The English Opening

I've been playing chess again. Of late, my studies have led me into something called the English Opening. It's a deceptively quiet-looking opening, in which the White player plays an odd flank move and the Black player is then faced with a multitude of choices, each of which spawns its own alternate world of manoeuvre, threat and counter-threat.

There are historical analogies here, I suppose. English history is full of these quiet moves in the Great Game, in which the other player suddenly finds himself with too many alternatives, all of which seem alternately promising and dangerous.

The other day, I saw a book by former World Chess Champion Anatoly Karpov on the English Opening. In that book, he more or less says, "Here are a bunch of games. Play through them with my comments as your guide. It's the only way you will ever begin to understand the English Opening."

To some extent, that's true. Unless you spend what seems to be a lifetime playing through such games with an experienced guide, it is hard to understand the English. The whole matter is too rich, too multifarious and transpositional, to understand in a short time.

After a lot of thought, I've decided that being English is about as complicated as being Chinese. About the only thing the two have in common, though, is the sense of imperial privilege that occasionally peeks out after a bit of manoeuvring around on the board.