A chess opening or simply an opening refers to the initial moves of a chess game. The term can refer to the initial moves by either side, White or Black, but an opening by Black may also be known as a defense. There are dozens of different openings, and hundreds of variants. The Oxford Companion to Chess lists 1,327 named openings and variants. These vary widely in character from quiet positional play to wild tactical play. In addition to referring to specific move sequences, the opening is the first phase of a chess game, the other phases being the middlegame and the endgame.
Opening moves that are considered standard (often catalogued in a reference work such as the Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings) are referred to as " book moves", or simply " book ". Reference works often present move sequences in simple algebraic notation, opening trees, or theory tables. When a game begins to deviate from known opening theory, the players are said to be "out of book ". In some opening lines, the moves considered best for both sides have been worked out for twenty to twenty-five moves or more.
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