Is Alekhine's Defense the best Black move in the opening?

We voted that there would be no vote. Our silence pertaining to the proposed vote was a vote in and of itself (not to vote). Cheerio!

Right. This opening is not about winning tempi but about luring the white pawns forwards to attack the space that will be created backwards of this pawns. The opening is valid as other aswers to 1.e4 are too.   1...e5 1...e6 1....c5 1...c6 1....Nf6 1....d6 1....Nc6 it is all playable.  

You made nothing clear. You just gave an opinion with which I couldn't disagree more. Master level and above scores well with the Alekhine - even at the super GM level. The opening is theoretically sound. Every bit as much as the Sicilian. Not only is the centipawn loss vs 1...e5 comparable to 1...c5 vs 1...e5, but it can be sharp and give a good advantage against players not prepared to face it. The opening is a good one and that's a fact.

Edit: the winning chances do seem to be better with the Sicilian but that's hardly an argument against the Alekhine seeing as how the Sicilian itself offers inferior winning chances compared to other popular repsonses to 1. e4.

The January 2018 issue of Chess lists the top twenty openings compiled from a list of 2740 October games where both players were rated over 2400 Elo. One can not take position on this list too seriously because it is greatly influenced by how the openings are grouped. For example, all the Retis are grouped together, while English is separated into 1...c5, 1...e5, etc. Nevertheless, for what it is worth, some of the list entries are: 175 Retis, 121 King's Indians, 106 Caro-Kanns, 93 Slavs, 89 Nimzo-Indians, 86 declined Queen's Gambits, 65 1...Nf6 Englishes, 63 Najdorf Sicilians, 57 1...e5 Englishes, 55 Guioco Pianos, 53 1...c5 Englishes, 53 Kan Sicilians, 51 Queen's Indians, 47 accepted Queen's Gambits, 47 Catalans, and 45 Berlin Lopezes.

The point? I've already said that the reason people don't play the Alekhine is because their opponents don't play it - people don't want to take the time to prepare it. The argument is it's soundness. I'm not saying the Alekhine is a superior response to 1...e5. But I will take exception to anyone who says the opening isn't sound because that is just wrong. It's just demonstrably wrong. The Alekhine is very sound.

The main problem with the Alekhine - that precludes any worthwhile investment in preparation - is that your opponent may not play 2...e5, the game transposing into a Scandinavian, Four Knights, Vienna etc. So one may feel the opening is a waste of time. I think it's a very good investment of your time because one almost can't help but to respond with 2. e5. And then it becomes very easy for white to overextend and end up worse.

Its a normal defense to the kings pawn, just like anything else like the french, sicilian, caro kan, e5, it deppends on your style and your taste

please open a thread for vote sicilian +1 alkhine still can not vote. alakhine is an passive opening which is created to make a mistake from white ie. with e5 move. but the popular lines are :

• • Alekhine's defence
    1. e4 Nf6

• • Alekhine's defence, Scandinavian variation
    1. e4 Nf6 2. Nc3 d5

• • Alekhine's defence, Spielmann variation
    1. e4 Nf6 2. Nc3 d5 3. e5 Nfd7 4. e6

• • Alekhine's defence, Maroczy variation
    1. e4 Nf6 2. d3

• • Alekhine's defence, Krejcik variation
    1. e4 Nf6 2. Bc4

• • Alekhine's defence, Mokele Mbembe (Buecker) variation
    1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Ne4

• • Alekhine's defence, Brooklyn defence
    1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Ng8

• • Alekhine's defence
    1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5

• • Alekhine's defence, Kmoch variation
    1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 3. Bc4 Nb6 4. Bb3 c5 5. d3

• • Alekhine's defence, Saemisch attack
    1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 3. Nc3

• • Alekhine's defence, Welling variation
    1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 3. b3

• • Alekhine's defence
    1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 3. c4

• • Alekhine's defence, Steiner variation
    1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 3. c4 Nb6 4. b3

• • Alekhine's defence, two pawns' (Lasker's) attack
    1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 3. c4 Nb6 4. c5

• Alekhine's defence, two pawns' attack, Mikenas variation
  1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 3. c4 Nb6 4. c5 Nd5 5. Bc4 e6 6. Nc3 d6

The Alekhine is passive? Yea. And the Caro Kann is aggressive.

Playing the Alekhine you can't be passive or you'll be steamrolled. That's the point. It's about playing actively, controlling the center with pieces rather than pawns, and cause white to overextend.

carlson won a match with 1.h4 (check souren's utube videos ) but alekhine and nimzowitsch is rare top level slow chess.  reason opponents are not playing e4 ?i guess ie. not the exact reason.  if you would be a GM you won't call your opponents b4 the matches " please tell me what are you going to play tomorrow or shall we play alekhine nimzowitsch tomorrow ?  -- i guess you won't . " they do not play because it is crushed by early players. 

The Alekhine has never been crushed - in fact many high level GMs play it to this day, such as Ivanchuk.

