The present generation of Filipino chess players will do well to analyze seriously and thoroughly a new chess opening invented by this blogger and which he calls MGM’S 300 Spartans.
Those who have seen the movie 300 will immediately discern why this blogger has named this chess opening after the 300 Spartan warriors around whom this film revolves.
The essence of the Spartan battle tactic as depicted in that epical, action-packed movie is coordination of defensive and offensive movements so tightly and precisely executed that the 300 Spartan warriors are fighting as though they have blended into a single combatant. No Spartan warrior ever strays away from the group while the battle is raging. Each one is fully aware that his role in the fight is as vital as that of every other warrior in the fighting unit; he knows that the safety of his comrades partly depends on him just as his own survival is fractionally dependent on them.
King Leonidas of Sparta sums it up eloquently, though with brutal frankness, when he refuses the plea of the Spartan hunchback to join his elite fighters, pointing out that the inability of the hunchback to raise the shield above his head will create a weakness in the Spartan battle formation thereby jeopardizing the entire force.
The movie left an intriguing question in the mind of this blogger: is the Spartan strategy applicable to the game of kings and the king of games? Could one win a game without fighting for control of the center via pawn advances in the opening stages of the game? No warrior should stray too far away from the fighting unit. Could this tactic work?
After winning a dozen or so online games against opponents from other countries, this blogger has come up with the following empirical data:
1. The solidity of MGM’s Spartan’s 300 hinges on a strong pawn formation in the opening phase of the game. As a rule of thumb, no pawn should advance beyond the third rank. No warrior should stray too far away!
This principle applies to both white and black pieces.
2. To compensate for the absence of central pawns on the fourth rank, both bishops should be fianchettoed at once in order to exert pressure on the longest diagonals.
3. The knights should be posted on c3 and f3 or d2 and e2.
4. Castling on either side should follow as soon as possible.
5. MGM’s 300 Spartans has no respect for all the classical and hypermodern openings; this fact makes it a truly revolutionary opening. Definitely, it is a future threat to the prevailing orthodoxy in chess strategy.
However, as the cliché goes, to see is to believe; this blogger, therefore, invites the avid chess player to analyze uniquechesser’s (this blogger’s screen name) games on chessmaniac.com.

This blogger urges the Filipino grandmasters led by Eugene Torre, Rogelio Antonio, Jr. Mark Paragua and Wesley So to further develop MGM’s 300 Spartans.

Hopefully, in the not-too-distant future, Filipinos will regularly see this new opening in international chess tourneys.