Chess: Don't Use Queen Raid

By: Alex Faull

How you open a game in chess can be very critical. If you open poorly you'll likely end up playing from behind for the rest of the game, but if you open ahead, then you could dominate your opponent and end the game being able to say checkmate. Now, me and many other bad chess players (yes, I am admitting that I am bad) become focused on the queen, which isn't to surprising since the queen is so powerful. Because of this focus people tend to use an opening strategy that Yasser Seirwan in the book Winning Chess - Openings calls Queen Raid. Seirwan describes the logical behind Queen Raid, "My Queen was a natural-born bully! All that was necessary was to introduce it into the game as early as possible"(Yasser, 8). The opening strategy is simple: get your queen into play as fast as possible, and use the queen to bully your opponent's weaker pieces. And it actually worked for him, but only when was newer to the game and playing against inexperienced players.

6th turn of one of Seirwan's early games (found on page 17).

The reason this worked for Seirwan at one point is simply because his opponents didn't understand how to counter it. Because of this he achieved many fast victories, being able to win the game without moving most of his pieces. But there is the problem: he never uses most of his pieces early, so they get simply stay trapped where they were from the start. So, when Seirwan began to use Queen's Raid against better opponents, they would use their own pieces to push bully his queen by constantly placing it under the threat of capture. So while Yasser spent the opening trying to try and keep his queen alive, his opponents would simply gain control of the board by having more pieces in play. The image to the right is from one Seirwan's games where the Queen Raid failed him (Seirwan is white, his opponent is black). While Seirwan has opponent in check, he is actually at the disadvantage. Though the aggressive Queen Raid opening put the black king in some danger, black already has both knights in play, two pieces in the center of the map, a threat against the white pawn in the center (black knight on f6), and can easily move out other pieces. White has a pawn in the center, the queen under threat, a check, and pieces trapped behind a wall of unmoved pawns. Check on turn 6 is very early, but a single check isn't worth being put behind this early.

The Queen Raid has the chance to secure an early win, but you can't rely on it. So, if it's unwise to go for an early win, what is wise? What do I want to accomplish with an early opening? In Yasser's words, you want to "control the center"(Seirwan, 26). This is the underlying principle of a good opening. The reason is simple, a piece in the center has more power since it can impact more vital spaces, allowing you to better control the map. For this reason, the following is one of the most common first moves of a chess game:

 White moves a pawn forward to e4, placing a piece in the center (outlined in red), making it a critical piece on the board

Pawn to e4, an incredibly common move.

Black responds to white by mirroring white and moving a pawn to e5, allowing black to also have a foothold in the center.

Pawn to e5, another incredibly common move.

The next few turns generally involve both side threatening the pawns in the middle, protecting them, and moving other pieces into the center if given the opportunity. Though this is very common and simple, what ensues after is where the incredibly complicated parts come in, but I'm still early in the book, so I won't even act like I know what I'm doing.

I decided to try a both the Queen Raid opening and an opening based on controlling the center against a chess AI. I was crushed, every game (don't judge me, those AI's are terrifying). While I was getting crushed I did notice something: Seirwan was right about the two strategies. I tended to last much longer when I focused on the center and not my queen, being able to have some influence over the board, while when my queen was the focus I could do basically nothing but run from the enemy. So, now that we have an idea of what openings should do, next time I will begin to answer the question: How does one control the center with an opening?