Ruy Lopez

After the Spanish priest Ruy López de Segura, who analysed the opening in his book on chess written in 1561. The move Bb5 itself appeared earlier, in the Göttingen manuscript, which predates the book by several decades. It only became widely played in the middle of the 19th century, when the Russian theoretician Carl Jaenisch rediscovered its potential.

Covered in the lesson: Ruy Lopez: Introduction →

The bishop attacks not the e5-pawn but its only defender, the knight on c6. Remove the knight and the pawn stands alone: White hits the support of the centre rather than the centre itself. Taking the knight at once is not required — what matters is that Black has to reckon with the exchange move after move.

Covered in the lesson: Ruy Lopez: Introduction →

The main reply is 3...a6, forcing White to decide about the bishop straight away. Second in popularity among strong players is 3...Nf6: the question stays unanswered while Black poses one of their own. More modest are 3...Bc5 (an active diagonal and indifference to the exchange) and 3...d6 (solid but cramped). None of them loses — the choice is about the character of the game, not about accuracy.

Covered in the lesson: Ruy Lopez: Introduction →

When Black pushes the bishop away with a6, White can either retreat or trade. The Exchange Variation is Bxc6: White voluntarily gives up the bishop for the knight so that after the recapture Black is left with doubled pawns on the c-file. White then plays d4, trades in the centre and steers towards a queenless endgame: four pawns against three on the kingside can produce a passed pawn, while Black's extra pawn on the other wing stands next to its own. Both Lasker and Fischer used the line.

Covered in the lesson: Exchange Variation: Endgame and Structure →

The position where the bishop has retreated to a4, Black has developed the knight to f6 and White has castled. It is the crossroads both sides reach almost on autopilot, and where the real choice of set-up begins. Every closed structure of the Ruy Lopez grows from here. Among strong players 5...Be7 is the most common, 5...b5 chasing the bishop is noticeably rarer, and roughly one game in twelve sees 5...Nxe4. Beginners do the opposite: most often they chase the bishop at once with 5...b5.

Covered in the lesson: Ruy Lopez: 4.Ba4 Retreat →

A trap for Black that White walks into out of greed. It comes about like this: Black pushes the bishop away with the pawns a6 and b5, it lands on b3, and after the knights are traded in the centre Black is left with a pawn on d4. It hangs, and it is tempting to take it with the queen — Qxd4. Black then chases the queen with tempo, with the c5 pawn and the bishop from e6, pushes a pawn to c4, and the bishop on b3 is locked in by the pawns on a6, b5 and c4 with nowhere to go. The trap is met in advance: not by escaping the cage but by never letting it form. Instead of the queen recapture there is the pawn break c3: the d4-pawn disappears and there is nothing left to build the cage with.

Covered in the lesson: Ruy Lopez: 4.Ba4 Retreat →