Girish Mahajan (Editor)

Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings

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4.1/5
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Editor
  
Aleksandar Matanović

3.3/5
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Originally published
  
1997


Similar
  
Queen's Indian Defense, Dutch Defence, Modern Chess Openings, The Oxford Companion to Chess, Nunn's Chess Openings

The Encyclopedia of Chess Openings (or ECO) is a classification system for the opening moves in chess. It is presented as a five-volume book collection (now also a computer database) describing chess openings. The moves were taken from hundreds of thousands of games between masters, from published analysis in the Chess Informant since 1966, and then compiled by notable chess players. The main editor is Aleksandar Matanović. Both the ECO and the Chess Informant are published by the Serbian company Šahovski Informator (Chess Informant). These openings are typically provided in an ECO table that concisely presents the best opening lines.

Contents

The books contain only a small amount of text, which is in eight languages. The bulk of the book consists of diagrams of positions and chess moves in International figurine algebraic notation, with special symbols for comments about moves (see Chess annotation symbols).

Instead of the traditional names for the openings, ECO has developed a coding system that has also been adopted by other chess publications. There are five main categories, "A" to "E", each of which is divided into one hundred subcategories.

ECO code is a registered trademark of Chess Informant.

Volume A: Flank openings

  • English Opening
  • Benoni Defense
  • Dutch Defence
  • Réti Opening
  • Benko Gambit
  • Old Indian Defense
  • Bird's Opening
  • Irregular openings, etc.

    • Volume B: Semi-Open Games other than the French Defense

  • Sicilian Defence
  • Caro-Kann Defence
  • Pirc Defence
  • Alekhine's Defence
  • Modern Defense
  • Scandinavian Defense, etc.

    • Volume C: Open Games and the French Defense

  • Ruy Lopez
  • French Defence
  • Petrov's Defence
  • King's Gambit
  • Philidor Defence
  • Italian (Giuoco Piano, Evans Gambit, and Two Knights)
  • Scotch Game
  • Four Knights Game, etc.

    • Volume D: Closed Games and Semi-Closed Games

    (including Grünfeld Defence but not other Indian Defenses)
  • Queen's Gambit
  • Accepted
  • Declined (Slav, Orthodox, Tarrasch, Tartakower, Albin Countergambit, etc.)
  • Grünfeld Defence
  • Queen's Pawn Game, etc.

    • Volume E: Indian Defenses

    (other than Grünfeld Defence and Old Indian Defense)
  • Nimzo-Indian Defence
  • Queen's Indian Defense
  • King's Indian Defence
  • Catalan Opening
  • Bogo-Indian Defence, etc.

    • A

  • White first moves other than 1.e4, 1.d4 (A00–A39)
  • 1.d4 without 1...d5, 1...Nf6: Atypical replies to 1.d4 (A40–A44)
  • 1.d4 Nf6 without 2.c4: Atypical replies to 1...Nf6 (A45–A49)
  • 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 without 2...e6, 2...g6: Atypical Indian systems (A50–A79)
  • 1.d4 f5: Dutch Defence (A80–A99)

    • B

  • 1.e4 without 1...c6, 1...c5, 1...e6, 1...e5 (B00–B09)
  • 1.e4 c6: Caro-Kann Defence (B10–B19)
  • 1.e4 c5: Sicilian Defence (B20–B99)

    • C

  • 1.e4 e6: French Defence (C00–C19)
  • 1.e4 e5: Double King Pawn games (C20–C99)

    • D

  • 1.d4 d5: Double Queen Pawn games (D00–D69)
  • 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 with 3...d5: Grünfeld Defence (D70–D99)

    • E

  • 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6: Indian systems with ...e6 (E00–E59)
  • 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 without 3...d5: Indian systems with ...g6 (except Grünfeld) (E60–E99)

    • First edition

    The first edition was published in the following years:

  • Volume A: 1979
  • Volume B: 1975
  • Volume C: 1974
  • Volume D: 1976
  • Volume E: 1978

    • Second edition

    The second edition was published in the following years:

  • Volume A: 1996
  • Volume B: 1984
  • Volume C: 1981
  • Volume D: 1987
  • Volume E: 1991

    • Third edition

    The third edition was published in the following years:

  • Volume A: 1999
  • Volume B: 1997
  • Volume C: 1997
  • Volume D: 1998
  • Volume E: 1998

    • Fourth edition

    The fourth edition was published in the following years:

  • Volume A: 2001
  • Volume B: 2002
  • Volume D: 2004
  • Volume E: 2008

    • Fifth edition

    The fifth edition was published in the following years:

  • Volume C: 2008

    • References

    Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA