I will review your openings and help you improve them(any opening)

Bet, what do you think of my lines on the Rousseau gambit

What I have learned from experiencing these unique gambits is responding immediately with either d4 with white or d5 with Black is the most reliable reply, second most reliable is to play d6 or d3, but those systems don’t really cause trouble for your opponents. Those “d3” and “d6” replies tend to be more passive and defensive in the opening. When I first saw this position today after not seeing it for over a year I thought 2 things; another name for this opening might be the “Latvian Gambit” and does the tried and true d4 work? Then I put the position in the engine and sure enough d4 was its favorite response. I also learned from experience when your opponent sacrifices the f-pawn in the opening, from a psychological and practical standpoint it is best not to take it. You think “what does my opponent want, what does my opponent want me to do and why?” They want you to take their f-pawn to either miss place your Knight on f3 or f6 by pushing the e pawn OR because it grants them the most thematic attacking chances. Also the lines where you take on f4 in lets say the King’s Gambit are the line they studied the most by far or the ONLY lines they studied/looked at! I am even guilty of doing this myself. Whenever I play the King’s gambit I know what to do if they take, but If they play a move like 2. Bc5 or d5! I’m out of preparation and having to think on move 3.

Your final position looks promising, but what about if they don’t take and play d4 instead? I’m not saying you should stop playing this opening, but for openings that are dubious like this one you should know the least desired line much deeper than your opponents. A perfect example would be the line in the Englund Gambit, this is the main computer line, I learned this when I was playing the Englund Gambit and I know the refutation so deeply that I stopped playing it because there are opening where you sacrifice a piece that are more playable than the final position

Okay I found a way Black kind of equalized, but my advice is if your opponents find this variation I came up with during their game play a different opening like the Dutch, Scandinavian, Black Lion, or the Sicilian so you can still keep this aggressive style but not have a position with both of your Knights on the sides of the board, having no other pieces developed, and your King still in the center of the board.

I understand what you're saying, but I showed a variation with d4.

I don't like this sequence since I personally wouldn't fall for it in the opening if I actually am calculating: putting 3 pieces under attack at the same time and even if when I get the Rook and pawn, I win the Rook for to pieces which stronger players know better than to do that especially when now White is going to be behind in development. I will admit I need to come back and look at all of this stuff you are showing since I didn't look at every line the first time. I really don't like the idea of playing for tricks like this but so long as you are winning game it fine. Of course it is much easier to play gambits and openings like these than to learn and play the Najdorf Sicilian. I just really hope you are learning valuable things like the importance of time and development in the opening, and the importance of calculating and not just playing off of your gut feeling like in the QH5+ line. This way when you reach the next level you will be more prepared and have learned more than just how to get up a piece in 15 moves with the Rousseau Gambit.

I play the Sicilian kan and the scotch gambit. Against 1. D4 is don’t know what I want to do, I want to play the nimzo-Indian, but everyone either plays nc3 or bf4, plz help. Thx in advance

This is my latest game (small yt creator): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cTSXmxci_0

I play g6 against everything. Check my YT channel There is one new game daily. If you don't get to see game as black, you can have a look how I approach the game from white side. I play 1.g3 and d5 is quite frequent answer as well

Well it makes a lot of sense, in my opinion the closest attempt for White to get a concrete advantage in the opening is indeed by playing e4. Many times when you don't play e4 or c4 immediately a seasoned player plays d5 since in most opening Black's goal is to play d5 to equalize.

Well I am more of a fighter so I would accept slightly worse position in order to keep winning chances rather than play something like a Grundfeld with the simple goal of drawing. It makes sense to achieve draws with black on Top Level but I am and will be far off probably forever. So for me it makes sense to play opening that offers me the most chances to play for two results

I’m a 1250, what would recommend as a response to d4. Tried the Dutch but I didn’t really work. Also no one plays 2.c4 at all

*follow up: After 5… f4 6. Nf7 Qh4 my original reaction was there is no attack after either Qf3 or g3. Then I realize after Nd4 in response of Qf3 and in response to g3 Black later has ideas of d6 or d5 followed by either Bg4 and or Bh3/Bf3 and this is in the addition to Nf6 to g4 idea. So then I thought congratulations you once again managed to create a mess of the position. Then I recalled my f4 line I analyzed last night and why White can’t just keep developing like normal because the Knight is no longer protected. I recalled the computer’s suggestion of h4 and how I dismissed it because it makes very little strategic sense, this still is the case it is purely for tactical reasons since it stops Black’s Qh4 ideas dead in their tracks. But quite literally your opponent playing White would have to find this sub optimal line AND find h4 but only because when Knight moves even though it looks winning but Black has Qh4 ideas complicating the position. If some how white manage to reach this position with the Knight on f7 without looking at this with an engine White either has to short castle and try to survive Black’s attack even thought it looks quite dangerous, play g3 and on fxg3 play fxg3 and be willing to give up the rook for the light-squared Bishop, the only other Qd2/Qe2/Qf3 and deal with both Be3! and Nd4 idea depending on which move White chooses.

