Accelerated Dragon Reflection Part 1: Introduction and Simple Joys

Hello!

Leaving off from the last post, I will be reviewing my personal journey with the Accelerated Dragon.

My first official coach is Michael Aigner (fpawn), and he taught me the simple,dynamic, and positionally justified opening of the Accelerated Dragon. Some advantages of the Accelerated Dragon:

1. Amount of opening theory is relatively little: The Accelerated Dragon does not have many lines, and 10 moves memorized in every line is adequate for many players. Other more popular openings require more memorization (Najdorf,Dragon come to mind).

2. Development plan is not complex: Fianchetto the bishop on g7,put the knights on c6 and f6, castle kingside, and push the pawn to d5 is the oversimplified version of black's plan for equality.

3. For many less experienced players that may be lower rated, they are less likely to be prepared for this opening. This means a greater advantage for the players with the black pieces because they have a better understanding of the positions arising from the opening!

Below are some of my earlier games in the Accelerated Dragon with some commentary.

Keep in mind that this is a introductory quick overview of the Accelerated Dragon. Please ask questions in the comments!

Playing the Accelerated Dragon as my first opening was a pleasant experience and brought me many enjoyable games.Learning the opening is not difficult, strategic and tactical ideas are easy to understand, and it is a relatively obscure opening, which will have less players prepared for it.

However, as I became a better player, some aspects of the Accelerated Dragon began to irk me. In the next post, some of these aspects will be detailed.