Well now you end up in a chigorin but you don't play those lines against 1. d4, so that's not very ideal. Not that I would recommend you base your decision on whether to play the dutch on how it handles the Van Geet. Probably your 1. e4 response would be a better basis for a decision.
Oh, you play the Kann... I guess you'll have to learn this Jobava line then -
Well now you end up in a chigorin but you don't play those defenses against 1. d4, so that's not very ideal. Not that I would recommend you base your decision on whether to play the dutch on how it handles the Van Geet. Probably your 1. e4 response would be a better basis for a decision.
1.Nc3 d5 does not end up in a Chigorin, if you mean the Queen's gambit variation. Isn't the Chigorin d5 d5 c4 Nc6, that is Black plays Nc6 not White Nc3? What are you talking about?
That's the chigorin defense, but there's also the chigorin variation which is 1. d4 d5 2. Nc3, or 1. d4 Nf6 2. Nc3, this is whites chigorin... It leads into the Veresov / Jobava. As a dutch player you don't face this but most players do
It's a sideline called the Irish gambit, not the mainline but it's alright, you can transpose it into the two knights sicilian via 3. Nf3... which is another move the Van Geet player knows
Well that's good for you I suppose. Did you ever face white playing the Chigorin?
Looks like your winrate with d5 was alot higher - maybe that will change though, who knows.
I'd rather play 4. e4 there. Though I would actually play this setup if I wanted to reach a chigorin-like position from the Van Geet -
Once again....
To reiterate with point...
None of you are GMs, IMs and probably not even NMs...
So giving advice like you are... makes you look well......
Moronic also to cite GMs using it in situation where they are looking to throw off another GM's prep...
YOU ARE NOT A GM, NOR IS ANYONE ELSE HERE A GM ...
AGAIN.... to give advice like your a titled player ... not a good look... Especially if you don't know what your talking about.
Apparently repeating "you're not GM!" 8 times is what constitutes critical thinking about the opening for this person.
A vulnerable king and weak square complex is dangerous at low elo as well as high elo. What's actually moronic is your idea that logic about the opening somehow only becomes relevant once a player reaches titled status. If your king is weak... this effects the moves available to you and your opponent. Just a very simple glance at the distribution of winrates across openings at various elos confirms that the dutch is performing worse at lower elo compared with other openings... immediately disproving your suggestion that there is no difference. So we can just move on from this bad idea.
And not every game reaches the endgame, or remains close until the endgame... once you get a significant lead, assuming you aren't bad, you can generally hold on to it... we can tell by the statistics that this is also true at low elo - it's why gambits such as the Smith Morra have winrates in the 30% for white in certain lines even at low elo (i.e. 'below titled' according to your definition).
Btw - I don't think I'm interested in advice on the opening from a 1400 player. If you knew the opening well you'd be at least 1600.
Under 2500... one could play the same opening evey tournament for years ... and if they know what they are doing... the only thing that their game suffers from is self boardum (he means boredom). I FORGOT TO mention Simon Williams got his GM norms playing the Classical... (While being told the Classical is unsound)
Simon Williams openly acknowledges the dutch is dubious, he plays it anyway because he enjoys it... but he doesn't lie to himself about it.
It's interesting that you chose 2500 elo specifically as the cutoff considering you know nothing about play in that elo range.
When you compare openings at any elo you're dealing with relative differences in their effect on elo.
I see you've also suggested that we aren't capable of thinking critically about the opening until we're at a titled status... Only a complete dunce would ever suggest this. Please do not project and force your duncery onto me and others. Even if it were true, which it isn't... you would never reach titled status without going through the effort to think at a higher level, it's called using your brain and developing your thinking abilities.
Secondly... that long dead GM was a world champion named Botvinnik... who played it extensively. And... I recall Nigal Short playing the Stonwall Dutch extensively. .... Topolav played the Lennigrad var also exstensivly....
And Botvinnik is from the pre-computer era, and Short used it largely as a winning weapon, which is what it's mostly suitable for today...
