Barnes Opening

Named after the English player Thomas Wilson Barnes, who beat Paul Morphy more than once. 1. f3 weakens White’s king and is often called the worst first move — it is how the Fool’s Mate begins.

It is reached after a single move: 1. f3.

Black is to move and has 20 legal moves. Over the next four moves — two for each side — the game can branch into 178,889 different games. Those games reach 65,524 different positions: most positions can be reached in more than one way, 2.7 on average.

The Lichess opening list names 5 further lines after this position, such as Fool's Mate (1... e5 2. g4 Qh4#) and Hammerschlag (1... e5 2. Kf2).