END your 1.d4/London/closed game/positional woes forever with 1.d4 e5!? 2.dxe5 d6 3.exd6 Bxd6!

if you want to play dubiously for a quick win and for that dopamine rush then go ahead. but if you actually want to improve then stop playing your little ¨quick win¨ gambits

gambits are not all bad. some are good, some are bad. i sometimes play the benko and kings gambit and they work quite well, but thats because the ideas behind them are sound and you have legit compensation

here you have a big center and better development and activity for a pawn.

here you have absolutely nothing to compensate for your lost pawn

another great example is the smith morra/danish/göring gambit. these gambits have classical sound principles behind them. you use the open board and development advantage to take advantage of weak squares and checkmate black.

danish/goering are low on my priorities list after seeing my scandinavian stats are worse than I thought. I really despise that toothless target blind positional straightjacket with every fiber of my being.

back to TEDIOUS, & not as promising as rousseau, luccini gambit research. at least my falkbeer research is complete. well, I guess not today as clunky website refuses to cooperate today.

well the site finally cooperated, and after a couple hors of simple copying and pasting over 100 lines with transpositions, still in the luccini, my head is hurting

after a frustrating loss when an opponent queenside castled and thwarted my c2 aimed bishop with 3 pawn pushes, this "found my open lane" game in an annoying sideline was refreshing

gik-tally, I fully support anyway you wish to play.

chess maybe the last frontier where a man can live or die by his own choices. And accept the benefits or consequences as such.

but I do have to call issue with your comment about cowardly Vulcans hiding behind their pawns earlier in the thread.

I as one of those "cowardly Vulcans" as you described us is to me " illogical!"

some of us like the Caro kann and the QGA. And the exquisite beauty of a Karpovian game slowly squeezeing a position till there is nothing left but resignation. Or the silent realization on your opponents face that he cannot stop the pawn regardless of his best attempts. or the knowing that THAT file, THAT square, or THAT diagonal belongs to me!

Live long and Prosper

Gik-Tally, I would be interested to know what your OTB record is with the Englund Gambit? And what the strength of your opponents are there?

No offense, but the Englund gambit is utterly refuted. It is just not a good opening, and white can maintain his advantage relatively easily. It is more of a one-trick opening, in which won't get you very far. Though I suppose in fast blitz it is still playable.

EXACTLY

gik-tally, do you have any games where white does not play 2.dxe5?

I was curious what your thoughts and ideas are around say of white playing 2.c4,... instead?

I play my rating or higher, and my current stats are 43:53 with it, and I've had a losing streak, but that's not the point, well, compared to my WAY BEYOND PASSIVE losing slav wall stats, it kind of is. I love the open center and mobility WITHOUT vile despicable i hate them with a burning passion, get over it, fianchettos.

It's a stand up fight against sneaky pawn pushers I'm trying to drag on my battlefield with the weapons I'm most comfortable with. I'm going to have to start booking up.

There are no acceptable alternatives for me. It's WHY I quit playing a decade ago and only did tactics puzzles when i wanted to PLAY SOME CHESS.

I will play nothing BUT open file tactical

I support you brother!

chess is a vast sea and there is room for everyone to swim.

exactly.

i believe that in order to get better you need to learn how to handle both positional and tactical games, and this gik-tally dude is just too lazy to do so. maybe if he learned how positional games work and how to win in a positional game, he might get better, but for now he will stay as as some 1300 blundering away pieces exclaiming that "its what my god Mikhail Tal would do!" as he proceeds to lose the game down 2 pawns and a knight because he didn't use the "compensation" he had correctly.

hi cellen

you're to dang lazy to learn how to READ before you open your mouth!

I don't get positional AT ALL!!! I TRIED to learn the SIMPLE pawn ending over 2 days with 4 books and NEVER ONCE even completed a chapter. my brain isn't wired for ABSTRACTION! I'VE SAID IT A MILLION EFFING TIMES TROLLBOY!!!

I'm a VISUAL thinker and positional concepts are INVISIBLE MUMBO JUMBO. You think I ENJOY this handicap?!!

Boden mating? I learned THAT instantly the first time I read THAT chapter in a book and STILL retain that UNDERSTANDABLE concept.