Btw you can find some GM playing every opening in the book, especially as you go back in history, but you would not therefor conclude that every opening in the book is equally viable, because that would just a completely retarded conclusion.
I know, your brain is about to explode, I understand.
You’re not a GM… yet you keep preaching like you are one.
I’ll say it 8 more times if I have to.
FYI.. I’m close to your elo on LIchess and Chessbase … (which isn’t saying a whole lot…) AT THE END OF YOUR CHESS ENDEAVORS… HATE TO TELL Ya BUD …. YOUR Amateur GAMES GO INTO THE SAME Amateur PILE THAT MINE DO !
please still your ego...
BOREDOM… a retort from a cell phone (with a spell check that has a mind of its own) at work that took 3 seconds… what did your diatribe take .. 2 hours ?
"Simon Williams openly acknowledges the dutch is dubious, he plays it anyway because he enjoys it... but he doesn't lie to himself about it."
Yet, he kept winning with it because he knew where the weakness are…
"I see you've also suggested that we aren't capable of thinking critically about the opening until we're at a titled status..."
The exact opposite … it is you who is preaching that…
I’m saying what was validated in “ Unconventional Approaches to Modern Chess” by GM Alenander Ipatov ( a titled player who is a lot stronger than you! )
In which he states the following:
Devoting most of your training to opening theory is a mistake, the opportunity cost is too high… what other knowledge could you have acquired with that time? His message is.... one needs to be smarter and avoid following the trend of memorizing fashionable lines (something you are obviously are advocating!) He acknowledges most chess professional's skills drop drastically once they are out of their books (he states the same thing happens to the amateur!)
He draws two distinctions between “theory and practice” I’m para-phrasing Ipatov here “ As far as openings are concerned, there is a plethora of less studied or even totally neglected lines that can be studies and successfully and implemented over the board (the Dutch defense is just one of them) the whole point is to be unpredictable, to incorporate several lines. The majority of players (IMO like you and me) will simply turn the engine on smile and think “I’m .+07… I am much better here and stop preparing…. Ipatov is all about the practical game of chess! (so am I)
He points to some serious misconceptions (IMO That you obviously believe….)
A) Studying opening theory will make you a better player.
B) One should always follow the first or second line of a chess engine
C) That “IN THEORY” is equivalent to OTB… It is not! The last fallacy is especially dangerous because it implies that a player will keep on making the best moves in OTB and therefore sidelines should never be played, as the opponent will always find a way to retain and convert an advantage. That is theory and NOT actual PRACTICE most players will feel like a fish out of water once they end up in a position that is objectively better for them, but one that they never have seen before ( My own experience torching several much higher rated opponents using the Colle koltanowski var hits home for me…. FYI..... Why do you think the London system is such a rage at the super GM level… ??? Exactly what Ipatov is writing about…is the reason!
Sorry Bud… The Dutch defense totally is in line with what he is advocating… along with a whole host of openings and defenses that avoid main stream theory!
In this two volume set… is game after game (example after example of professional players using off beat repertoires or sidelines of mainstream openings to achieve success … and guess what there is a section on the Dutch… Oh snap!
Go butter someone else's toast... what your serving smells
Devoting most of your training to opening theory is a mistake, the opportunity cost is too high… what other knowledge could you have acquired with that time? His message is.... one needs to be smarter and avoid following the trend of memorizing fashionable lines (something you are obviously are advocating!) He acknowledges most chess professional's skills drop drastically once they are out of their books (he states the same thing happens to the amateur!)
Firstly I'd like to point out that citing some random GM who wrote a book espousing a bunch of uncommon openings including the dutch is hardly a serious argument. Why? Because there are GMs that will tell beginners to play every opening under the sun from the Queens Gambit (Hikaru) to the London (Williams) to e4/e5 (Kramnik) and everything else... while some will tell them to completely ignore the opening (Finegold) and others tell them to focus on the opening (Kramnik, Naroditsky) or play many different openings (Magnus)... You can find a GM with any opinion that you can name on how to improve or how not to improve... I'd also like to point out the irony that your author advises to ignore the opening while writing a book on openings. I will address your argument, but I just would like to note the poor foundation on which it is based.
