Mieses Opening

The Mieses Opening, 1. d3, takes its name from the German-British grandmaster Jacques Mieses and is filed under A00 in the Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings as an irregular opening. The pawn opens the diagonal of the c1-bishop and supports a later e4, but it stakes out far less central territory than 1. d4, and it cuts the f1-bishop off from d3. The usual justification is symmetry: Black can answer almost any first move with ...d6, so White, a tempo ahead, can hardly be worse for playing the mirror image. Among White's twenty legal first moves it ranks around the middle in popularity.

The move rarely keeps an independent character for long. White most often aims for a King's Indian Attack, and depending on Black's setup the game can also become a Modern, Pirc or King's Indian Defense with colors reversed and an extra tempo. Since White commits to so little, much depends on which central formation Black chooses, and the play tends to be slow and maneuvering rather than forcing.

Black has a wide choice of sound replies. 1...d5 is the most frequent, chosen in nearly a third of games, and simply takes the center that White has declined. 1...e5, the Reversed Rat, is the next most common; after 2. Nd2 it becomes the Valencia Variation. 1...e6, 1...c5, 1...Nf6 and 1...g6 are also reasonable. The engine assesses the starting position as roughly balanced, and in online play the results are almost exactly even between the two sides.

Two other lines carry names. The Myers Spike Attack, also called the Spike Deferred, meets 1. d3 g6 with 2. g4, an early flank thrust in the manner of the Grob. The Venezolana Variation, 1. d3 c5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. g3, puts the queen's knight on c3 and prepares a kingside fianchetto, a closed structure in which White postpones any central decision.

The opening's best-known appearance came in game 3 of the 1997 match between Garry Kasparov and Deep Blue. Kasparov chose 1. d3 in the belief that the computer would handle the position badly once it was forced out of its opening book; the game, which continued 1...e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. c4, ended in a draw. David Levy had used the move earlier, in a 1984 prize match against the program Cray Blitz, which he won.