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Want to improve your Sicilian Defense? Accelerated Dragon (B36) The sicilian defence is a popular choice among club players. For instance the dragon variation usually ends in fierce, tactical battles. The accelerated dragon offers challenges of its own - although it can transpose into the "ordinary" dragon. Perhaps you can come up with a better plan? This opening is full of opening traps and tricks. This tournament is for all those that like to explore different openings in a competetive environment.

In your opinion, what is the best defense against 1.d4?

Theme tournament - Ruy Lopez The Ruy Lopez - or the spanish game - is perhaps the first opening that you learned after italian (perhaps). It is more offensive ... pinning the knight right away and it often leads to a balanced game. Yet, it is not children's play. It is used by players on all levels from my daughter on 8 to Kasparov. It is a "fair" opening in that usually the higher ranked player wins (so the moral is: if my daughter meets Kasparov, she should learn another opening first :) Please, have fun! the tournament is for all those that like to try out different openings in a competetive environment. Two games will start for both sides. The best player in each group will advance. good luck.

This happened to me it's not really a opening and it depends on a blunder but it was really early game

Hi all! We're about to embark on a new series of tournaments and I hope everyone will really benefit from taking part. The idea is to go through some of the more regularly used openings (especially at super-GM level) in a logical way and learn about opening theory through playing these sound openings. Popular opinion would have us start with e4 openings, so we'll go through the important lines of each of the main replies - c5, e5, e6 and c6. Each tournament will be expanded to 8 players. As the group grows we might have 2 or more tournaments for each opening. I will set up the tournaments and invite people directly. As always, it is first come, first served, but if there is sufficient demand we can easily setup another tourney. I encourage our members to check out the games of other people and to discuss theory with each other in the chat window. Please post your analysis of the games and any thoughts on particular moves and strategies. Remember, this group exists to help us improve our skills in the opening stages of the game - it doesn't really matter if we win or lose, so just go for it! Cheers JJ

Just to let you all know, there is a new theme tournament regestering now on the King's indian defence The tournament is for all those that like to try out different openings in a competetive environment. Good luck.

The Sicilian Defence is the most common opening played in chess at all levels. It offers black good attacking prospects and can turn into a sharp tactical battle or a slower positional game, depending on the player’s preference.The Dragon variation of the Sicilian Defence can be an extremely aggressive line and is played frequently at GM level. The Najdorf variation is even more popular at GM level and we shall look at it in our next tournament.What is the difference between the variations? One little, seemingly unimportant pawn move! Dragon – 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6 Najdorf – 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 So what’s the big deal? With 5 …g6, black develops his dark squared bishop so that it looks along the long a1-h8 diagonal. This immediately implies there will be some action on the queenside, especially considering the half-open c file where black can place a rook, looking into the depths of white’s position. With 5 …a6, black spends more time moving pawns than getting his pieces out – going against traditional opening principles! So why is 5 …a6 so popular? We’ll deal with that when we start the Najdorf tournament. The Accelerated and Hyper-Accelerated Dragons refer to where the g6 move comes in the move order – the earlier you play g6, the more accelerated the dragon! We currently have a tournament featuring the Hyper-Accelerated Dragon and will investigate the Accelerated Dragon sometime in the future. Strategic thoughts:The exchange of black’s c pawn for white’s d pawn leaves black with a central pawn majority (he has more pawns in the centre). As the game progresses, black intends to push these pawns claiming more space and causing white some problems. In the meantime though, white has developed his pieces much more quickly and wants to get in a good attack before black has the chance to get his pieces developed and push those central pawns. By moving the bishop to g7, black has lost the natural defender of the pawn on d6, so any advance of the e pawn will leave the d6 pawn looking weak. Also, the d5 square looks like a nice place for one of white’s knights in the future. Black would like to push his pawn to d5 at some point, but white wants to stop this. In the Dragon, black often decides to go for some counterattacking on the queenside using his pieces rather than worrying about trying to advance his central pawns. This is a bit counter-intuitive to the standard Sicilian strategy, but seems to be the way things often work out. Another common theme is the exchange sacrifice (swapping a rook for a knight) on the c file, messing up white’s queenside pawn structure and giving black some nice options in exchange for a material investment. Sound interesting? Well, try out the Yugoslav attack if you really want some fireworks! (See below for the move order to reach this position). By castling queenside, white gets in a mad attack before black can unleash his own attack, leading to very sharp positions (a sharp position is one where there are lots of tactics going on while a quiet position has few tactical battles and more positional play). Common VariationsWithin the Dragon variation there are several common options:Classical [B72] – 6.Be2 Bg7 7.Be3/0-0 or 6.Be3 Bg7 7.Be2Yugoslav Attack [B75-79]– 6.Be3 Bg7 7.f3 0-0 8.Qd2 Nc6Levenfish [B71] – 6.f4 Nc6By the way, the numbers given in square brackets refer to the ECO numbers for the openings – ECO is the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings. More to follow as our tournaments progress. Play well!

The seventh Opening Skills Theme Tournament has been created. It can be found here. This tournament will feature the Benko Gambit (as seen below). Invites will be sent out to all those who post here or message me for a request. I will begin the tournament once it is full. Once again, this is a first come first serve basis. Good luck to all :)

we could have some puzzles in this group. also, rather than just having tournaments how about forums explaining and discussing new openings?

The third Opening Skills Theme Tournament has been created. It can be found here. This tournament will feature the Sicilian Defense: Hyperaccelerated Dragon (as seen below). Invites will be sent out to all those who post here for a request. I will begin the tournament once it is full. Once again, this is a first come first serve basis. Good luck to all :)

The fifth Opening Skills Theme Tournament has been created. It can be found here. This tournament will feature the Scotch Game (as seen below). Invites will be sent out to all those who post here or message me for a request. I will begin the tournament once it is full. Once again, this is a first come first serve basis. Good luck to all :)

The sixth Opening Skills Theme Tournament has been created. It can be found here. This tournament will feature the Reti Opening (as seen below). Invites will be sent out to all those who post here or message me for a request. I will begin the tournament once it is full. Once again, this is a first come first serve basis. Good luck to all :)

The first Opening Skills Theme Tournament has been created. It can be found here. Invites have been sent out to the first four people to respond. I will begin the tournament once it is full. If the first four people decline or do not respond promptly, I will send invites to the next person to ask for an invite (and so on) until the tournament is full. Once again, this is a first come first serve basis. As soon as this tournament begins, I will create another new theme tournament. Edit: The first tournament has been changed to the King's Gambit (C30). Good luck to all :)

The fourth Opening Skills Theme Tournament has been created. It can be found here. This tournament will feature the Bird Opening (as seen below). Invites will be sent out to all those who post here or message me for a request. I will begin the tournament once it is full. Once again, this is a first come first serve basis. Good luck to all :)

The second Opening Skills Theme Tournament has been created. It can be found here. This tournament will feature the Scandinavian Defense (as seen below). Invites will be sent out to all those who post here for a request. I will begin the tournament once it is full. Once again, this is a first come first serve basis. Good luck to all :)