Chess Opening Theory/1. e4/1...c6/2. d4/2...d5/3. e5

With 3. e5 White enters the Advance Variation of the Caro-Kann, in which he has gained a space advantage in the center. It was widely regarded as inferior for a long time, owing chiefly to the strategic demolition that Aron Nimzowitsch (playing as White) suffered at the hands of José Capablanca in one of their games at the New York 1927 tournament. However, it has since been revitalized with various lines ranging from positional manuevering to aggressive and tactical.

Black has 2 main responses to the Advance Variation:

This is the most common response, in which Black aims to enter an improved version of the advanced French Defence, by developing the light squared bishop out of the pawn chain, before playing e6. The downside of this move is that it delays a counter strike to the center, and this bishop often becomes a target with moves like g4, h4 etc.

This is an important alternative, in which Black challenges the white center right away, Unlike in the French Defence, Black not only moved the c-pawn in two moves rather than one, but his pawn is still on e7, resulting in the c5 pawn being undefended, allowing white to capture this pawn. Often times black will regain this pawn and possess the advantage of two central pawns vs one, but often chooses to sacrifice this pawn in exchange for rapid piece development.

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

Advance variation with 3...c5

Black also has various other alternatives such as 3...Na6, 3...g6 or even 3...Qb6, although they usually intend to follow up with one of the two main moves mentioned above.

For explanation of theory tables, see theory table and for notation, see algebraic notation..

1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5

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Wikipedia has related information at Caro-Kann

• Nunn's Chess Openings. 1999. John Nunn (Editor), Graham Burgess, John Emms, Joe Gallagher. ISBN 1-8574-4221-0.
• Modern Chess Openings: MCO-14. 1999. Nick de Firmian, Walter Korn. ISBN 0-8129-3084-3.
• Kasparov, Garry, & Keene, Raymond 1989 Batsford chess openings 2. ISBN 0-8050-3409-9.