Defense to e4 - Minimal Opening Theory

My comment was in response to the above.

I actually posted a very similar question a few days back.  I'm about to migrate from  the Nf6 Scandinavian (a very helpful companion vs 1.e4 during the past 3 years) given that the stronger opposition that I'd like to play these days has booked up annoying responses like 1.e4 d5 2.ed Nf6 3.Bb5+) or the Nf3 bust to my beloved Portuguese.

I was looking for alternative systems with open games + low theory.

Seems like the consensus on that thread was a toss-up between the French and the CK, with the Petrov coming in a close third.

I'm thinking of settling with the CK purely because I don't prefer playing Black with the cramped c8 Bishop to begin with.

Hope this helps!

Over the whole robot_house is right, but there are ofcourse exceptions..
You can lose quickly in any opening if you don't know what you're doing, but play in the caro-kann flows very naturally for black.

And I think most people who lose to the Panov Attack don't lose because they get rolled up very quickly, but because they don't know how to play IQP positions. And that means they have to study IQP positions, not more theory.

To be frank though, the OP seems to be around 1200 rating on chess.com, the last thing he needs is to study theory, he needs to practice his tactics, and the ideas of positionall play. At this level just wing the openings and play developing sound ideas, he'd probably be surprised how long he is into theory if he just plays sound chess.

True, but asking for some insight and help is a GOOD idea.  My ranking feel this week from 1222 to under 900.  I should not have been playing as I was not feeling good, but I did and got slaughtered.

Games I can learn from.  Because of this discussion I looked up and practice C-K openings.  An opportunity arose to try it.  Wow, instead of the usual openings, it through a monkey wrench into things.  I also have been looking for a place to try fried liver attack.  If nothing else it throws people off their normal game.  My ranking fell almost 300 points this week and in my outstanding games, I am in trouble is some of them.

But I know the points will return as I work and study and play.  But it NEVER hurts to learn an opening and work it.  Playing is great, but study will get you there faster than just playing alone.

If you do choose the Caro-Kann, then you could take a look at Jovanka Houska's book on Amazon (Play the Caro-Kann). You can look inside the book, and find the variation index. The index alone (3 pages) should be plenty of theory for you :-)

If you find yourself confused by some line, use things like Game Explorer or other databases to find GM games and play through them to see what the usual solution is.

And if you keep playing the defence, you can buy the book and find you are already playing exactly that repertoire :-)

caro-kan

Thanks for all the replies.

The Caro-Kann looks like the best option for me as it leads to more closed games and might have surprise value against people at my level.

I have a book called Batford's Modern Chess Openings (15th Edition) which shows the common lines involved. If anyone can provide further information about how to play the Caro-Kann I would appreciate it.

As someone pointed out, my rating is around 1200. I took a long break from the game and have recently returned to chess, so naturally after losing some games my rating dropped about 250 points. In a way this outcome has led me to study the game and enquire more about the openings.

I am grateful for the advice given here, thank you.

The French is easy i think, and a nice opening.

But if you dont whanna learn it, you can try 1. .. e5. No openings can be played, if you dont whanna spend some time and energi learn its teori and practis.

The Scandinavien can you play to! 1. .. d5. But i dont like to play this.

I would recommend getting to the bookstore and finding yourself a book that covers the theory for the more popular openings. That's what I did.

I agree with the notion of studying tactics and strategy being more important. Theory will only get you to the point where the game departs from the book at which your lost without at least a fundamental understanding of principles and strategy.

If you are going to play the Caro look at the games of Capablanca and Karpov as black.  Then look at the Advance variation as white as that is what you will see the most.  I think it was GM Nunn who really brought the Advance as a weapon for white to the fore and it would be good to look at his games in this line.

There is a game in the database on Chess.com of Kasparov using it (a variation as his opponent tries to foil it) but watch the game.  Most enlightening!  I agree with CarlMI, there are some GREAT games in the Chess.com database that you can view.

The problem is, to fully get things, you might have to up your membership.

 You obviously don't have the 2 Karpov tomes then!

There's an awful lot of theory in the CK & has been for years.

Chess databases are everywhere, many of them free.  Not to cut down the site, but the game database is not why I have a premium membership.

The most solid defense  and with minimal  required  theory  is French.Against  3.Nd2  and  3.Nc3  you choose  3...dxe4(Rubinstein) so you basically have one answer against two very dangerous variations.You can follow with 4...Bd7(Suba) or the extremely interesting  4....Qd5!?(Katalymov)  which is something  like  French Scandinavian but without losing the tempos and the queen is likely to stay  at the centre.Don't play Scandinavian,it is difficult to handle and basically the pawn structure is the same with French Rubinstein(FR).FR requires minimal knowledge of theory.In fact if you just study some typical games and understand the basic principles you are ok.Of course there is also the 3.exd5(anti-Alekhine)which also requires  just understanding  and very few lines  and 3.e5(Nimzowitch) that requires some theory knowledge but nothing to difficult.If you like closed positions as you say somewhere(if I am not wrong) this is definitely the right choice.I teach ten years now and whenever a student of mine had a problem with theory this was the magic solution that saved me more than once and the results are impressing.Notice also that the pawn structure of FR is the same not only with Scandinavian but also with some variations of Caro-Can and in some cases with Queen's Gambit ,so understanding how to handle  it will be beneficial in more than one ways.

I can give you all the information you need.Just send me a message.