I'd also like to point out that this conversation has not been specifically aimed at beginners. You're losing the thread of the conversation. The claim made, which you took issue with, is that the dutch is not really very good. Now you are morphing this conversation into some debate about learning lines at low elo... that isn't the point of contention, it never has been. We can debate that too, there are things to be said here too, but it's a whole new can of worms.
- Intuitive play does not favor the player whose king is exposed and being attacked. It is harder to defend than to attack. The Dutch is generally not an opening you just play in a principled way, ignoring theory while expecting to succeed... it is sharp and there are many early gambits and attacks against it... surviving in the Dutch requires precision, actually. Like one little misstep and you can get punished brutally. You would have experienced this for yourself if you'd actually played the dutch before, but you admittedly haven't. I have played it. So... why should I take your opinion seriously in any way?
You're correct that you get the opponent out of book, but you are not correct that you are therefor free to ignore the book. The main value proposition of the Dutch is really that, in getting your opponent out of book, you can outplay the opponent with precision. Not every opening requires this level of precision, but when your king is exposed and you're facing an early attack you must be precise. If you want an opening that doesn't require alot of theoretical knowledge then play a system opening.
- When we talk about the prospect of playing an opening we're not just talking about the opening phase of the game, but also the middlegames / endgames it leads to. In the dutch the king being exposed is actually a long term weakness - long after both players are out of the opening the king remains a liability. I played the Leningrad at one point, and losing a well played middlegame or endgame due to a check at the end of a line is quite a common occurrence. So this whole idea of yours that the issues with the dutch are entirely confined to the opening is complete nonsense too. But anyway...
- This is a tangent, but at low elo it actually is not that common for players to have a very deep opening knowledge. Striving to get your opponent out of book, and making positional sacrifices in the process, actually has less value at low elo, not more. Simply because by move 8 in almost any opening your opponent is just already going to be out of book. It's also much easier to get your opponent out of his "book", however deep it may go... because his book isn't very wide. So making some major positional concession like exposing your king is just not needed when a sideline in the QGD is going to be completely new territory for the opponent. Does your super-genius GM address that issue in his book?
But we don't really need to speculate very much about whether a line will work at a given elo, because we have the winrates. We can see how the lines are doing... the dutch does just kind of sub-par, its not the very worst line, it gets alot worse when the opponent plays sharply... but it's certainly not doing well.
We're getting sucked into this tangent about low elo play even though it is unrelated to the conversation, but whatever. I used to play the Leningrad... before wisely I abandoned it. I feel it is an epic variation, very fun to play and leads to interesting whole-board positions. However, I am not going to delude myself into believing it is a strong opening, it is dubious at any level... and this is something the player accepts when they play it.
He draws two distinctions between “theory and practice” I’m para-phrasing Ipatov here “ As far as openings are concerned, there is a plethora of less studied or even totally neglected lines that can be studies and successfully and implemented over the board (the Dutch defense is just one of them) the whole point is to be unpredictable, to incorporate several lines. The majority of players (IMO like you and me) will simply turn the engine on smile and think “I’m .+07… I am much better here and stop preparing…. Ipatov is all about the practical game of chess! (so am I)
But our argument is about the viability of the dutch specifically. You're going off into completely divergent territory.
There are tons of much better ways of getting the opponent out of book that don't involve making major positional concessions that may lead to you clinging for dear life for the first 20 moves. The tarrasch and semi-tarrasch will get your opponent out of book up until like 2200 elo, I can tell you that firsthand.
And people do prepare for the dutch. Another mistaken assumption people make is they assume that the frequency of a move is directly proportional to the level of prep players will have for it. This actually isn't the case... I have a line prepared against the dutch, I've posted it in this thread.