A side note: the Nxc2+! Qxc2 exd3!+ was i nice find

I want to say you should play attacks that are just scarcely looking but actually dangerous, especially since you have the tactical mind for it. The only reason why I’m not instructing you to do this is because the only way to correctly do this with Black is to “parry” and “counter-attack” White. So if you want to be the only one attacking even with Black the only way to do this is with Gambits, just be prepared to play a worse endgame when someone finally manages to survive your attack. If you are going to play in such a dynamic and attacking style I recommend making sure around AT LEAST 15-25% of your training and studying is spent on calculation exercises and puzzles where you actually have to think for a while and the solution doesn’t jump out at you immediately. The two free trainers I recommend are the “training mode” on the “Tactics Frenzy” app by Magnus Carlsen, the other being the rated puzzles on lichess.org(not only do they increase i difficulty the higher you progress in rating but you can select a specific difficulty relative to your puzzle rating level). I would’ve also recommended “Art of Attack in Chess” by Vladimir Vuković but I’ve only read like 20 of 350 pages of his book.

At least for everyone in the forum we have established “DON’T TAKE THE PAWN ON F5, IT’S A TRAP!

3 more links:

1. https://lichess.org/training/mix

2. https://www.playmagnus.com/en/tactics-frenzy#/mode

3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SH-rVb81Dt4

You can only play the nimzo-indian against 1. d4, I’m not sure if you are mixing up the moves or not but if you play Nf6 against 1. e4 that is the Alekhines Defense and completely different opening. Nc3 is actually the main line of the Nimzo-Indian. For example: 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4(mainline Nimzo-Indian). If they play Nc3 before playing c4 then there is a very high chance they don’t understand the ideas behind the d4 opening, you are 1200 rated so i don’t want to go too deep into the reasoning why but:

1. half of the reason to play d4 is to prevent white from playing e5, so Black many times plays d5 to prevent whites pawn from getting to e4.

2. Then White attacks Black’s pawn on d5 by playing c4 followed by nc3 to maximize pressure(2 attackers on d5 pawn) forcing Black to either capture on c4 or defend the pawn with another pawn and followed by a Knight on f6.

3. When your opponent plays Nc3 before playing c4 then just play d5 and you get a superior Queen’s Gambit declined structure where White isn’t even attacking your d-pawn

4. Your opponents are probably playing Bf4 and and Nc3 to later play Nb5 and threaten a fork between your rook and your King by play Nc7+, fairly common at your rating. If they play BOTH Bf4 and Nc3 then you can play a6 and you shut down the idea completely. On the following move you can also play c5 and attack their pawn without having to worry about having the IQP structure

In my opinion Bf4 is an inferior move because Black gets everything they want in the opening since White didn’t challenge them at all, but this is standard in the “London System Opening”.

Bf4 Nc3 by far an even more inferior set up because not only does Black get what they want: be able to play d5 without the pawn being attacked but after Black deals with the Nb5 idea White is partially at loss of what to play, my temptation is to play e4 but its not so simple since after Bb4 the e-pawn has to be defended with Bd3(Qe2 blocks development and fianchetto isn’t so optimal in this position for White). But now that e4 has been play aside from denying the Rook to move to b8 I don’t see much of a valuable purpose to the Bishop on f4 in this position, I much rather have it on e3 or g5, but then that would be burning yet another move in the opening. Even if I do decide to move it to one of these squares, then that raises the question of “what was the point of putting the Bishop on f4 to start the game?”

*By the way, “a6” is not the strongest move but it is the simplest one to remember and doesn’t really hurt your position or commit your pawn structure too much in anyway

Against Nc3 before playing c4: if white plays e3 in this position they almost certainly get hit hard by either “c5” or “d5 followed by c5” against a good player.

Funny, in just about every other position I showed you Black almost always won a higher percentage of games. But as I thought the engine agrees Black is better yet White wins 64% of the time after Bxc3+ and 71% after Nxf4; and on the other options there is not a large enough sample size to reach an conclusive summary of meaningful statistic. I just feel like either play d6 or playing c5 and rather than recapturing playing Nc6 is the right way to go. It is important not let up on pressure by taking the pinned Knight before White forces you to. The other important thing is that Nge2 was interesting to me because it is tricky and might tempt a less experienced player into taking the Bishop on f4 and wrongly believing they have stopped White’s attacking chance when in some ways it is Quite the opposite.

*I just realized it probably would’ve been much better/simpler to look through your games and provide you a specific line to punish them than to give a broad lesson and explaination on why their setup is sub-optimal and you should be more than happy to see people play it against you

For the Ruy Lopez the first thing I need to do is go through your games and assess your level of experience and middlegame understanding to see where we are starting at. Okay I just finished looking at your last 8 or so blitz games. Your issue is fairly common and simple but not “easy solution”. You need to work on capturing undefended pieces and recognizing when you are moving pieces to square your opponent is already attacking. I recommend watching Chess Bootcamp and Chess Vibes on YouTube, they have the best games for someone at your level to watch.

Style recommendation: we all shift around from one time format to another, you play a lot of bullet games and I’m telling you now its time to get back to blitz games so you can actually “think” during the game. Also I prescribe you play puzzles for 5-10 minutes each day for one week, this should boost your tactical vision and your skill at not losing pieces. Keep playing e4 and e5 with both Black and White in every game win or lose, this will make you improve the fastest. Most importantly is to play multiple blitz and rapid games a week because you will naturally improve doing this alone.

If you are wondering why I’m not giving you any diagrams it is because I don’t want to overwhelm you and explaining advanced concepts of these incredibly complex openings you asked about won’t help much when some of your games haven’t even lasted 12 moves because someone was lost too many pieces or “hung their Queen” and resigned. But come back to me in about 2-4 weeks after trying my advice for some time, then I will gladly explain the foundation of the Complexities of the Ruy Lopez