Uh...only up to the first three moves?
Playing QGA and QGD
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Phoenyx75 wrote:
I have always played the Queen's Gambit on chess.com, for a total of 1176 games so far, so I have some experience in it, even if my rating isn't exactly stellar :-p. I think you could do well to check out the wikipedia page on it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen%27s_Gambit
At my rating, the most common response has been Queen's Gambit Accepted, probably because at my rating level, we tend to eat pawns if we can (I'm finally learning to hold back sometimes :-p). This is not Masters' first choice, according to both chesstempo.com and chess.com's databases for Master openings. The 2 most popular choices for Masters would be the Queen's Gambit Declined- Slav Defense, followed by the original Queen's Gambit Declined (2...e6), with Queen's Gambit Accepted coming in third. The stats over at chesstempo.com's Master game database are this:
2...c6: Played 61,321 times.
2...e6: Played 44,982 times
2...dxc4: Played 15,960 times
Masters in general tend to do almost equally well with all 3 responses to the Queen's Gambit. However, the highest rated Masters tend to do best with the original Queen's Gambit declined.
Anyway, what you probably want to know is how best to respond to these 3 opening moves. For myself, I chose to follow Stockfish's responses when calculated at a fairly high depth.
For the Slav and the original QGD, it chooses 3.Nf3. 3.Nf3 is Masters' most popular choice in the case of the Slav as well, but in the case of the original QGD, Masters actually play 3.Nc3 more often. I'm pleased to notice that the highest level Master games (2700+ vs. 2700+) do slightly better with 3.Nf3 even if it is still less popular than 3.Nc3. Even Stockfish only favours 3.Nf3 by the slimmest of margins at a depth of 44.
As to my response to Queen's Gambit Accepted, I play 3.e4, as per Stockfish's recommendation at a depth of 45. In the past, it recommended 3.e3, so I used to play that. At a depth of around 45, it listed Nf3 as its second choice. 3.Nf3 is in fact the most popular choice of Masters, but I notice that they actually do better with their second most popular choice, 3.e4.
So there you have my recommendations for how to respond to the top 3 moves that Masters tend to make in response to the Queen's Gambit :-).
Thanks a lot! But...what’s the reasoning? I mean, these are just normal developing moves...
Feb 5, 2019
0
#4
I think the main idea is that black struggles to hold onto the c4 pawn if they take, so the gambit is usually declined. I'm hardly an expert on it either, but I do know there's a line where white wins Ra8 when black tries to hold onto the extra pawn too strongly.
I think it's something like this
Well, yeah, but I don’t think that most people would allow the loss of a rook so easily 😉. What about QGD?
I usually never play d4 when I’m white, but I am thinking of doing so especially in blitz because queen pawn openings are more solid and less likely to erupt in difficult-to-calculate-in-little-time tactics.
Could you guys help explain some of the goals and general plans associated with the QG? Like, what is the general idea? And what should I look out for?
Additionally, a bunch of lines would be helpful too 😊
thanks!