In defence of the Philidor

How many intermediate players have we seen on the forums saying "what's the best attacking opening for white", or "I love to play attacking chess. What openings should I learn?"

This blog is my attempt to choose an opening for black that will perform well against such players. It's aimed at the intermediate player (1600-2000 Lichess) but players below that level might find it useful as well.

All my life against 1. e4 I almost always aimed at the Ruy Lopez with 1. ...e5 2. Nf3 Nc6. In recent months I have found the Philidor defence to be very effective against white players who pursue all-out attacks at the expense of longer-term positional strategic play.

The Philidor defence seems to get very little love from the literature, streamers and so on. In fact, on youtube, the two most popular videos on the Philidor defence both focus on the white pieces and how to "beat" the Philidor. We will see that actually the Philidor is very solid when played correctly and if White either overextends themselves, or doesn't press the attack in exactly the right way, their supposed advantage can evaporate very quickly.

What is the Philidor defence?

The Philidor defence is defined by 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6.

https://lichess.org/study/Sjw8y24A/RRVGJiTY#4

Over the next few moves white will generally play d4 and Bc4. White will then build up pressure against the kingside, usually by attacking f7 with moves like Ng5, or getting the queen on the same diagonal as the light bishop.

Why do people hate it so much?

There are two (maybe three) main reasons why a lot of people don't like the Philidor.

Traps

Firstly, there are quite a few traps that can look quite scary, like Legal's trap.

https://lichess.org/study/Sjw8y24A/RcWKMxVP

Limited attacking chances

The second reason is that black won't get a chance to counterattack for a while. Generally you wait for white to make a mistake and react accordingly. This might be with a tactic or a good positional play. As such, your strategy has to be fairly flexible.

The fish eyes it with disdain

For those who are a slave to the stockfish evaluation, it gives +0.6 after 2 ...d6. That's enough to turn most of the fish school away from the Philidor. I often find that the middlegames arising from the Philidor have stockfish evaluations that change quite a bit even at very high depth (e.g. -1 at depth 20 but -3 at depth 26). For humans, I don't think the +0.6 applies and certainly not for my rating band.

Why should I play it as Black?

You don't have to remember specific defences to the traps

Although the traps initially seem quite daunting (especially Legal's, since the trap move is taking an apparently well defended pawn) they can be avoided completely by following a few "golden rules".

Similarly, while white can build up pressure on the kingside, the attack is not conclusive and can be defended. The principles to defend are actually not that complicated.

You will learn more

Playing the Philidor is a great exercise in developing your positional awareness and defensive play. For all that white seems to have the upper hand initially, against all but the very best of players it tends to evaporate and often the tables can be turned. Generally either white goes for an unsound attack which you can repel, or white retreats and you can then start to attack yourself, or establish a positional advantage.

When I play the Philidor, I always seem to learn something new and meaningful that seems like it would be helpful in general rather than specifically when playing the Philidor.

You can play it a lot

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 is the most common position after 1.5 moves. If you want to make this part of your main repertoire you will get plenty of chances to put it into practice.

Goals and key moves for black in the Philidor

defence before development!

The biggest goal for black in the Philidor is to castle, and as soon as possible. All the traps in the Philidor operate against an uncastled king, and the moment you castle they are no longer a threat.

Accept that fact that your dark squared bishop doesn't have a great destination for now, and park it on e7. It is more important to clear the ground for castling than to try to get it to a good square.

Similarly, trying to castle queenside is usually ill-advised. There are too many pieces to get out of the way and you could fall victim to something nasty before you are able to castle.

Five of black's first six moves should be ...e5, ...d6, ...Be7, ...Nf6 and O-O, usually in that order. If you develop the king's knight before the bishop, the refutation of an immediate Ng5 is quite tricky, though it can be done. If white plays d4 at any point then you will have to play ...exd4. This usually does happen, meaning that black usually castles on move 6. The most common position at the end of move 6 is shown below, reached well over a million times on Lichess at time of writing.

https://lichess.org/study/Sjw8y24A/t33dUNJF#12

For the stockfish lovers in the audience, the evaluation has already evened out to +0.3.

If you try and castle any later than this then white will have time to bring an extra piece to bear on their attack, which may either be totally fatal, or force you to make suboptimal moves like Nh6 to defend f7. If white hasn't played d4 by their fifth move, then be happy that you can castle a move earlier.

Once you have castled and reached a position like the one above, now you can start to turn the tables. 7...c5 is often a great continuation, gaining some space on the queenside (and if there is a knight on d4, forcing it to move yet again). I mentally think of the pattern of a bishop on e7 and pawns on d6 and c5 as a "light saber" with the bishop being the handle and the pawns being the "blade".

If white hasn't taken back your e-x-d-pawn yet, they have to spend time recapturing it and you can even up in development. This happens more often then you might think, as many white players will delay recapturing in an attempt to persuade you not to castle quickly enough. Once you do castle though, white has to play incredibly accurately to maintain the advantage, whereas black's next few moves will follow the usual development principles.

The last thing to be mindful of is exchanging on f6. If you find yourself having to play ...gxf6 at any point then your king is likely to get into trouble quickly, especially if the queens are still on the board. It's fine to exchange pieces on f6 as long as you are taking back with another piece, not the g-pawn. It may help your visualisation and planning, and help you avoid piece sacrifices by white, if you don't think of the g-pawn as defending f6 at all!

An example game

This is an example game from me against stockfish Lv5. It's a good illustration of the opening principles, and a couple of inaccuracies from white lead very quickly to a -2 evaluation. I did make a blunder much later in the game, but the opponent failed to punish it properly so I still won.

[https://lichess.org/study/Pna8fw4M](Example Philidor game)

Golden rules for playing the Philidor as black

Do...

1. Castle as soon as you can. If black hasn't castled by his sixth move, then someone has made a mistake. You will almost certainly have to play Be7 to get yourself castled in time. If you only remember one thing from this blog, make it this one and you will be fine for the first 6 moves.
   2. If white plays d4, take it but don't get too greedy either trying to hold onto the d pawn or taking more things with it. See rule 1.
   3. Be patient! Wait until white either overextends or retreats, and act accordingly. Only stockfish can hold on to that +0.6 from move two.

Don't...

1. Move your kingside pawns. They are important where they are. In particular, the g-pawn has the sole job of defending the king. Don't think of your g-pawn as defending f6. One possible exception is you might need to meet h4 with ...h5 to stop any further advances, but a gratuitous ...h6 is probably ill-advised.
2. Try to develop your queenside pieces before you castle. If white wastes a tempo you might be able to, but you will need to check that white really has wasted a tempo as many apparently quiet moves have a hidden trap.

Summary

Once you know the basic principles, you don't have to worry about all the traps in the Philidor. you can even argue it's a "system" where you almost ignore what white does for the first six moves (except for when white plays d4).

It's a great opening to bust out against players who are known to make unsound attacks or overextend themselves. I also think it's good enough to be your main defence against 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 at my rating level (and probably at least a couple hundred points above).