Does London System take skill or any theory? what do you think

It was one game so it doesn't tell the full picture. Ding played well and Nepo maybe wasn't at his best.

I think he could've played a better line as well. Qb6 is most thematic, instead of cxd4. I noticed this dxc4 line was a sideline which wasn't holding up as well for black. Not to say I know better than Nepo if he has faith in that line.

It would be a shame to lose the diversity and beauty of chess openings to have it all replaced with the London. A very depressing prospect.

20...d5 "and white has nothing"

I know it's not quite the orthodox / carlsbad structure yet, but during WCC commentary Dubov was raving about one of Carlsen's wins as white out of a London in that structure where Carlsen "always includes a4" and so did Ding in game 6, and so did your opponent.

Maybe 20...d5 is fine, sure, but it feels like black is on the somewhat difficult side of equality. It may be worth looking for options on moves 10-17 involving the a pawn to get a better version of equality.

Sure it's not quite the same set of minor pieces and ideas (especially with a pawn on d6) but just saying.

Oh, and 57...Rg4 would have been a really nice win... I feel like those moves pop up a lot at the end of games when you're already tired... so hard to find during tournament games.

The london does have theory to it. You can play the Indian gam variation and use it to fork pieces, trap the opponents queen etc

It makes no sense to me. The "best lines" are the ones chosen by players of that caliber.

The line played by Nepo is absolutely fine, Black has an equal game. He managed to give Ding chances after the inaccurate 14...Nd7, and he went on with a few more not-so-good moves.

Luckily enough he did not opt for 5...Qb6 and allow a string of some 20 more home cooked moves by each side.

It's fine but Qb6 is the most critical. This is not just my opinion as it's the main line and most popular with master caliber players.

From master level player results: Qb6 is providing much better scores for black. cxd4 is allowing white much more opportunities to gain an advantage.

"Luckily enough" that is, luckily enough for the London players who are bragging about this game as maybe the result would've been different if he went for critical Qb6 lines.

That really is a weird thing to say that luckily Qb6 wasn't played. "Luckily the best move wasn't played."

This is what the London is. This is what white is essentially forcing black to play in to. There are other lines but it's by far the best. You don't want black to play the best line?

Why 5...Qb6 is "the best move"?

It is one line out of a few which gives equality with best play from both sides.

Actually the current trend is 5...Nh5, but either the line played by Nepo, or the simple 5...e6 are mighty fine as well. Also 5...g6 is a very good line for Black- tested many times at very high level correspondence games (and adopted by patzers like Andreikin).

"Forcing Black to play into" what exactly? There are no forcing lines there. Your logic is severely flawed.

More allowing than forcing. Black can play Qb6 but doesn't have to. Same with the Open Sicilian. White can play Nf3 but doesn't have to.

It's the best move because it best exploits the weakness of bringing out the bishop early, abandoning b2, and also applies pressure onto d4.

To understand this we have to look at this Slav Defence line. The London is basically a Slav Defence a tempo up.

The main moves after 4. Nc3 are e6 the Semi-Slav and dxc4 the Open Slav. The purpose of taking on c4 is that black wants to develop the light square bishop. The problem is that if black immediately plays Bf5 then Qb3 is terminal.

White applies double pressure to b7 and d5. To the untrained eye this doesn't look so dramatic but the pressure on black's position is immense. After 5. Qb3, the engine says black's best moves are Qb6 or Bc8, admitting that Bf5 was a mistake.

I'm sure you've seen this story before with colours reversed. With black a tempo down this really is terminal. When white is a tempo up in the London then it's survivable.

Maybe forcing was the wrong word. What I meant is you are basically playing a line where that's black's absolute best option so complaining about it makes no sense. If you play the London then that's what you can expect.

Ding was lucky and won only because Nepo doesn't read these forums 😁

Instead of hiring seconds and expensive supercomputers, all Nepo had to do was skim through the London threads over the last month here, where it's been proven time after time that White has nothing ( or perhaps absolutely nothing, forgive my frail memory 😁 ).

What you saw in the matchgame today was not a positional masterpiece, it was a testament that Ding is a weak player who wants to hide under a pawn pyramid.

But it goes deeper than that, it's incomprehensible how a 2700+ player simply won't see what a database of 2200+ players says the best statistics are 😁. It's like those horses who refuse to go behind the cart 😁.

Also it sounds to me that you don't know there are best lines 😁. You can find out easily what the best lines are as they are easily determined by running web Stockfish ( not more than 2-3 seconds ) in a browser tab.

Welcome to the forums 😁

Realistically, it is actually likely that Nepo picked a simple but suboptimal line for the London for the WCC, not expecting it to be played.

@ssctk

I didn't just pull this stuff out of nowhere. This is what master's generally prefer, what the computer prefers and the line which has been most successful in the master's database.

Don't argue with me about it. Argue with all the master level players, stockfish and the stats. ssctk knows better though I presume, in all his great London wisdom.

There are many reasons why someone may prefer a simpler line. Maybe he was caught off guard, maybe he was afraid of preparation in other lines, maybe he had something prepared in this line, maybe he feels other lines don't give more, maybe the choice of line had to do with choosing how solid or dynamic he wanted the game according to the game situation. Who knows..

He didn't lose the game because of the opening choice though, so the line and the reasons behind it are largely irrelevant to the outcome of the game.

He's joking, leave him alone.

Christ Ssctk 🤣🤣🤣🤣

I was joking. He was trying to take an indirect jab at me.

What I said is completely correct and I provided all the evidence towards it but he just likes to be a contrarian because he's still annoyed with me about other stuff lol.

He directed his message (again, a joke) towards the entire forum and you took offense.

True, but he never directly argued here with you for an extended period of time, correct? The burden of proof is on you to prove that it isn't you who are annoyed with him for other things.

You make very good points quite often but you also take offense to things quite quickly on these forums.