I have name and number dyslexia. that might be why positional makes ZERO SENSE to me at all. just pawns drive me crazy. I effing despise pawns! I don't know how to play them at all which is why I've learned to compensate with minor piece sacking can opener attacks to get the annoying little bastids out of the way. they're sneaky little monsters in my world and the tool of cowards afraid of a stand up fight.

this is my style. for what I lack in in positional know how, I make up for with creativity and tactical vision (unless pawns or pressure are driving me nuts trying to find a way to grab some initiative).

an opening that denies me tactical opportunities, like the stankwall and skankanavian are wastes of my talents and hold me back.

give me an truly aggressive and active start, and i'll end opponents QUICKLY. in looking at my gedult BDG games, I not only have a winning record with it, but never found a game that took more than 20 moves to win in over a dozen yesterday. I haven't even studied it like i did the main line BDG which I did poorly in, like pretty much any opening that plays Nc3 or Nc6 1st.

there's NO POINT in wasting time studying positional voodoo. I don't get it, i know i don't get it. that's life.

I will continue to improve my rating by finding MORE openings that suit my style so I can solve problems the same way this opening solved my 1.d4 problem, the alapin diemer SERIOUSLY solved my french dread, smith morra is the ONLY line I've beaten sicilians with, and stumbling onto the mieses gambit in the carokann by accident has led to a nice winning record there.

I win my games playing my way.

stonewalling LITERALLY holds me back where hartlaub charlick has set me free to find targets to chew on.

keep arguing that my winning stats are somehow "broken".

i would quit chess AGAIN and go back to just doing tactics exercises again before EVER adopting a toothless wussy GM approved pawn pushing coward's opening. I'm still trying to get rid of them as it is. fahgah scandinavian!!!

gambits for life!

and I like taking vulcans (I'm actually MORE logical than ANYONE here as a mastermind personality type and borderline logician) out of their plans and dragging them out into the open and stomping them every chance I can. like that annoying pawn pushing game above.

when you take a positional player out of THEIR safe space, they tend to crumble, unable to PLAY CHESS with their PIECES, to defend properly against attacks and so on. you drag a positional player down to gambit level accuracy, and they aren't as accurate as they THINK they are.

this is a mieses gambit game, but it's perhaps the most perfect example of defeating positional with tactical I've played

I was getting VERY annoyed at my opponent's pawn pushing crap until I decided to make my stand, and once I did, my pieces were PERFECTLY CO-ORDINATED for non-stop carnage.

if my pieces aren't ready to spring, I'm not happy, and if I get unhappy enough, I just don't want to play chess PERIOD as happened when I had enough of the stonewall and scandinavian with no adequate tools to study theory with, and until I found hartlaub charlick, no adequate theory to study.

there is NO 1.d4 reply BETTER suited for MY STYLE than this, and it only took me 20 years to find

YES, because it is self-imposed. The only barrier preventing you from learning positional play is your own defeatist attitude. Your brain isn't 'wired differently', you're just being lazy. Stop using genetics as an excuse to give up.

gik-tally, I love the meme!

all I see is Leonard Nimoy saying " pure energy".

now, to the chess. that Mieses opening was a good game! the second chess book that I ever read was Mikhail Tals 100 best games. it ruined my chess lol.

then I read How Karpov Wins by GM Edmar Mednis. and things made sense again.

as far as the Mieses goes, I wouldn't play exf3. white gets too much development.

as for the Englund, I have experimented with 1.d4,e5 2.c4,... and possibly Nc3 depending on play.

black has 3 choices:

1) take, exd4.

2) advance, e4

3) defend, d6 is the most logical. and black has entered a KID structure by default.

I used to play an expert level player who only played the Englund gambit against d4. that is how I would take him out of his game.

they dont. You just refuse to learn them

That feeling is relatable.

Though I also feel inclined to point out that 2 days of working isn't that much, in any craft or pursuit.

Sometimes, the effort that's required to properly learn a skill is better measured in months or even years, not days ...

There have been some chess lines and positions that I have wracked my brain against for countless hours, coming back to them again and again ... sometimes this kind of tedious work is required to reach a break-through - that "ah-hah!" moment that you've been trying to reach for weeks upon weeks.

Sometimes, it's like digging down through the soil. Digging, and digging, and digging ... Until your shovel finally strikes the wood of a buried chest.

But those chests will remain buried if one refuses to dig.