And how long, or to what elo, do you expect this black hole of opening knowledge regarding certain less common lines to remain intact? What elo was your GM author even targeting? Because I'm pushing 2000 and striving to go beyond that, as are many players on this site. You're still 1400 - I don't know what your elo actually is but if you're pushing 1800 players will start to know the lines at that point. Which means you should learn them. And why are you so lazy, anyway? What else is it that you're actually focusing on...? Can you share it with us? Again I find it so ironic that your GM gives this advice to ignore openings but then the only thing he can think to write about is a bunch of openings. But anyway... this is a tangent that has nothing really to do with our original disagreement, but it is more nonsense.
A) Studying opening theory will make you a better player.
B) One should always follow the first or second line of a chess engine
C) That “IN THEORY” is equivalent to OTB… It is not! The last fallacy is especially dangerous because it implies that a player will keep on making the best moves in OTB and therefore sidelines should never be played, as the opponent will always find a way to retain and convert an advantage. That is theory and NOT actual PRACTICE most players will feel like a fish out of water once they end up in a position that is objectively better for them, but one that they never have seen before ( My own experience torching several much higher rated opponents using the Colle koltanowski var hits home for me…. FYI..... Why do you think the London system is such a rage at the super GM level… ??? Exactly what Ipatov is writing about…is the reason!
There are so many problems with your arguments here...
Firstly, the argument we're having about the dutch is just not contingent on any of your arguments here... For example, whether studying opening theory will improve your fundamental skill as a player says nothing about whether the dutch is a good opening. The arguments made against the dutch have not even been primarily based on engine eval, but the fact that the king has been exposed and this is a long term liability. As for your third point... playability is the main issue with the dutch - again, it is far harder to play with an exposed king. The engine eval of the dutch isn't good, it's like +0.28 - but in practice the dutch is actually worse than this due to the exposed king. The Leningrad may be objectively sound, but that doesn't make it viable... and that point has been made repeatedly in this thread. You aren't even paying attention or following the conversation... Playing openings that dramatically compromise your position, like openings that open up your king, will cause you to lose games. This has nothing to do with your arguments here.
But I'm going to address some of your arguments directly anyway, even though they're completely tangential to our conversation, because they are bad in their own right in a few ways:
A) if studying opening theory didn't improve your ability to win games there would be absolutely no reason to strive to get the opponent out of book. And yet... your argument is that we ought to strive hard to get the opponent out of book. This is a logical contradiction, your argument is incoherent.
B) Studying the opening develops pattern recognition, to claim otherwise is simply nonsense. Multiple GMs, including Magnus Carlsen, recommend playing many different openings as a way of developing pattern recognition and improving general skill. It improves flexibility, it also broadens your understanding of plans in the middlegame... Studying openings does improve general playing ability. Furthermore, the opening is an essential part of the game - it is like a third of the game. You cannot just neglect a third of the game and expect to get good... you're correct that that there is more to the game... but that is completely irrelevant, since no one ever suggested otherwise. And again I'll remind you that this entire point is a tangent since it has nothing to do with whether the Dutch is a good opening, but anyway....
In this two volume set… is game after game (example after example of professional players using off beat repertoires or sidelines of mainstream openings to achieve success … and guess what there is a section on the Dutch… Oh snap!
Well firstly, if your argument is that club level players don't need to know opening theory because it's beyond them... citing pro level games doesn't substantiate that point. You'd need to cite low elo games. But anyway... we don't need to rely on these useless anecdotes for how an opening performs, we can just look at the winrates of certain lines at a given elo.
And I'd love to hear just how high in elo you think a player should go before learning the opening. You said we're not GMs - are you therefor suggesting we should wait until GM to learn the opening? That's complete nonsense.
If you succeed in getting your opponent out of book, but you don't have a book of your own, and in the process you've compromised your position... you're just at a disadvantage, there is no real benefit to this. Except that maybe it allowed you to be lazier. In the Dutch White can put alot of pressure on black early. Black needs to play precisely to survive. Black needs to know his theory to survive. There are other openings, such as the QID or nimzo indian, that you can generally play intutively... especially at club level. They aren't as sharp for black.
