Is the Italian Game good for beginners?

It is the one I teach first. Three moves put a pawn in the centre, a knight on its best square and a bishop on the most dangerous diagonal on the board, and after castling on move four or five you have a normal position with no memorised theory. It is also still played at the very top, so nothing you learn in it goes to waste.

What is the Giuoco Piano?

The name for the Italian after 3...Bc5, where both bishops eye the weak squares f7 and f2. White then chooses between the slow build-up with d3, c3 and Nbd2, and the old main line with c3 and an early d4 that opens the centre at once. Giuoco Piano means quiet game, which was true in 1600 and is less true now.

How do you stop the Fried Liver?

Three ways. Play 3...Bc5 instead of 3...Nf6 and the knight never gets to g5 with effect. Or play 3...Nf6 4.Ng5 d5 5.exd5 Na5, giving a pawn to chase the bishop off c4. Or play 4...Bc5, the Traxler, which is a sacrifice of your own and needs real study. What you must not do is recapture with 5...Nxd5.

The Italian Game explained

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4. Three moves, and White’s bishop is already staring at f7, the only square in Black’s camp that nothing but the king defends. The knight on f3 attacks e5, the pawn on e4 holds the centre, and White can castle next move. There is no other opening where so little effort buys so much.

The plans, once the pieces are out

Two of them, and you choose by how much you like a fight.

The slow one: c3, d3, Nbd2, then the knight walks d2-f1-g3 while the bishop drops back to b3. Nothing opens, White builds up, and the break d3-d4 comes on move fifteen when it is ready. The main line of the Giuoco Piano after 3…Bc5 4.c3 Nf6 5.d3 d6 is exactly this.

The old one: 4.c3 and 5.d4 straight away, blowing the centre open while Black’s king is still on e8. After 3…Bc5 4.c3 Nf6 5.d4 exd4 6.cxd4 Bb4+ 7.Nc3 the pieces come flying off and whoever calculates better wins. That is a fine way to learn, so long as you accept that some of the games will be short.

Whichever you pick, the target does not change. The bishop on c4 and the knight coming to g5 both hit f7, and attacking f7 is the single most common source of tactics in beginner chess.

The Fried Liver, and which side of it you want to be on

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5 d5 5.exd5 Nxd5 (the mistake) 6.Nxf7 Kxf7 7.Qf3+, and the board below shows what Black has to deal with.

After 7.Qf3+. The black king stands on f7 with no way home, the knight on d5 is attacked by the queen and the bishop on c4 and defended only by the queen on d8, and Nc3 is coming. Black's rooks have not moved.

That is the Fried Liver Attack, and White is close to winning after seven moves for the price of a knight. The king has to walk to e6 to hold d5, the defence after 7…Ke6 8.Nc3 is a run of only moves, and no beginner finds them at the board.

The mistake was 5…Nxd5, putting the knight on a square where the bishop on c4 and the queen can both hit it. The right move is 5…Na5, attacking the bishop on c4 and letting the pawn on d5 go for now. Black is a pawn down and perfectly fine. Or simply play 3…Bc5 on move three and the whole thing never comes up.

As White, this is the reason to open 1.e4 as a beginner. As Black, it is the reason to know your own opening four moves deep instead of three.

Where the Italian sits

It is not a beginner opening that you outgrow. 3.Bc4 came back into fashion at the top level with the quiet d3 treatment, and it is played in elite tournaments today, which is more than can be said for most openings people recommend to new players.

If you want the other classical treatment of the same position, the bishop can go to b5 instead: see the Ruy Lopez. And if the whole thing looks like too many choices, the beginners’ opening page gives you six moves to play in every game and nothing else to remember.