As you might have noticed, openings are VERY important in atomic. In fact one small mistake in the openings often leads to loss of material or even a forced win. That's why it's important to know some basic opening-ideas and some forced lines to be able to get through the first 10 moves of the game.

The idea of most atomic openings is to:

- develop pieces (especially knights)
- open up the lines for queen and bishops
- try to win material
- make (often) crude threats on opponents king
- protect your king from (often) crude threats

Like in chess there are many many atomic openings and systems. Unfortunately they have no names because it's hard to trace people to the openings. But many ideas are found and will be found by atomic players all over the world.


Now, i could have put out most of the lines and refutes, which i wanted to do in first place...
But after thinking a lot about it and discussing with other fics players i've come to conclusion that giving out openings is not a good idea...
First thing, it's slightly annoying to play against one's own lines, but it's not the reason really.
After playing Opossum one day i kind of realised that atomic is not about openings and winning a bishop and then go to the endgame without thinking...
And also i realised that really, noone can PLAY atomic, we just memorize our openings and win some material and try to hold on to it.
Instead a good player should be able to be strong in all parts of the game, opening, middlegame and endgame. And the fact is, very few can show that.
Many 2000-2100 players knows openings perfect but loses in the middlegame VERY quickly because of lack of skill to play middlegames. So with giving out all openings i would just give the players a bad help. Sure they get a nice rating pretty fast, but they'll forget about learning to play atomic.

Instead i want to give you some good advices. Look at atomic as a game consisting of opening + middlegame + endgame. Don't let one part of the game to stagnate by not training that. Analyze an opening with concern to middle and endgame. Analyze your games a lot. Especially your losses, improve your weaknesses. Look at the games of good players and look how they play middlegame from certain positions. And most important, have fun!

Best of luck,
Siggemannen

Tell me what you think: send an email to: siggemannen@gmail.com