It's a reasonable question because the explanation just goes ignored anyway. But the moment you start seriously debating chess - to make serious statements about and analyze chess requires alot of logic, chess is quite complicated... but that's also what makes it a good game. So do you want to seriously discuss the issue or not? Are the claims people make in here meant to be taken seriously, or not? Chess is probably the most analyzed game there is, but even with the heavy usage of computers it still will never really be solved, because it's that complicated... there are just many aspects to it. Like there are human elements in addition to the objective elements.
The Honest answer:
The Dutch Defense shouldn’t be used as your main defense past the rating 1,850.
The Dutch Defense does a trade off.
The Dutch trades positional soundness for tactical dynamics.
Laymen terms:
The Dutch creates Weak Squares, but tries to Checkmate White before White catches on to Weak Squares.
——————————————————
The White Line killing the Dutch has No Official name, but it is similar to the Catalan.
I like to call it the Knock off Catalan line or KOC for short.
Alternative names I have seen people call it is the King’s Fianchetto Line or G3 Line.
—————————————————
Anyway, The KOC line is the Dutch Killer with the highest win and draw rates vs. Dutch.
What makes the KOC line so dangerous is that it is a Positional line which can take advantage of all the weakness Black will make and the Line has a Fianchetto which Fianchetto lines add an extra defender to the White King to help fend off any attacks.
And that is how the Dutch loses, GG!
—————————————
The problem is the person your playing against needs to be strong enough to know how to take advantage of the weakness Black is making. This means the player needs to have good positional skills which generally isn’t a skill player train or practice.
Beginner train themselves on Tactical puzzles, but not a lot of Positional Puzzles.
I think you will begin facing players with good positional understanding around 1,850.
Get a more solid line to play regularly. Than mix the Dutch in as a surprise weapon against certain opponents to throw them off or see if they know how to handle it.
Mixing in lines like the Dutch can be great in chess matches for example.
——————————
Around 1,500
The most challenging lines you will face will be the Gambit lines.
The Gambit lines are not really that good for White, but people in the intermediate range usually like to play Gambits.
It’s a very popular Gambit range.
I would say around 1,400 to 1,600 is where all the Gambit Happy players often hang out.
They will play stuff involving e4.
e4 right away or Nc3 + e4
They just want to sac a pawn and attack you.
——————————
Keep in mind, the intermediate players can have extremely strong tactical abilities.
All the tactical puzzles they do combined with a gambit line can be extremely devastating.
It will not be easy and you will need to book up hard on those variations in order to survive.
The good news is Black can do fine in those lines and if you book up well enough. You can farm a lot of points from the intermediate players to raise your ranking.
———————————
Overall, The Dutch Defense is a playable line. You just have to adjust accordingly.
Beginner level - Dutch can be your main weapon vs. 1.d4
- Dutch is often recommended to beginners as an easy to learn line.
Intermediate level - Dutch can be main weapon
- Dutch can farm a lot of points from aggressive players.
Advanced level - Dutch should be used more as secondary weapon.
- Use it more as surprise weapon
- Use it in a Chess Match to test your opponents skills against it.
Only thing I want to add is I have seen Advanced level chess players try using Dutch as main weapon. The biggest draw back is your rating because a roller coaster.
The Dutch is often labeled as a High Risk, High Reward type of Opening.
Your rating can jump up 200 points or plummets 200 points.
‘It’s very extreme on how it wins or loses.
Devoting most of your training to opening theory is a mistake, the opportunity cost is too high… what other knowledge could you have acquired with that time? His message is.... one needs to be smarter and avoid following the trend of memorizing fashionable lines (something you are obviously are advocating!) He acknowledges most chess professional's skills drop drastically once they are out of their books (he states the same thing happens to the amateur!)
Firstly I'd like to point out that citing some random GM who wrote a book espousing a bunch of uncommon openings including the dutch is hardly a serious argument. Why? Because there are GMs that will tell beginners to play every opening under the sun from the Queens Gambit (Hikaru) to the London (Williams) to e4/e5 (Kramnik) and everything else... while some will tell them to completely ignore the opening (Finegold) and others tell them to focus on the opening (Kramnik, Naroditsky) or play many different openings (Magnus)... You can find a GM with any opinion that you can name on how to improve or how not to improve... I'd also like to point out the irony that your author advises to ignore the opening while writing a book on openings. I will address your argument, but I just would like to note the poor foundation on which it is based.
