alekhine defence

can someone please explain to me the basic idea behind this opening please?

and the first few moves and pitfalls..am new to site and only learned

guioco piano and ruy lopez 1st few moves and after that playing on

intuition but would love to learn more!

cheers,

andrew 

If you want to play it as Black - well maybe better you didn't. The Ruy Lopez and Giuoco Piano are so much more sound than the Alekhine. Stick to these until you know them well, then play the Alekhine in casual games.

If you want to know how to play against them as White, Wikipedia is a good source usually. Look there. In short, Black wants to draw White's pawns forward to then attack them and 'destroy' White's centre. So the key as White is not to let that happen!

(Not pleased that my readymade board was erased by the emoticon panel... GRRR :((!!!)

(there is a variation in the move list)

Alekhines defence is a highly unbalanced opening which means lots of winning possibilities for both sides. I would say that that is what chess is all about. I love Alekhine although I might consider it objectively less good than some other openings. However I think this is good from a phsychological point of view, I have obvious targets to try to liquidate while my opponent do not now what to do. Generally my opponent loses faith in their choise of continuation when I at last manages to gain an equal game.