Diagonal Bishops

over the last few months I have notices a rise in players between 1100- 1300 using the twin diagonal bishops opening ( puting both bishops on the diagonal of each rook creating an X covering of the early board) not sure if this is a known opening, but hints on how to combat it would make a nice read.

Cheers, Tea Pot Tim

There are some beginners at my chess club who always go for that setup. In their case they also like to play P-R3 on both sides of the board, which allows me to align a queen and bishop battery at one or both of those R3 pawns, threatening them, which I've found in practice is an effective attack against them since they either end up losing that pawn, or have to waste another 1-2 tempi advancing those pawns to R4, which then weakens their castled king. If they *don't* play P-R3, then I'll often attempt to trade off bishops via B-R6 in front of their castled king (like the Yugoslav Attack of the Dragon Sicilian), which theoretically weakens their kingside protection. In theory they can survive but in their case they simply don't play very well; they only set up an impressive-looking position and then badly misplay the middlegame.

I'm playing a correspondence game right now against a 1500 opponent who fiancettoed both bishops. I just took the center early (why not, since they're giving it up) and traded off the bishop on the side they castled. So far, so good.

Oh, I thought it said 1925! 

More seriously, it's a lot easier to write "R3" than "a3, h3, ...a6, or ...h6." I'm just following the practice that Pandolfi uses in his books. If a player doesn't know descriptive notation, then I regard that as part of their problem, and as something else they need to learn, too.

Oh, come on.

As one of those inefficient algebraicists, I think you really meant to write the more verbose "Oh come on, Oh get real, ...Oh please, or ...Oh you don't really mean that." 

@sqod : what if i write only in my native language?

Thats ridiculous and almost nobody uses descriptive notation anymore for a simple reason : it is not easy to read, compared to algebric notation.

Writing english is more convenient because it is the most used language the same for algebric.

I think that's also a way to respect people here, just try to be practical/convenient for them.

Sorry: In my opinion that is simply poor logic.

Here's an analogy: suppose you want to write the equation for a spiral. Math is universal so there shouldn't be any problem, right? Wrong. If you write the equation for a spiral in polar coordinates, the equation is utterly trivial, but if you write that same equation in rectangular coordinates you have to use a square root and an arctangent, plus a division. Ugly stuff. (https://www.wyzant.com/resources/lessons/math/trigonometry/unit-circle/cartesian-vs-polar-coordinates)

The moral? Each system of representation has its strengths and weaknesses. This is an extremely well-known principle in computer science. For example, a simple graph can be represented in many ways, such as a diagram of circles and arrows, or as an adjacency matrix (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adjacency_matrix). One representation is good for human understanding, the other is good for computer usage and for determining certain characteristics at a glance. Similarly, in chess, algebraic notation is good for describing unit locations, but is poor for describing generalities of position. If you wanted to convey the concept of a corner of the chessboard would you really say "a1, h1, a8, or h8" instead of "R1"? I would call *that* ridiculous. In fact, I would probably just say "corner" instead of "R1". The purpose of language is to communicate a concept as efficiently as possible, so whichever representation best serves that purpose is the best notation to use.

In FIDE tournaments, you no longer have the right to use the old notation for writing down the moves.

Gee, thanks for your insults. You must be a really enlightened person. By the way, not even descriptive notation is sufficiently general for some chess concepts. (https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/s-o-notation-my-own-invented-chess-notation) Am I supposed to apologize for being astute enough to recognize this fact? And why don't you criticize Pandolfini, since (as I already mentioned, though your attention problems must have prevented you from remembering that) he does the same thing in his popular, published books?

I don't see the advantages of descriptive notation. You need more characters to express the same thing.

This conversation I started about fianchettos bishops last year  developed into a squabble about chess notation.

Please lets not get bogged down in that again and players tell me opening ideas to combat fianchettos.

Cheers, TeaPotTim