I'd also like to point out that this conversation has not been specifically aimed at beginners. You're losing the thread of the conversation. The claim made, which you took issue with, is that the dutch is not really very good. Now you are morphing this conversation into some debate about learning lines at low elo... that isn't the point of contention, it never has been. We can debate that too, there are things to be said here too, but it's a whole new can of worms.
- Intuitive play does not favor the player whose king is exposed and being attacked. It is harder to defend than to attack. The Dutch is generally not an opening you just play in a principled way, ignoring theory while expecting to succeed... it is sharp and there are many early gambits and attacks against it... surviving in the Dutch requires precision, actually. Like one little misstep and you can get punished brutally. You would have experienced this for yourself if you'd actually played the dutch before, but you admittedly haven't. I have played it. So... why should I take your opinion seriously in any way?
You're correct that you get the opponent out of book, but you are not correct that you are therefor free to ignore the book. The main value proposition of the Dutch is really that, in getting your opponent out of book, you can outplay the opponent with precision. Not every opening requires this level of precision, but when your king is exposed and you're facing an early attack you must be precise. If you want an opening that doesn't require alot of theoretical knowledge then play a system opening.
- When we talk about the prospect of playing an opening we're not just talking about the opening phase of the game, but also the middlegames / endgames it leads to. In the dutch the king being exposed is actually a long term weakness - long after both players are out of the opening the king remains a liability. I played the Leningrad at one point, and losing a well played middlegame or endgame due to a check at the end of a line is quite a common occurrence. So this whole idea of yours that the issues with the dutch are entirely confined to the opening is complete nonsense too. But anyway...
- This is a tangent, but at low elo it actually is not that common for players to have a very deep opening knowledge. Striving to get your opponent out of book, and making positional sacrifices in the process, actually has less value at low elo, not more. Simply because by move 8 in almost any opening your opponent is just already going to be out of book. It's also much easier to get your opponent out of his "book", however deep it may go... because his book isn't very wide. So making some major positional concession like exposing your king is just not needed when a sideline in the QGD is going to be completely new territory for the opponent. Does your super-genius GM address that issue in his book?
But we don't really need to speculate very much about whether a line will work at a given elo, because we have the winrates. We can see how the lines are doing... the dutch does just kind of sub-par, its not the very worst line, it gets alot worse when the opponent plays sharply... but it's certainly not doing well.
We're getting sucked into this tangent about low elo play even though it is unrelated to the conversation, but whatever. I used to play the Leningrad... before wisely I abandoned it. I feel it is an epic variation, very fun to play and leads to interesting whole-board positions. However, I am not going to delude myself into believing it is a strong opening, it is dubious at any level... and this is something the player accepts when they play it.
He draws two distinctions between “theory and practice” I’m para-phrasing Ipatov here “ As far as openings are concerned, there is a plethora of less studied or even totally neglected lines that can be studies and successfully and implemented over the board (the Dutch defense is just one of them) the whole point is to be unpredictable, to incorporate several lines. The majority of players (IMO like you and me) will simply turn the engine on smile and think “I’m .+07… I am much better here and stop preparing…. Ipatov is all about the practical game of chess! (so am I)
But our argument is about the viability of the dutch specifically. You're going off into completely divergent territory.
There are tons of much better ways of getting the opponent out of book that don't involve making major positional concessions that may lead to you clinging for dear life for the first 20 moves. The tarrasch and semi-tarrasch will get your opponent out of book up until like 2200 elo, I can tell you that firsthand.
And people do prepare for the dutch. Another mistaken assumption people make is they assume that the frequency of a move is directly proportional to the level of prep players will have for it. This actually isn't the case... I have a line prepared against the dutch, I've posted it in this thread.
