Italian Game
Opening course for White · ECO C50
The bishop points at f7 from move three.
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 is the first opening most players learn and one of the last they outgrow. The bishop takes aim at f7 immediately, and everything in the course follows from what Black does about it. Against 3...Bc5 you get a choice of three: the modern Pianissimo with d3 and a slow knight tour to g3, the old c3 and d4 main lines, and the Evans Gambit for when you want the game open. Against 3...Nf6 comes the Two Knights and the sharpest position in club chess, where 4.Ng5 hits f7 a second time and the Fried Liver is one move away. This course teaches that whole complex with the numbers attached, including the part nobody tells you: 5...Na5 is Black's main line, it holds comfortably, and against anyone who has studied, the Fried Liver never appears at all.
- Chapters
- 7
- Lines
- 15
- Traps
- 1
- Sources
- 9
Nothing to review. Learn the next line.
Next: The bishop takes aim, against the classical 3...Bc5.
Part of your daily work.
- Learn
- Walk the line with the coach, a note on the moves that need one.
- Recall
- Play it from memory. Learned lines come back on a schedule.
- Tempo
- The same line against the clock, for a score to beat.
- Off book
- The opponent leaves the book with a real move; Stockfish prices your answers.
Before the moves: the big ideas
f7 is the whole opening
It is the only square on Black's first rank defended by nothing but the king. The bishop on c4 attacks it on move three, a knight on g5 attacks it on move four, and almost every tactic in the Italian is White getting a third attacker there before Black gets a second defender. When you are deciding between two moves in this opening, count f7.
d3 builds, d4 fights
The modern treatment plays d3 and c3, keeps the tension, and routes the queen's knight the long way round, Nbd2 to f1 to g3, where it eyes f5 and h5. The old treatment plays c3 and d4 at once and produces forcing lines both sides have to know exactly. Neither is better. Pick d3 when you want to outplay someone and d4 when you have done the reading.
A sacrifice is a bet on the king, not on the material
The Fried Liver gives a knight for a pawn and a black king on e6. That is a bad trade on the scoresheet and a good one over the board, because the king has to walk to safety through eight moves of checks while its own pieces watch from the back rank. Judge these positions by how many moves the defence needs to find, not by the material count.
Know what your opponent has to know
The Fried Liver only exists because 5...Nxd5 is natural and 5...Na5 is not. The Traxler only exists because 4...Bc5 looks like a blunder. Most of the sharp lines in this course are decided by whether the person opposite you has seen the position before, so learn the refutations of your own tries as well as the tries themselves.
The lines, chapter by chapter
In learning order. The coach serves review one line a day; open any line yourself when you want it now.
Start Here: The Bishop and f7
1 line
Six moves and no theory. This shows the square the whole opening argues about and the shape White builds around it.
The Pianissimo and the Knight Tour
2 lines
One setup, one plan, and it works against both of Black's third moves. If you want an Italian that does not need memorising, this chapter is the whole course.
The Old Main Line: c3 and d4
2 lines
The forcing version. Both sides get exactly what they want, and both sides have to know it, because a wrong move order here costs material rather than comfort.
The Evans Gambit
2 lines
A pawn to drag the bishop off the diagonal and get d4 in with tempo. Kasparov used it to beat Anand in 1995, and theory still has no refutation of it.
The Two Knights: 4.Ng5
3 lines
Black plays 3...Nf6 and White hits f7 a second time. Tarrasch called 4.Ng5 a duffer's move and it has been scoring well for two hundred years anyway. Start with what Black should do about it.
The Fried Liver and the Lolli
3 lines
Black plays 5...Nxd5 and now there are two ways to punish it. One is famous. The engine and Fischer both prefer the other one.
The Other Third Moves
2 lines
What to do when Black plays neither 3...Bc5 nor 3...Nf6, and the one four-move loss that turns up more than any other.
Puzzles from this opening
The Italian Game in brief
The Italian Game is the chess opening that begins 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5, and it is filed under ECO C50. This course teaches it from White's side in 15 drills across 7 chapters, with a coach note on the moves that need one, every position checked with Stockfish at depth 20, and every plan credited to the author who wrote it down.
Lines you will drill
- The bishop takes aim against the classical 3...Bc5
- Nbd2, Nf1, Ng3 against 3...Bc5 with a normal build
- The same plan against 3...Nf6 against the Two Knights, met quietly with 4.d3
- The Møller Attack against 3...Bc5 met by an immediate d4
- The quiet block: 7.Bd2 against the same check, answered without a gambit
- The Evans, accepted against 3...Bc5 4.b4 Bxb4
- The Evans, declined against 4...Bb6, refusing the pawn
- 5...Na5, the main line against the answer that makes the Fried Liver disappear
- The Fritz and the Ulvestad against 5...Nd4 and 5...b5, which reach the same place
- The Traxler, answered safely against 4...Bc5, ignoring the threat on f7
- The Fried Liver against 5...Nxd5, met by the knight sacrifice
- When Black defends with ...Ne7 against the quieter 8...Ne7
- The Lolli: 6.d4 against 5...Nxd5 without giving up the piece
- The Hungarian Defence against 3...Be7, the modest square
- The four-move loss against 4...h6, which does not defend f7
Questions
- What is the Italian Game?
- The Italian Game is the chess opening that begins 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5, filed under ECO C50. The bishop points at f7 from move three. 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 is the first opening most players learn and one of the last they outgrow.
- How do you learn the Italian Game?
- This course splits it into 15 drills across 7 chapters. You play each line from White's side against a coach note that explains the move, then the same lines come back on a spaced-repetition schedule until you can play them without prompting. Every position is verified with Stockfish at depth 20 before it ships.