Chess Openings: The provocative Black Knights' Tango

The Knights' Tango System Chess Opening when played with the Black pieces has actually several different names:

• The Black Knights' Tango

• The Mexican Defense

• The Two Knights' Tango

• The Kevitz–Trajkovic Defense

The strategy can be used potentially against both 1.e4 and 1.d4.

Against 1.e4 the legendary British Grandmaster Tony Miles used 1...Nc6 with great results - a near 60% win rate with the black pieces over 95 games. This makes Nc6 one of his best openings with Black against 1.e4.

Against 1.d4 the sequence :

d4 Nf6

c4 Nc6

actually scores 31% according to one major online database has over 635 games making it one of the top 5 scoring choices for black in their database of games.

In fact, a similar reverse strategy can be used with the White pieces with Nc3 which has a lot more different names - possibly one of the most different names openings in chess! :

• The Dunst Opening

• Heinrichsen Opening

• Baltic Opening

• Van Geet Opening

• Sleipnir Opening

• Kotrč's Opening

• Meštrović Opening

• Romanian Opening,

• Queen's Knight Attack

• Queen's Knight Opening

• Millard's Opening

• Knight on the Left

• (in German) der Linksspringer

With the White pieces, FIDE CM Kingscrusher has used Nc3 on the first move with the same kind of knight's provocation strategy with huge success in recent years in online chess winning many tournaments with it.

The use of an early Queen's Knight knight move creates a novel and exciting chess opening with black pieces that will take your opponent out of standard opening theory. It can often end up provocating irreversible weaknesses in the opponent's position because pawns are the only pieces on the chessboard that cannot go backward. 

By nature of its pawn provocation, the opening shares some similar concepts to the Alekhine defence. This provocative opening has been used with great success by FIDE CM Tryfon Gavriel aka "Kingscrusher" especially at faster time controls which are now commonplace in Chess due to the recent lockdown.  There are some major exponents of the Tango system after 1.e4 Nc6 such as British Grandmaster Tony Miles who used the opponent with great results to win with the black pieces.  In some databases, Miles has up to 58% win rate with black for 95 games on record which is a great percentage to have with the black pieces.

Online chess has never been so popular and a repertoire designed around faster time controls is "fit for purpose" more in the current circumstances. Recent stats show Chess to be one of the most popular games streamed on Twitch. So having Chess skills for online chess can lead to a potential chess streaming career!

The "Tango" of this system is quite often the knight which transfers itself provocatively from c6 to e5/e7 to g6. The Knight's Tango from one side of the board to the other often has the benefit of provoking weaknesses in the opponent's pawn structure which can be exploited later tactically. Pawns in chess once provoked to move to reflect irreversible decisions. Pawns are the only pieces on the chessboard which you cannot reverse the move of. And thus when using a provocative opening, you sometimes provoke the opponent into irreversible weaknesses which they need to make sure cannot be exploited or emphasised in some way.

One way of emphasising weaknesses created is often to employ a dark square strategy. This involves trying to exchange off strategically the bishop on f8 for White's dark-squared bishop. After such a bishop exchange, it is often then possible for the Knight on g6 to come to a very aggressive f4 square which knockout blows to the opponent's king become far more likely.  Along with this plan, there are often fast time controls in particular ideas of delaying castling k-side trying to wait for an unsuspecting opponent to routinely castle k-side when sometimes the h-pawn can also be used to assist a knight on f4 with a very direct attack.

The principles of working with a potential space disadvantage that makes this work better for black as a system usually involve training off dark-squared bishops and trying to show that with the space of the opponent comes responsibility for handling the resulting weaknesses. Space itself is a responsibility and burden, which the Knight's tango of this system often inflicts onto the opponent.

FIDE CM KIngscrusher has made a specific recommendation against 1.d4 of first having Nf6 played and then later Nc6 which is more commonly known as the "Mexican defence". Statistically, even in master games, this defence has had very good results in online databases. Although a smaller sample size than other moves, it has a greater percentage of wins than many other moves. So it makes it an effective and dangerous surprise weapon of choice.

In Conclusion

If you are looking for a novel and exciting opening that does in fact have a good reputation statistically, then the Knight's Tango related systems can be a great weapon of chess. Huge fun and great results are something we all want from our chess openings in general :)