And how long, or to what elo, do you expect this black hole of opening knowledge regarding certain less common lines to remain intact? What elo was your GM author even targeting? Because I'm pushing 2000 and striving to go beyond that, as are many players on this site. You're still 1400 - I don't know what your elo actually is but if you're pushing 1800 players will start to know the lines at that point. Which means you should learn them. And why are you so lazy, anyway? What else is it that you're actually focusing on...? Can you share it with us? Again I find it so ironic that your GM gives this advice to ignore openings but then the only thing he can think to write about is a bunch of openings. But anyway... this is a tangent that has nothing really to do with our original disagreement, but it is more nonsense.
A) Studying opening theory will make you a better player.
B) One should always follow the first or second line of a chess engine
C) That “IN THEORY” is equivalent to OTB… It is not! The last fallacy is especially dangerous because it implies that a player will keep on making the best moves in OTB and therefore sidelines should never be played, as the opponent will always find a way to retain and convert an advantage. That is theory and NOT actual PRACTICE most players will feel like a fish out of water once they end up in a position that is objectively better for them, but one that they never have seen before ( My own experience torching several much higher rated opponents using the Colle koltanowski var hits home for me…. FYI..... Why do you think the London system is such a rage at the super GM level… ??? Exactly what Ipatov is writing about…is the reason!
There are so many problems with your arguments here...
Firstly, the argument we're having about the dutch is just not contingent on any of your arguments here... For example, whether studying opening theory will improve your fundamental skill as a player says nothing about whether the dutch is a good opening. The arguments made against the dutch have not even been primarily based on engine eval, but the fact that the king has been exposed and this is a long term liability. As for your third point... playability is the main issue with the dutch - again, it is far harder to play with an exposed king. The engine eval of the dutch isn't good, it's like +0.28 - but in practice the dutch is actually worse than this due to the exposed king. The Leningrad may be objectively sound, but that doesn't make it viable... and that point has been made repeatedly in this thread. You aren't even paying attention or following the conversation... Playing openings that dramatically compromise your position, like openings that open up your king, will cause you to lose games. This has nothing to do with your arguments here.
But I'm going to address some of your arguments directly anyway, even though they're completely tangential to our conversation, because they are bad in their own right in a few ways:
A) if studying opening theory didn't improve your ability to win games there would be absolutely no reason to strive to get the opponent out of book. And yet... your argument is that we ought to strive hard to get the opponent out of book. This is a logical contradiction, your argument is incoherent.
B) Studying the opening develops pattern recognition, to claim otherwise is simply nonsense. Multiple GMs, including Magnus Carlsen, recommend playing many different openings as a way of developing pattern recognition and improving general skill. It improves flexibility, it also broadens your understanding of plans in the middlegame... Studying openings does improve general playing ability. Furthermore, the opening is an essential part of the game - it is like a third of the game. You cannot just neglect a third of the game and expect to get good... you're correct that that there is more to the game... but that is completely irrelevant, since no one ever suggested otherwise. And again I'll remind you that this entire point is a tangent since it has nothing to do with whether the Dutch is a good opening, but anyway....
In this two volume set… is game after game (example after example of professional players using off beat repertoires or sidelines of mainstream openings to achieve success … and guess what there is a section on the Dutch… Oh snap!
Well firstly, if your argument is that club level players don't need to know opening theory because it's beyond them... citing pro level games doesn't substantiate that point. You'd need to cite low elo games. But anyway... we don't need to rely on these useless anecdotes for how an opening performs, we can just look at the winrates of certain lines at a given elo.
And I'd love to hear just how high in elo you think a player should go before learning the opening. You said we're not GMs - are you therefor suggesting we should wait until GM to learn the opening? That's complete nonsense.
If you succeed in getting your opponent out of book, but you don't have a book of your own, and in the process you've compromised your position... you're just at a disadvantage, there is no real benefit to this. Except that maybe it allowed you to be lazier. In the Dutch White can put alot of pressure on black early. Black needs to play precisely to survive. Black needs to know his theory to survive. There are other openings, such as the QID or nimzo indian, that you can generally play intutively... especially at club level. They aren't as sharp for black.
your comment about how the Dutch doesn’t work for intuitive players I fully agree with as a very intuitive player that just started playing it. I really need to study this opening if I’m going to play it in ranked games.
