English Rat

The English Rat uses the early ...d6 as preparation for an immediate ...e5. Black challenges d4 before developing the king's knight, and the position belongs to the Old Indian family of setups. White has three main ways to respond. The most frequent, 3. dxe5, wins a pawn for the moment. After the recapture on e5 the queens usually come off on d8. Black loses the right to castle but gets a compact, solid endgame, and results in that line slightly favor Black. Black can instead leave the pawn and play for development. The Lisbon Gambit, 3. dxe5 Nc6, and the Pounds Gambit, 3. dxe5 Be6, both offer material for activity.

White can keep the queens on with 3. Nc3, which maintains the tension. Alternatively, 3. d5 closes the center and gains space, giving a blocked structure in which Black's play lies on the kingside. The engine prefers White slightly, with quiet moves such as 3. e3 among its top choices. Over the board the opening scores almost evenly in online play, and it is a fairly common way of meeting 1. d4 with an early ...d6.