suit:

A common way for white to continue here is to develop his king’s knight to f3, from which it attacks black’s e5 pawn, and also exerts pressure over d4.

Black can counter this by bringing out his queen’s knight to defend the e5 pawn

So far, white has succeeded in controlling the center with a pawn, and developing one of his knights. Next, he decides to bring out his king’s bishop. Bringing out this bishop to c4 is what defines the Italian game. From c4, the bishop bolsters white’s control over the center, puts pressure on black’s f7 pawn (which is only defended by his king), and clears the path for white to castle kingside.

Black can now develop his bishop to the corresponding square: c5.

A good move for white here is to castle kingside. In the opening, it’s important to get your king out of harm’s way. This usually means moving it to the side of the board by castling, since the sides are less likely to open up than the center early in the game. Here, white’s king is safe and sound on g1, defended by his f, g, and h pawns.

Black can now move his own king’s knight out, to attack white’s e4 pawn and prepare to castle himself.

Since black attacked white’s pawn on e4, white now defends it by playing his own pawn to d3, which also has the benefit of opening his dark squared bishop.

Black can now open his own bishop with d6.

Here, Nc3 would be a logical move for white, developing his queen’s knight. However, white often plays the move c3 here. With c3, white increases his control over the center, and prepares to potentially play either b4 or d4. He also makes room for his bishop, should it need to zig-zag back to c2.

Black can now castle, to safeguard his own king.

There are many reasonable moves for white in this position. For the remainder of this article, let’s follow the interesting game Rauf Mamedov vs Semen Khanin, from the 2018 World Blitz Championship. In this game, white played a4.

With this move, white has set a trap for his opponent! See if you can work out what white is threatening here. Click below to reveal the solution when you think you know.

In the game, black played a6 here, stopping white’s threat.

How does this move stop white’s threat?

Mamedov now pinned black’s knight with Bg5.

This is annoying for black because:

1. He can’t move his knight for fear of losing his queen
2. If he moves his queen away from the defense of the knight, white could double his pawns by capturing the knight
3. His dark squared bishop is far away on c5, and is unable to help break the pin

In practice, these factors mean that black will probably need to either live with the pin, or play h6 and g5 to chase away white’s bishop. Indeed, black started with h6.

And white retreated his attacked bishop to h4, maintaining the pin:

Here, black decided to preemptively retreat his bishop to a7. One benefit of this is that if white were to play b4 or d4, he would no longer gain a tempo attacking black’s bishop.

White now developed his last minor piece with Nbd2. Note that one advantage of developing the knight to d2 is that if black were to pin white’s knight with Bg4, white could move his queen to break the pin without fear of doubled pawns (since the d2 knight protects the one on f3).

Black now felt he needed to do something about the pinned knight, and played g5.

Here, white decided to sacrifice a piece by playing Nxg5. This is a typical sacrifice in similar positions. For his knight, white gets two pawns and threats against black’s exposed king.

Black now recaptures white’s knight

And white recaptures black’s pawn with his bishop, resurrecting the annoying pin.

In chess, a good rule to remember is that if you can pin one of your opponent’s pieces, you should attempt to bring more pressure to bear on that piece (if you can do this faster than your opponent can defend, you might be able to win the piece). Here, white will probably attack black’s pinned knight again next move by playing Qf3. Black anticipates this by preemptively defending it again with Kg7, so that his king and queen both guard the knight.

Here, white indeed played Qf3, attacking the knight again, so that white has two pieces attacking the knight, and black has two defending.

Here, black would like to bring reinforcements to the kingside, ideally chasing white’s bishop and/or queen away. This is not so easy to do (note that Ne7?? would allow Qxf6). Black now embarked on a plan to re-route his knight to e6 via d8. To do this, he needed to vacate the d8 square. Hence, he played Qe7.

White now brought his queen’s rook into the game. For the moment, this rook is blocked by white’s e pawn, but we’ll soon see Mamedov’s idea.

Here, black continued his plan to reroute the c6 knight. Instead, he probably needed to play Rh8 here. We’ll return to this point shortly.

Here, white set up a nasty discovered check by playing Qg3.

On his next move, white will be able to move his bishop anywhere with check, since the queen’s line of sight to black’s king will be exposed. Note that black cannot play Nh5 here, attacking white’s queen:

White would now capture the queen, and then capture the rook with check, and finally capture black’s knight. When the smoke clears, white would be up a rook and pawn for a bishop.

Going back for a moment, what if black had played Rh8 earlier on move 14 as we suggested?

Let’s say white played Qg3 now.

Here, would black still be losing after Nh5? Try to work out what’s happening, and then click to reveal the solution below!

Let’s return to the position after Qg3

Since Nh5 doesn’t work here, black played Rh8, but it was now too late.

White now played the very strong move Re3 (Bxf6+ was also good, but not as strong as Re3). This move guarantees that white will have a rook on the f file. If black captures the rook, white will recapture with his f pawn, opening the file. If black does not capture, white will move his rook to f3. In either case, white will bring a rook into the attack, with decisive results.

But wait. Didn’t we say that if black played Rh8, Nh5 would then be a viable option? Would Nh5 have saved black here?

Let’s return to the position in the game after Re3

Black has a hopeless position here. He decided to capture the rook on e3.

In this position, Mamedov chose the most crushing way to finish the game. What did he play?

In this game, we saw some basic ideas for both players in the Italian game, including:

1. Both players developing to control the center, and castling kingside
2. White playing c3 and developing his knight to d2
3. White’s idea of trapping black’s bishop with a4, b4, and a5
4. Black’s idea of breaking the pin on f6 with h6 and g5
5. White’s sacrifice on g5 and subsequent kingside attack

Stay tuned for more articles about the Italian Game in the near future!