Opening Repertoire: The Ponziani Opening

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Intro:

Hello fellow guys welcome to my 3rd blog on the series of Openings Repertoire this is part 3. So, today we will talk about an amazing Openings Weapon 🔫 for white in the King's Knight classical variation and that is The move 3. c3. 

Details:

So, first let's see what the Opening looks like----

The main plan and idea of the move c3 here is to sacrifice the natural developing square of the knight on b1 but in return to play d4 striking in the centre and dominating there. This blog might be short as there is not much things I can show you here as it is not that common. But whatever I will show is very tasty. So black has three common replies. They are--- Nf6, bc5, and d5. Let's look at them one by one...

First let's look at the most common Knight ♞ f6 which attacks the pawn on e4. In that case we play the move d4 as planed. Now the variations may go as follows:-

1. Nxe4
2. exd4
3. d6 or something like that.

First, Nxe4, then we play d5 and the knight has to move. If Na5 then it is trapped with pawn b4, going back is not that good so more probably you may see Ne7 after which you take with Nxe5. And now what surprisingly the most popular move here is d6 which is a big Blunder. Now we play like below........

In the above diagram you have seen maybe in one of the sub-variations we took the knight instead as if we took that Rook and lost the bishop 5 -- 3 = 2 points gained where as taking the knight gains us 3 points of material. 

Now what if black instead of falling for the trap played the best move which is Ng6? In that case we have a nice little trap, play Bd3 here and if he takes the knight then his knight is dead, so some of your opponent's will try to be tricky and take the pawn before losing the knight.  Might make sense but then we can crush him through the following line-------:

If he realises his mistake and takes the bishop ♝ then we just take the horsey and be clearly winning. OK let's come back and let's see the defending line with d6 then the follows...

So, what if instead of defending black takes the other pawn? Then this...

Although material is equal white is better here.

So Nf6 is covered and a plan is same in any other move except d5 by black is is recommended to play Qa4 and pressure the pinned knight in various. 

But in conclusion, the Ponziani is a opening you should definitely try out. 

Outro:

Hope you enjoyed this blog and I shall see you in my next blog.... Bye 👋🏻!