Let's Play: Rank the Bad Opening!

5.a3 is pretty easy to remember. I won't call it a refutation. It's not outright won for White yet, but it sucks a lot of fun out of the Albin for Black.

well i heard an im say he hates the albin and has problems with it. I cant imagine he would not remember a3 on move 5.

not to mention the im that plays the albin against him in a tournament...

but yeah maybe you are right, just because some are ims they ofc can still be incorrect sometimes. i havent checked it and i dont play it myself. 

I just like the idea of the opening because it seems so counter intuitive to play that moves. I mean seriously, when would you ever come up with such moves?? i

For ranking these openings from worst to playable:

1.Englund Gambit (Horrible)

2.Halloween Gambit (Terrible)

3.Cochrane Gambit (Unfathomable)

4.Parham Attack (Good for schoolkids...)

5.Albin Gambit (Played it once and got a really interesting game out of it)

6.Budapest Gambit (I believe this is played most in professional games)

7.Traxler Counter gambit (I've personally won loads of games with this)

But what about weird openings such as the Sodium attack and Van't Krujis Bouncing Bishop opening? I believe that can be easily countered.

So... assuming Black plays maybe 6.Bd6 instead of that blunder, Black's better developed. White's Queen is out of the action and his other pieces are doing nothing. Meanwhile Black's bishops are activated, his knights are out, his rook can be placed on the f-file. He's ready to rock and roll. And white has to spend further moves just to keep his queen from being lost.

I don't know much about this opening though. Maybe White can answer all of those challenges, and is in fact won. Regardless, I don't think Black will give White a chance to ever play this opening, because 2...d5 has surely got to be better than 2...b5, kicking away the bishop and taking the center.

It's a clever attack, and the principle behind it appears in other openings like the Queen's gambit or the old Benoni--if someone tries to take that c pawn and hang on to it, they could lose a rook. If you want to try a really offbeat out-there opening you could give the Orangutan a look.

now you kidding,  you cant seriously say e3 is a bad move, you still could play d4 afterwards or f4 or even as you mentioned c4.

1.e3 is a bad move, especially if you intend to play 2.d4 whatever your opponent plays, why not play 1.d4 ? At least you haven't trapped your Bc1.

Maybe not as bad as 1.f3, but still bad.

Against 1.e3 I simply answer 1...d5 and let my opponent wonder why he has played this move :

After 2.d4 the position is the same as 1.d4 d5 2.e3 but none sane would play 2.e3 in that line.

After 2.c4, already 2...dxc4 3.Bxc4 e5 is a good game for Black.

After 2.f4 (maybe the best from the first move), Black has to be careful not to be overambitious in the center or he falls back in the lines of the Dutch with one less tempo, but otherwise he is fine. For instance ...Nf6, ...g6 and ...Bg7 and if White stonewalls by d4 just jump at the outpost e4.

irontiger i think im missing something, yeah it might be pretty embaressing to ask but i do it anyway. wouldnt 2 e3 just transpose later to other regular d4 lines or can black really take advantage of that move?

No, it does not transpose, because your bishop on c1 is now blocked by the pawn. You won't be able to play it to g5 for instance (his usual square in the 1.d4 d5 games). So yes, Black can take advantadge of it. Maybe the game is just equal after that, but White who has problems with his bishop instead of White in the regular lines, so it is much easier to play for Black.

yes you are right i totally forgot bishop g5, but i guess there are also lines without it and e4 will be played later anyway

im just asking out curiosity now, i totally forgot about bishop g5 but i imagine an entire openings as big as those d4 openings would not necessarily depend on that move to be played with advantage, even so ofc bishop g5 helps e4 i guess.

anway thanks for the help

You really have seen e4 played before the endgame in many games that began by 1.d4 d5 ? Not me. And anyways, if ever you want to play the pawn on e4, why do it in two moves (e2-e3 and then e3-e4) ?

I agree trapping the bishop is not so terrible, and there are ways around. But that totally ruins the first move advantadge, at least. It is not because it is tiny that you should renounce to it as soon as move 2 when you can do otherwise.

@tetsuo : Certainly there are some lines where White plays e4, and where it 'prepares it'  by (=he has to play before) e3.

The problem is that by 2.e3 you are restricting your options much sooner than you should, and the opponent can react accordingly. This is a very general principle : as long as you can do so without losing ground by inaction, keep all options open, the opponent will have to take them all in account. This is the reason of the old principle 'keep the tension in the center'.

Seriously? So even though Grandmasters can make 1. g3/b3  part of their repertoire you are going to overrule them?

That's your research? Outstanding.

BTW 1. g3 has a 38.5% win percentage for white vs 27.2% for black.

No I'm saying your summary that they are the only good/OK openings is laughable, and claiming they are the only ones with winning records is wrong.

With my rating I wouldn't be qualified to make such judgements of openings.

@HurricaneMichael1 Please do not fall into the trap of thinking that database winning percentage is strongly correlated with opening strength

@Ozzie - database winning percentage is weakly correlated though. If there is a sufficient pool of games among strong players from the past 20 years where the difference in rankings is adjusted for, there is something that can be empirically gleaned from the W/D/L rates.