A dispute over an opening arose between chess content creators ChessMaster and Anna Cramling. ChessMaster channel host, Maksim Omariev, recorded a video criticising Anna Cramling’s new ‘Bull Opening’. Maksim explained that this opening is called ‘Beaver’s Claw’. Omariev notes that he has used this opening for several years.

Maksim Omariev

Maksim Omariev

FM, content creator

“I have never participated in YouTube fights, any disputes or trash-talk… But Anna Cramling, a popular blogger, released a video titled ‘I invented a brand-new chess opening: the bull opening’.

Funny, because I played this exact same opening with her several times. For the first time back in 2023, it was already called ‘Beaver’s Claw’ back then. Later we played several more times. But nevertheless, she decided that she ‘invented’ a new opening.

Basically, she could have said she liked this opening, or that she thought it was powerful. But the word ‘invented’ itself slightly outraged me and made me record this video.

Because ‘Beaver’s Claw’ was invented a long time ago!”

Anna Cramling responded to Omariev in a YouTube post:

Anna Cramling

Anna Cramling

WFM, content creator

“It has recently come to my attention that what I called the ‘Bull Opening’ in one of my last videos already exists and is called the ‘Beaver’s Claw’, created by FM Maxim Omariev. In fact, he has apparently played it against me twice in the last few years, but of course I didn’t remember that at all when making the Bull Opening video.

I wanted to apologize to him and his community as it was never my intention to ‘steal’ an opening. It was just me getting really excited about winning some games with these new moves I had myself never played before and at the time I did not know it was already made popular by him.”

The ‘Beaver’s Claw’ opening is a playful start to the game that involves pushing the h-pawn from the first moves. The channel owner with 668K subscribers, Maksim Omariev, came up with the name for this opening and began actively using it in his videos and streams in 2023.

The ‘Beaver-Bull’s Claw’ has been used as a joke by chess players for a long time. In the 1970s, Bulgarian master Yordan Adjanski sometimes used this opening in his games.

Credit: Michal Walusza / FIDE