Chess Opening Theory/1. e4/1...e6/2. Qe2

White develops the queen to e2. This line avoids the typical French defence continuations.

The queen pins the e6 pawn to Black's king. White's idea is that if 2...d5?! 3. exd5, Black cannot take back with the pawn. After 3...Qxd5 4. Nc3 White gets to gain time on Black's queen while developing.

If Black still wishes to play ...d5, first they may unpin the pawn with 2...Be7.

Otherwise, Black should look for ways to prevent White from achieving a two-pawn centre with both d4 and e4.

2...c5 is the most critical and common move. This leads to something like a closed Sicilian defence, where White ends up fianchettoing their king's bishop to avoid having to move their queen again.

2...e5 and the game reaches something like an open game (1. e4 e5) except Black lost a tempo playing e6 then e5. However, White has already spent that tempo and only achieved Qe2, instead of a more pressing developing move, so Black is not at a disadvantage.

Mikhail Chigorin (1850―1908) tried this line against Siegbert Tarrasch (1862―1934) seven times in their 1893 match series.^[1]