Here's a good video - watch from 15:35:

keep playing  i am not going for nf6 . i dnt like my king on 2nd or 3rd rank at move 5 or 6 that bent lersen may like. thx for the videos. 

That's just one variation and it's a dubious move by white. If you can't play correctly in such a situation than maybe you're better off not playing the Alekhine - as I've said the opening is not good for amateur players.

Almost nobody plays Nd7 which is probably busted and too difficult to play OTB.

While the modern treatment with c6 is quite fine.

third tier opening. used by top players as a surprise elements. populer in club level. it is crushed by rashid and players stopped playing it against rashid. Bent larsen was prepared just to surprise tal. some odd games come with alekhine in top level one word it is dubious. plz show me database with occurrence of alekhine i guess rarer than english opening or sicilian.  magnus played 1.a4 and won games;  Ivanchuk playing it and some players are playing  it to surprise means;  it does mean one thing whatever you choose in your repoteir it should be known deeply and sound to you. Alekhine can be avoided.  i dnt like my king on 2nd or 3rd rank at move 5 or 6  bcz of bishop sac or knight sac or blah blah sac. 

Hey man!

Chess theory didnt stop at Nezhmetdinov and Tal's times!

U saw crushing victories for white and so what?

I could show u white's top players being crushed facing Alekhine so i don't see your point, we could tell this for all openings.

Did u really watch and understand Seirawan's video?

He claimed that Alekhine defence, considered a dubious opening by many players, can be the opening for future.

Like Berlin defence on Ruy Lopez with dxc6, which was considered bad at Lasker's times, but nowadays it is a main weapon.

Alekhine's defence is sound, maybe less than 1...e5 or 1...c5, but nothing is really sure. At least it gives a playable game, and as Seirawan said, opponent is already outprepared (almost) at move 1!

i shall give a try in some times if i can prepare myself. i shall play if i can have some time for it .  i am always open to take advise for improvements. 

The popularity of an opening and the soundness of an opening are two completely different things. It's simply fallacious to suggest that those particular qualities correlate necessarily. There are numerous examples that prove this point - I'll list three:

• The Philidor Defense is unsound because it's not played very much at the top level anymore. Perhaps the top players have come to the conclusion that it's not a breakfast for champions. Yet, the vast consensus is that the Philidor Defense is an extremely sound, classical opening leading to solid positions for the second player.

• The Morphy Defense to the Spanish/Ruy Lopez. For a long time after Morphy left the scene, the move was never played. In fact, in those times one may have said, "Perhaps the top players have come to the conclusion that it's not a breakfast for champions." Jump forward to the present. The move 3. a6 is the main response to 3. Bb5.

• The Berlin Defense. For a long time after it was Lasker's choice opening against the Spanish, the move was seen as overly passive and was virtually never played. I guess you could say that "the top players had come to the conclusion that it's definitely not a breakfast for champions. But then along comes Kramnik and the rest is history - and these days, the Berlin can be found in the opening repertoire of virtually every high level chess player alive. 

In conclusion, I really hope you put to rest this idea that theoretical soundness and popularity are mutually inclusive. No offense, as I know it is a popular way of thinking and not just you, but anyone with even a layman's knowledge/recognition of chess history can see that such a notion is incorrect.

Like MickeyDG on page one, I was half asleep and played the wrong Knight and fell into it. As we were both beginners, neither of us understood it (at least I didn't). White kept chasing my Knight all over the board and I thought I'd lose the game before moving another piece! Afterwards I found out there was actually an opening like this named after Alekhine and I couldn't believe it.

As a beginner, I have not studied openings; I am just familiar with the concepts mentioned in some previous posts. I honestly don't understand how the Alekhine is supposed to work, as it seems to contradict many of these opening concepts. 

The Sicilian is, obviously, a very good opening choice. Meeting 1. e4 with 1...c5 rather than 1...e5 incurs a slight centipawn loss, as does the Alekhine and pretty much any other alternative to 1...e5 (an engine without a book really, really likes 1...e5). Personally, I wonder how accurate engines really are that early on in a chess game. There are so many more variables to consider, along with hidden strategic themes. Take away the book and it's very easy for even the strongest engines to come out of the opening worse.

I personally don't play the Alekhine because it's simply too complicated, as most hypermodern openings tend to be. Unless you know how to undermine a center with flank moves and ideal piece placement, you're going to end up suffocating to death while being steamrolled. But if you know what you're doing, obviously hypermodern openings can be very strong.

There are a lot of good opening choices in the Sicilian. If I were a Sicilian player, I'd be sure and incorporate the Kalashnikov into my opening arsenal simply because almost every lower rated player will aggressively try and evict the black knight which often comes at a cost of positional soundness (they also tend to blunder the exchange).

Me personally, I am much more attracted to lesser known openings because that means I will know what I am doing and my opponent will not. But to each their own .

In any case, good luck with your Sicilian. Oh, and be sure and pack a lunch or two because you're gonna be at this a while - the amount of theory out there on 1...c5 is enough to keep you busy for a lifetime. Maybe even two. 

i am afraid of alekhine wwwwwwoooooo  ......