How good is the grünfeld defense?

I remember watching a video and the grünfeld popped up and it looks interesting.

I personally like the position from white. 

I like it! I’ve had great wins with this Indian Game Defence.

You rarely get the mainline as there are a handful of anti-Grunfeld so black has a lot work to do.

As white, pick one anti-Grunfeld and you’ll do alright.

I’ll do some searching

Hanging Pawns does a great job on the handful of variations.

Chuck wanna play the grunfeld with me? 1 game or 2, and whatever time you want?

Yeah we can do that. You want unrated 5/5 so you can run more of it?

Sure I’ll send

its really good and complicated, why do you think top players love it for black? its that good

Ok thank you 

So would it be good for me?

Can you show me anti grunfeld? Also oof, 1200 fide. Is that actually true. So like if someone is 2000 their 1500 fide?

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLssNbVBYrGcAlRd-LHbv9zy9wZ9_RszNy

If you do decide to learn this Indian Defence, it’s very versatile against other lines like the London and English, lastly as a bonus can be played in reversed with the white colors thru the Reti move order (1.Nf3 2.d4 aka Catalan). I use the Reti move order strategy because club players know that I play the English and some lines, I can transpose uncontested thereby getting a preferable position.

I know that you are an e4 player so it will be a big change in positional play, pattern recognition and decision making skills such as:

1. c5 vs c6

2. when to d5xc4

3. Tempo alone can cost you the game 

4. understanding the theoretical battles 

5. piece placements and movements 

6. As I previously mentioned, rarely will you get the mainline so it’s just a chess game that you learn to improvise vs somebody who likes everything scripted.

In my experience, on average it is a bit of exaggeration. Though I am playing much longer games. In those, if my opponents rated  1 700 or slightly higher have an OTB rating, it is mostly around 1 500 FIDE or slightly more, not always of course. 

1 200 might be right for young kids who played OTB quite some time ago. For instance maybe a year ago, I had a young opponent rated around 1 300 - 1 400 FIDE who completely annihilated me, and I could tell that he is just better. But the thing was, he played last classical OTB game 1.5 or 2 years before that, while his blitz and rapid rating was 1 800 and 1 900 FIDE, because he played those games a few months before.

But 10 minute games might be different, I have no idea. 

In essence, Grunfeld is, as far as I've heard, pretty theory heavy and unforgiving.  Does this mean that you shouldn't play it? I mean, after all, we are playing for fun, and because we like the game, you can try it out, it is not like your existence depends on the game of chess.

But pfren is certainly right in the sense that you (and most of us below expert level) will probably not be able to understand "the why" behind most of those moves (though probably you will not get al theoretical moves either against people in that rating range).

Personally, I don't want to base my play on too many theory heavy variations, so I just play 1. ...d5 against 1.d4 (and go for Slav). The only sharper variation I go for is Najdorf as black, and I generally know enough to not get split in half fast too much against people rated below 1 800. 

That might not be the case against much higher rated people, but there it is mostly not the question of the opening anyway...

Oh ok

Oof, so should I study it or wait until I’m a higher rating?

I never knew that you needed approval to move chess pieces?

My last tournament win went like this as most club level games do.

https://www.chess.com/game/live/44598551583

Just wing it since rarely will you get the mainline and never mind an anti-line because you can understand the ideas, themes and strategies to play for.

I accidentally learned the Grunfeld (offline on the app against the engine) on a 3 hour plane ride to Toronto and applied it immediately once I got off the plane.

Or wait until you reach 2400 FIDE…..

Ok