Alekhine Defense

also known as: 1...Nf6 vs 1.e4

1. e4 Nf6

Named after

Alexander Alekhine (1892–1946), the fourth World Champion — attacking genius, exile from revolutionary Russia, and the only champion to die holding the title.

Origin

Introduced by Alekhine at Budapest 1921, in the first flush of hypermodernism.

The story

The most provocative defense in chess: Black attacks e4 with a knight and then lets it be kicked across the board — 2.e5 Nd5 3.d4 d6 4.c4 Nb6 5.f4 building White the biggest pawn center imaginable. Alekhine's wager, pure hypermodern doctrine, is that the center is not strength but target: Black will spend the middlegame demolishing what White spent the opening building. It shocked the chess world in 1921, gave the new hypermodern school its most vivid slogan, and found its greatest later champion in Fischer, who used it twice against Spassky in Reykjavík 1972.

Why it matters

The purest expression of "the center as a target" — an entire strategic philosophy in one knight tour. Rare at the top but immortal in the textbooks, because no opening teaches the tension between space and overextension better.

Notable games

• Sämisch–Alekhine, Budapest 1921
• Spassky–Fischer, Reykjavík 1972 (games 13 and 19)