Against QG

most QG players hate the albin countergambit.  d4 d5 c4 e5

Thanks for all the feedback, next question: approximately how many games should a player go through in order to be well versed in an opening/ defense?

10,000

seriously though 100 should do it.

Tarrasch, I second Smyslovfan

Zugzwang101 wrote:

Thanks for all the feedback, next question: approximately how many games should a player go through in order to be well versed in an opening/ defense?

5-10 if you're u1700 would be quite enough to start with, if they are well-chosen :-)

Thanks, WSchill!

Regarding the optimum number of games to go through... 

I think 5-10 is a bit light, but hicetnunc's "if they are well chosen" may be the key. Five to ten games that have been heavily annotated by strong players is certainly an excellent starting point.

Tigran Petrosian recommended going through at least 50 grandmaster games in a specific opening. His reasoning was that you can begin to see patterns of where the pieces belong even as well as thematic traps in the opening.

Petrosian said that wasn't enough though. You also must work out the precise move orders and find out why some grandmasters chose one move order while others chose another. What were they trying to avoid or encourage?

agree with Snowyqueen. Beginners should start 1. e4 e5 for experiment. Other 1. d4, 1. c4, or 1. Nf3 delays opening up the game when the situation is more favorable. If a favorable situation doesn't happen then close the position for a draw.

I play the Benko Gambit now, after ages of experimenting with the QGD, QGA, Tarrasch, KID, NID. Most of that though was switching around in like my first week of chess, I spent the most time on the Nimzo out of all of those + still quite like it.

Last question: I have collected approximately 340 games in the closed variation of the Ruy Lopez. I have then organised these games into trees of analysis I have also gone over the general ideas behind the marshall, breyer, smyslov, and chigorigin. Problem is I am never going to be able to remember all these moves, am I doing something wrong or does it just take time to do so please help!

Learning a specific line of the Closed Spanish is going to take 2-3 years to reach basic proficiency. This assumes that you will actual reach your chosen variation 2-4 times a month and analyze your games dilligently. I am speaking from personal experiance.

Which one do you play? I assume it is not the Zaitsev, which you did not list. You should focus on one specific variation or even subvariation for now.

Here's the other problem.  You say you are never going to be able to remember all of these moves.  If that's what you are trying to do, you are doing it ALL WRONG!

Opening study should be about understanding the ideas behind each move, not simply to be able to parrot the moves over the board.

Take the Ruy Lopez.  After 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.c3 O-O 9.h3, can you tell me anything that you've done thus far?  Or just regurgitate the moves?

Why did Black move 6...b5 at the time he did, and not do it instead on say, move 4, or wait until move 7?

Why did White play 9.h3?  Why not just 9.d4?  People say the problem is 9...Bg4.  Why is that a problem?  The Light-Squared Bishop can do no harm to d4, can it?  d4 is a dark square.

Well, the truth is, in the first one, White posed no threat to the e5-pawn due to tactics.  For example, 4.Bxc6 (this move is fine) dxc6 (Hmmm...why not take with the b-pawn?) 5.Nxe5 fails to 5...Qd4! (hence why you don't take with the b-pawn) and White can't hold both the pawn and Knight, Black gets his pawn back, and with interest.  However, after 6.Re1, protecting e4, 7.Bxc6 and 8.Nxe5 really is a threat, so 6...b5 became necessary.  As for the latter question, the answer is that a Light-Squared Bishop sure can have impact on dark squares.  In this case, it pins the Knight that is covering d4.  A knight that sits on a light square only covers dark squares, so when a Bishop pins or captures a Knight, the impact it has is that of the squares OPPOSITE the color of the Bishop itself.

This is what you need to do to succeed.  Just being able to mimic moves like a parrot will get you nowhere!

i prefer the queens gambit accepted as black, but i still have to learn it first.

but my first impression seems you are less likely to make positional blunders with it, but its only my first impression, i  have to study it first ofc

In the closed Ruy it might be easier to organize your ideas according to the central pawn structures, rather than pure variations, as there is a lot of manoeuvering involved...

guess qga is not so good anymore in that case

Recently I have been seeing a chess coach that places a lot of emphasis on memorisation of openings, by doing so he believes that one will be able to see patterns forming during play. I have recently adopted this approach as it seems to make the most sense to me. Also I have borrowed an opening book on the Lopez Marshall attack and understanding the ideas behind moves, along with my tree of analysis, and memorization of what I learn to be the most helpful.