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Openings: Stats Worst To Best

Openings: Stats Worst To Best

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nate36604
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For you beginners this is Part 2 of Chess for beginners the blogs where I show key things I learned to players catching on to the game, even if your not the beginner it's still good to refresh your memory. In this blog you'll learn

1. What are openings

2. What are the stages of the game

3. Why are the openings important to learn

4. The tactical and strategical ideas around each opening

5. How to identify openings

6. How to play against them

7. The main ideas of each opening

So With That Out Of The Way Lets Get Into The Blog.

So what exactly are openings? Well openings are determined by the first "opening moves" The opening can range from the first 2 moves to the 16th move and up. So what are the stages of the game? There are 3. Opening, Middlegame, and Endgame. Why are openings so important to learn anyway? Well without them chess, would not really be chess and more importantly so you by reading this blog can learn to identify them. Well lets get into the list to answer each now I wont name every single opening, I am determined to make this blog high quality but that many openings aren't going to really help since. 1. You won't face every single opening, and 2. All openings or at least most of the main ones sprout to the complex openings we know today. So here is the first opening, at the worst place spot we have 

The Ruy Lopez:

So how do we get to the Ruy Lopez opening well

The Ruy Lopez has a terrible reputation for its large variations that swing the position in blacks favor and slowly develops the pieces. Now I will show you a game as white that I play and then a game from a titled player. I will not annotate any moves but I will show respectable ideas.

       I was white.

    As you can see while I managed to win, but my position almost crumbled under the strong threats and counter-play. If my opponent did not hang there queen I would have a destroyed, and lost position where the best thing to do is resign since only a failed sacrifice of the queen, or a hanging of the queen, would be the only bailout prayers. Since my open king unable to castle by hand safely or by short or long. Was restricted the game would be completely dominated by my opponent, 

So even a experienced play as me should have a bad time as white then, right?

Well no.

I was black 

 and after that I was black, and I resigned since not only was I out of ways to stop them from mating me, it was M5 or mate in 5.

Though a lot of variant's go against the Ruy Lopez, like the strong but most natural a6  

This is called the Morphy after GM Paul Morphy

Like this game featuring Pal C Benko 

So that means if you can't hold your ground as black you're position wont stand for long and will crumble.

Overall:

The Infamous Ruy Lopez opening

is a unsound structure while can bring a ton of chances to both, the games move length is morally determined by who makes a mistake first. Whoever makes a mistake there position goes with it. It is terrible for open positions and whoever leads the open position will have very bad chances for winning.

Next up is the Nimzowitsch Defense: Declined  

I was black in this. 
And M6 was on the board
Ok so my opponent resigned
This opening will be hard to cover but is overall a sound, very strategical and tactical opening. Which can lead to complex seemingly unsimplfyable games where its hard to get a win. But advantage wise, there are a lot of chances for both sides. Both sides enjoy comfortable games where positional collapses are rare. 
Other key aspects are very sharp games and the hardest part of the Nimzowitsch Declined is the race for a lead in development so disruptive but developing checks like with the bishop are crucial for a break in the stalemates in the center and flanks.
Some important fighting happens in the flanks and its the only solid opening that really has this happen.

To be honest this is not a great example of a game. Because there was so many chances to take a pawn at the end. But does bring back up some key points. Even though in the beginning it looked hopeless for white with there kingside gone. They remained completely in the game. After castling, the game was set for a safe and comfortable endgame.

3 More to go and the slightly better but Usable 

Slav Defense:

 The Slav defense is a very thematic and hypermodern opening that sprouts from the Queens Gambit it can be a chaotic and very aggressive opening at times, and it, has a lot of way to attack and defend.   

Game with Viswanathan Anand