from dragon to goat

I  agree a 1000 times!!!!!

The Dragon is essentially not a defence as such it is a counter attack as black you are going after white.

Trouble is many players quickly learn the Yugoslav attack and can play the opening lines in their sleep.

How many players can say they know the Latvian gambit well, not many the fact that it is considered unsound and has not been played in GM chess makes it a great surprise weapon, also great fun.  

Regards

Dave

I go way back with the Dragon. When I was a teenager in the 1960s (I fear I date myself), the Dragon was my favorite variation in chess. I remember I started playing it because Fred Reinfeld recommended it as an active defense for those who wanted to avoid 1. e4 e5 games (such as King's Gambits where I was always getting my head torn off by superior attacking players and Ruy Lopezes where the theory runs to at least a hundred pages). I was always getting a good game with the Dragon: opening up the c-file and getting counterplay. Then in the 1970s club players in America caught on to the Yugoslav Attack (the now-familiar variation where White supports his e-pawn with his f-pawn, castles Q-side, lines up his bishop and queen on h6, and advances the h-pawn against the castled position). This destroyed the Dragon for all practical purposes. In those days the attack was so strong that experts beat masters with it and class A players beat experts. Thats when I dropped the Dragon and took up the French. Still I played the Yugoslav attack myself against anybody still rash enough to play the Dragon and had great success with it. Then at some point, maybe the 1980s, American club players caught on to the improvements and counter-attack chances for Black. Now the game was a kingside vs queenside race that I often lost. So I gave up the Yugoslav attack too. Now I won't play the Dragon in a serious game from either side of the board: I lose the game either way! I'll avoid it with Closed Sicilian if I have to.

I think that you should learn to pay attention to both sides of the story. The Dragon remains fairly popular with club level players, and that will make publishing books and articles on it a good idea. (Since club level players are more numerous than GMs, and buy more books.) Nevertheless, there are probably reasons that it loses popularity at the top level. The Yugoslav Attack may not be terribly subtle but it remains very dangerous and requires very correct play (read: having memorized a lot of lines) to resist. On the other hand, a White player who wants to stir the game into more positional waters can do so without making too many obvious concessions. Well, you can play the Dragon and it might prove good for you but I wouldn't expect it to be easy.

'The Yugoslav Attack may not be terribly subtle but it remains very dangerous and requires very correct play (read: having memorized a lot of lines) to resist.'

You can't resist the Yugoslav Attack, you have to strike back.

If the black player sits around and does nothing for a few moves, white's attack would crash through easily, because black would not have time to start his counter attack.

I find that the Dragon is nowhere near theoretical as people say it is. The counter attacking ideas in the Dragon often occur in many variations (...Rxc3, ...Nc4 to trade off white's light squared bishop, ...b5 - when the one of the white knights move from d4 or c3, or sometimes a sacrificial option for black to open lines, ...Qa5 etc), so even if the black player occasionally forget the theory, he, knowing his counter attacking and defensive options, should be able to survive.

It perhaps should be known that even if white does open the h file, if black still possess his dark squared bishop, black will not get mated unless white lines up all his major pieces on the h- file.

It should be perhaps also neccessary to say that most players only play the Dragon as an occasional surprise weapon, or to have some fun by trying to play a sharp game.

some people forget to play some key moves in the

Why wouldn't you take back with Bishop? It's fairly obvious that you're putting your queen into the firing line with Qxd4

Well, because the bishop on c4 is hanging.

i play the dragon a lot of times, and between grandmaster white gets to black king a tempo before black does to whites' king by playing the yugoslav attack, but since im not a grandmaster and i play players from 1600 to 2100 rating usually so i play dragon a lot of times (sometimes i play nadjorf or pirc) and i win most of my games with it because not all players have apptitude for sacrificial and violent attacks so not all players answer with the yugoslav and even if they do they sometimes shy away from sacrifices or lose a tempo in the attack by subtle error etc. im not playing against machines but humans so i play dragon a lot of times and i win with it most of the time, if it gets aggressive so much the better if white castles kingside then i get an easy game, both ways its fun, but i admit this defense is harder to play it against grandmasters but im 1750 now so until i become a 2600 or so, i enjoy playing the dragon.

Since we are posting miniatures, this happened in a game of mine:

1. e4 c5

2. Nf3 d6

3. d4 cxd4

4. Nxd4 Nf6

5. Nc3 g6

6. Be3 Ng4?

7. Bb5 +   1:0

every good dragon player knows this blunder i will show you one mistake from whites side

I am currently in the process of adding the dragon to my arsenal, and I've been doing a little research on it. Someone said that if white feels like it they can drive the game into much calmer lines, and this is true. They can go the route of the Fianchetto Variation, and they will go on to play an equal and positional battle. Also, white can venture down the Classical Variation lines and end up with a fairly calm game. There is also the Levenfish Variation that, with correct play, leads to a balanced game.

But I haven't really heard any talk of those lines, because openings can only be judged by their weakest variation, you could say. The Yugoslav Attack is the most popular response, and has several lines. But as I look through my books on openings, none of them can give an insta-win. I think that the dragon, though perhaps being a risk, is no greater risk than any other opening.

The Classical Variation is not as peaceful as it looks, white plans to pawnstorm on the kingside, despite his king is also castled on that side.

However, with correct play, black should get enough play on the queenside and the e4 pawn in general.

ogerboy can you post a diagram or game please?

Timeless

My mistake, ogerboy. You might be able to tell I haven't been playing it for too long. :)