The Saragossa Opening is a chess opening defined by the opening move 1.c3 in algebraic notation. It is named after the Spanish city of Zaragoza. In 1922 a theme tournament requiring the players to open with 1.c3 was arranged in Mannheim with three particpants, Siegbert Tarrasch, Paul Leonhardt and Jacques Mieses, which Tarrasch won.
1.c3 is an unambitious move. It opens a diagonal for the queen, but it makes only a timid claim of the center. Also, the pawn on c3 has the disadvantage of taking the c3 square away from the knight. Since White usually plays for the initiative in the opening, the Saragossa is an irregular opening and classified as A00 by the Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings.
Black has a number of responses, the most usual being 1...d5, 1...e5 and 1...Nf6.
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