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60 free Chess Openings trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This chess openings trivia quiz asks you to name openings from their moves and to explain where those names came from. It covers the big main lines everyone meets, including the Ruy Lopez, the Sicilian, the French, the Queen's Gambit and the King's Indian, alongside gambits, offbeat first moves and joke openings such as the Bongcloud and the Grob. The early questions are ones a club player should breeze through. Later ones get into opening history: which sea captain a gambit is named after, why 1.b4 is called the Orangutan, which world champion revived the Berlin as a drawing weapon, and which openings appeared in the Deep Blue matches. If you already play a/chess trivia on BrainPickle, this is the specialist follow-up. Every answer is checked against the Wikipedia article for the opening in question, and each question carries a citation. Play it solo, or use it as an opening-theory round at your chess club.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which chess opening begins 1.e4 c5?
Sicilian Defence
Deep Blue played it in game 1 of its 1996 match against Garry Kasparov; Fischer, Kasparov and Tal all relied on it.
Q 02Which opening begins 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5, and is also known as the Spanish Game?
Ruy Lopez
Some of its lines have been analysed well beyond move thirty, the deepest theory of any Open Game.
Q 03Which opening begins 1.d4 d5 2.c4?
Queen's Gambit
It is only a gambit in name: Black cannot keep the c-pawn without ending up worse.
Q 04Which of these begins 1.e4 e6, and is known for a solid but cramped position with a 'bad' bishop on c8?
French Defence
First world champion Wilhelm Steinitz called it 'the dullest of all openings' and claimed never to have played it.
Q 05Which opening begins 1.e4 e5 2.f4, with White offering a pawn to pull Black's e-pawn off the centre?
King's Gambit
Bobby Fischer's 1960s article 'A Bust to the King's Gambit' argued the opening loses by force, after Spassky beat him with it in 1960.
Q 06Which opening begins 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4, placing the bishop on the diagonal that eyes f7?
Italian Game
Black's main replies are 3...Bc5, the Giuoco Piano, and 3...Nf6, the Two Knights Defense.
Q 07Which of these begins with the single move 1.c4?
English Opening
Ding Liren used it to win the twelfth game of his 2024 world championship match against Gukesh.
Q 08Which opening favoured by Kasparov and Fischer begins 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6, ...Bg7 and ...d6?
King's Indian Defence
It was considered highly suspect until the 1930s, when Soviet players such as Bronstein and Boleslavsky made it respectable.
Q 09Which of these begins 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4, pinning the knight to prevent e4?
Nimzo-Indian Defence
It has been played by every world champion since Capablanca; White often plays 3.Nf3 or 3.g3 just to avoid it.
Q 10The defence 1.e4 c6 is named after Horatio Caro of England and Marcus Kann, who was from which country?
Austria
Kann had already scored a 24-move win with it against Jacques Mieses at the 1885 German Chess Congress in Hamburg.
Q 11Which defence, sometimes called the Center Counter, begins 1.e4 d5?
Scandinavian Defense
It is arguably the oldest recorded opening, appearing in a fictional game in a Catalan poem written around 1475.
Q 12Which hypermodern reply begins 1.e4 Nf6, inviting White's pawns forward so they can be attacked later?
Alekhine's Defence
Fischer used it twice against Spassky in their 1972 world championship match.
Q 13Which of these begins 1.d4 f5, and produces the lowest draw rate of any common reply to 1.d4?
Dutch Defence
In 1951 both world champion Botvinnik and his challenger Bronstein played it in their title match.
Q 21Which of these begins 1.f4, and can be met by the risky From Gambit 1...e5?
Bird's Opening
Henry Bird took it up in 1855 after a six-year break from chess left him unable to remember the usual openings, and played it for 40 years.
Q 22Which opening, revived by Kasparov in the late 20th century, begins 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4?
Scotch Game
It got its name from an 1824 correspondence match between Edinburgh and London.
Q 23Which opening begins 1.e4 e5 2.Nc3, originally intended to prepare a delayed f4 thrust?
Vienna Game
Weaver W. Adams famously claimed it led to a forced win for White; modern theory disagrees.
Q 14Which set-up has White play d4 and Bf4 regardless of Black's reply, usually with e3 and c3?
London System
It takes its name from the very strong London tournament of 1922, where it appeared seven times.
Q 15Which knight-sacrifice line of the Two Knights Defense is named after an Italian dish?
Fried Liver Attack
The earliest known example was played by Giulio Cesare Polerio before 1606.
Q 16Which joke opening consists of 1.e4 e5 2.Ke2, and has been played online by Magnus Carlsen?
Bongcloud Attack
Its name is traced either to a Chess.com user called Lenny_Bongcloud or to the idea that you would need to be intoxicated to think it a good plan.
Q 17Which opening begins 1.g4 and rivals 1 h4 as 'White's worst first move'?
Grob's Attack
Swiss IM Henri Grob played hundreds of correspondence games with it and called it the Spike.
Q 181.b4 is nicknamed after which animal?
Orangutan
It is also called the Sokolsky or Polish Opening; databases rank 1.b4 ninth in popularity among White's twenty first moves.
Q 19Savielly Tartakower gave 1.b4 its animal nickname after visiting which zoo the day before a 1924 game?
Bronx Zoo
Tartakower insisted that Susan the ape had somehow indicated he should open with the b-pawn against Géza Maróczy at New York 1924.
Q 20The Evans Gambit is named after William Davies Evans, who was what by profession?
A Welsh sea captain
Reuben Fine was beaten by it in a friendly against Bobby Fischer in just 17 moves.
Q 24Which symmetrical reply, also called the Russian Game, begins 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6?
Petrov's Defence
It has a drawish reputation and has been used by Smyslov, Petrosian, Karpov and Caruana.
Q 25Which reply, named after an 18th-century French master, begins 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6?
Philidor Defence
Philidor's original idea was to challenge the centre with the pawn thrust ...f7-f5; today it is seen as solid but passive.
Q 26Which dubious but wild line begins 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5, and is sometimes called the Greco Countergambit?
Latvian Gambit
It looks like White's f-pawn gambit with colours reversed, and is named for Latvian analysts led by Kārlis Bētiņš.
Q 27Which unsound line, also called the Queen's Pawn Countergambit, begins 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d5?
Elephant Gambit
White can take either pawn with advantage, so it survives mainly as a trap-setting weapon.
Q 28Which line begins 1.e4 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.c3, with White offering up to two pawns for rapid development?
Danish Gambit
Danish player Martin Severin From is usually credited with it after playing it at Paris 1867.
Q 29Which opening begins 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5, sidestepping the Indian defences?
Trompowsky Attack
It is named for one-time Brazilian champion Octávio Trompowsky, and has also been called the Zot.
Q 30Which pawn-sacrifice defence begins 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e5?
Budapest Gambit
Géza Maróczy introduced it in an off-hand game in 1896; it enjoyed a brief vogue in the early 1920s.