English Opening

The English Opening in chess is when the first move of the game by White is "1.c4", which is moving the queen's bishop's pawn forward by two spaces. It is a bit of a flanking maneuver but has positional advantages, and can throw the opponent off as being unexpected. It supports aggressive subsequent moves while protecting the king.

The highly ranked player Fabiano Caruana has used this opening successfully in championship games. Also, Bobby Fischer surprisingly used this opening to win the pivotal game 6 of his match against Boris Spassky in 1972, enabling Fischer to take the lead and ultimately win the championship.