follypersist | in a riddle whose answer is chess

The most popular opening for white in any game of chess is 1. e4.

Against this, against all odds, my favorite response is 1...g6, and then against the inevitable 2. d4, to reply with 2...Nf6. It's the "norwegian rat" defense, inviting 3. e5 in a way that is reinforced by d4 compared to an Alekhine's defense, but the g6 pawn allows 3... Nh5 without being immediately captured by white's Queen. As white, you can ignore this and proceed with your own plan, or try to take advantage of your exceptional space, and black's knight and bishop each having some appetite for g7.

And yet... despite needing to work twice as hard to get something equal compared to a traditional opening, I like it. You can convince yourself that there's positional advantages to setting white's pawn structure for them, or tactical advantages in getting the queens and/or one color of bishops off the board, but neither is true. What you have on your side is novelty, and the spirit of the underdog. Like any strategy, by deciding in advance that you will change the situation, you can leave the hard choices to your previous self and instead focus on the moment. With one consistent folly, your response is intuitive, the mutual experience is novel, and the mutual world is richer!

Anyways, I think that's my approach to gender.