The Whale - could things get any more boring?

Intro

When we study openings, we learn about the importance of center control, pushing the king and queen pawns and battling it out, or maybe fianchetto bishops in hypermodern style. We learn that for every e4 there is an e5 - a symmetrical response - or a c5 - the asymmetrical version. There are similar ideas for d4. Or you could start with a flanking move, like c4, expecting an e5 response perhaps. And based on the opponent's response we gauge what their intentions are.

Thus, every possible move has been played and analyzed. After 1. e4 e5 we all know what to do, right? Develop pieces, open lines. But even so, there are weird continuations, designed to take out the opponent out of their comfort zone: take out the bishop rather than the knight, attach the pawn immediately with d4 or f4, take the queen out even if we know it's a bad idea. Everything has been tried, talked about, ingenious attacks thwarted by brilliant defenses. Everything... except the Whale, that is!

The Whale

The Whale is considered a subset of the English opening, but I am going to use it as a direct insult to any e4 e5 player. 1.e4 e5 2.c4? The embodiment of the GOAT metaphor, this opening does... absolutely nothing. It overcontrols d5, preparing 3.Nc3 which will control d5. If controlling d5 would be the aim of the game of chess, this would be the best opening ever. However, what it ends up achieving is close the position and offer a gaping hole on d4 to Black to put pieces on.

It's the 11th most played move out of a total of 12 in the Lichess database, more common only compared to 2.g3, and with a Stockfish evaluation of -0.4, the position has almost as many wins as losses for White. It is one of the few second moves for White that doesn't have a Wiki entry. In the Masters database there is a grand total of 19 games reaching this position and Black wins 68 to 26! People ask about The Whale online and get incredulous replies: "What is that? I've never heard of a Whale variation".

Surely this is awful, right? I mean, it's the equivalent of a small puffy child curling into a ball and shouting "don't hurt me!" to school bullies. As White, you play this opening waiting for the opponent to just get up and leave, getting bored faster than they have the time to beat on you.

And yet... If Black plays 2... c6 you get the Accelerated Panov Attack in the Caro-Kann, which is a named opening at least. Suddenly there are over 300 games in the Masters database from there. Play a few moves and you get a position very similar to the Old Sicilian variation, colors reversed. And while for most moves made by Black you reply with almost the same series of moves, it is you who lies in wait for when the position gets to open. Your king is safe, the center is locked, it's Black's responsibility to prove they can achieve anything. The hole you have on d4 is offset by the control you have of d5, which will most of the time become a mirror-hole for Black. And in some variations, you unleash attacking moves where no one expects.

When you are the kind of player who gets very anxious when the opponent makes a move you know nothing about, what do you do? You play The Whale. It has the same moves almost every time. By move 9, you should have something very similar to this:

No enemy pieces attacking anything major, king safe, evaluation a warm zero.

There are variations where Nh2 is the best move, enabling stuff like f4. Amazingly enough, when the getting gets going, you will play d4! And if Black gets impatient and attacks the kingside too fast, you might go g4 and long castle instead.

Ideas

There are two major ways to play The Whale: h3 and g3. g3 seems to be preferred by Stockfish, to the point that it recommends g3 even after having played h3. Masters also seem to prefer g3. However, this post will only cover the h3 Be2 setup, as g3 is way too exciting.

Nc3 and d3 are always played. The first is natural after having played c4 and the second will allow the dark bishop to exit and protect the c and e pawns. In very rare cases you play d4 directly. It feels counterintuitive: why play d3, then d4? Isn't that a loss of a tempo? No. The game is split into two very separate epochs: the waiting (d3) and the attack (d4). Determining the exact time and nature of the attack is the goal when playing The Whale.

The whole point is to induce Black to try to use the d4 hole and give no obvious targets for attack. Frustrated, Black will attempt something rash and then you pounce! To get one extra pawn, usually. You will almost always castle short, but if the opponent tries a pawn storm on the kingside before you castle, you could go long.

The h3 move will be played when the d-pawn moves and the light squared bishop eyes g4, either before Nf3 or when the Black knight is on f6. Once you commit to h3, the only way to develop your light squared bishop is Be2. This move also frees h2 for the knight. Many a time, Black will push the g-pawn, trying to create counterplay on the kingside. A calm Nh2 overprotects g4 with usually three pieces and a pawn, while freeing the f-pawn for a push.

In situations where Black has not developed their dark bishop outside the pawn chain, you might want to put your dark bishop on d2, but in the vast majority of cases you will place it on e3.

Now, Black will probably fill the d4 square with one of their knights. Which you exchange. If they put a bishop on c5, you put a bishop on e3. If they exchange, which they often do, trying to take advantage of the dark square weaknesses, you take with the f-pawn and get a semiopen f-file.

a3 is a move! it prepares b4 in some variations and further frustrates Black. But it's not a main idea of the opening, unless you can't do anything on the d and f files.

Something like this:

The pawn structure resembles a more closed Maróczy Bind, however there are significant differences that make the ideas there not work here. Maybe the only one that does apply is that if Black does not quickly make a pawn break, their minor pieces will suffocate, lacking any squares to move to and possibly becoming cornered or pressed into a weak defense. Conversely, the formation limits the activity of White's light-squared bishop, which can buy Black some breathing room to accomplish their break.

Example games

First, let's check out a very instructive example, Martins Barriga - Saglione 2013, where Black won:

In this game, White first refused to acknowledge the power of the knight on d4, then the power of the bishop that replaced it. They wasted a lot of time with moving bishops that in the end became targets and gained tempi and space for Black. There are no major blunders in this game, no particular point where White goes wrong, they are just slightly wrong at all times, not recognizing the thematic strategies of the position. Black should have been the one forced to find solutions, not White. White's role is to lie in wait.

In the second game, the story is reversed:

It is White who manages to slowly squeeze Black, until there is nothing left but to blunder a piece. The game was lost by then. Note that this game started with a slightly different move order (the Dresden opening) and features a long castle.

Another one, this is more fun:

Here there is a blunder: 9.Qd7, a rather natural move, preparing maybe a bishop sac if the king castles short. However, this blocks the bishop's retreat, thus enabling the killer move 10.d4. Black has to either get into a fork or lose the blocked bishop.

Last one:

This is an example of Black attacking, but never being better, because White's king is well defended. There were a lot of misses opportunities, but the major theme remains.

Conclusion

With the LiChess Tools browser extension installed, I started testing this opening with Explorer Practice, letting the Lichess database guide the movements for Black and me playing what I thought was best (out of what Stockfish thought was best ) Most of the time it was a matter of knowing when to make the pawn push and in the meanwhile wait for Black to become impatient.

This is a strange opening, one that I felt was teaching me something, even if it wasn't objectively good. This idea of a slow building opening is something that scares the hell out of a total noob as myself. Surely I will blunder sooner than my opponent, right? But looking at what I had to do: wait until Black was letting me in or until frustrated they would attack prematurely, felt... powerful and instructive.

Try it out! Let me know if you think it sucks or if you feel like me that it prepares you for areas of chess you were not familiar with. Enjoy!