Ruy Lopez:Closed, Zaitsev System

Named after Igor Zaitsev, a trainer of Anatoly Karpov, who played it in his world championship matches against Garry Kasparov.

It is reached after 18 moves: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 d6 8. c3 O-O 9. h3 Re8. It is a line of the Ruy Lopez.

White is to move and has 28 legal moves. Over the next four moves — two for each side — the game can branch into 745,011 different games. Those games reach 257,317 different positions: most positions can be reached in more than one way, 2.9 on average.

No later position on this line has a name of its own in the Lichess opening list: the names end here.