Devoting most of your training to opening theory is a mistake, the opportunity cost is too high… what other knowledge could you have acquired with that time? His message is.... one needs to be smarter and avoid following the trend of memorizing fashionable lines (something you are obviously are advocating!) He acknowledges most chess professional's skills drop drastically once they are out of their books (he states the same thing happens to the amateur!)
Firstly I'd like to point out that citing some random GM who wrote a book espousing a bunch of uncommon openings including the dutch is hardly a serious argument. Why? Because there are GMs that will tell beginners to play every opening under the sun from the Queens Gambit (Hikaru) to the London (Williams) to e4/e5 (Kramnik) and everything else... while some will tell them to completely ignore the opening (Finegold) and others tell them to focus on the opening (Kramnik, Naroditsky) or play many different openings (Magnus)... You can find a GM with any opinion that you can name on how to improve or how not to improve... I'd also like to point out the irony that your author advises to ignore the opening while writing a book on openings. I will address your argument, but I just would like to note the poor foundation on which it is based.
I'd also like to point out that this conversation has not been specifically aimed at beginners. You're losing the thread of the conversation. The claim made, which you took issue with, is that the dutch is not really very good. Now you are morphing this conversation into some debate about learning lines at low elo... that isn't the point of contention, it never has been. We can debate that too, there are things to be said here too, but it's a whole new can of worms.
- Intuitive play does not favor the player whose king is exposed and being attacked. It is harder to defend than to attack. The Dutch is generally not an opening you just play in a principled way, ignoring theory while expecting to succeed... it is sharp and there are many early gambits and attacks against it... surviving in the Dutch requires precision, actually. Like one little misstep and you can get punished brutally. You would have experienced this for yourself if you'd actually played the dutch before, but you admittedly haven't. I have played it. So... why should I take your opinion seriously in any way?
You're correct that you get the opponent out of book, but you are not correct that you are therefor free to ignore the book. The main value proposition of the Dutch is really that, in getting your opponent out of book, you can outplay the opponent with precision. Not every opening requires this level of precision, but when your king is exposed and you're facing an early attack you must be precise. If you want an opening that doesn't require alot of theoretical knowledge then play a system opening.
- When we talk about the prospect of playing an opening we're not just talking about the opening phase of the game, but also the middlegames / endgames it leads to. In the dutch the king being exposed is actually a long term weakness - long after both players are out of the opening the king remains a liability. I played the Leningrad at one point, and losing a well played middlegame or endgame due to a check at the end of a line is quite a common occurrence. So this whole idea of yours that the issues with the dutch are entirely confined to the opening is complete nonsense too. But anyway...
- This is a tangent, but at low elo it actually is not that common for players to have a very deep opening knowledge. Striving to get your opponent out of book, and making positional sacrifices in the process, actually has less value at low elo, not more. Simply because by move 8 in almost any opening your opponent is just already going to be out of book. It's also much easier to get your opponent out of his "book", however deep it may go... because his book isn't very wide. So making some major positional concession like exposing your king is just not needed when a sideline in the QGD is going to be completely new territory for the opponent. Does your super-genius GM address that issue in his book?
But we don't really need to speculate very much about whether a line will work at a given elo, because we have the winrates. We can see how the lines are doing... the dutch does just kind of sub-par, its not the very worst line, it gets alot worse when the opponent plays sharply... but it's certainly not doing well.
We're getting sucked into this tangent about low elo play even though it is unrelated to the conversation, but whatever. I used to play the Leningrad... before wisely I abandoned it. I feel it is an epic variation, very fun to play and leads to interesting whole-board positions. However, I am not going to delude myself into believing it is a strong opening, it is dubious at any level... and this is something the player accepts when they play it.
He draws two distinctions between “theory and practice” I’m para-phrasing Ipatov here “ As far as openings are concerned, there is a plethora of less studied or even totally neglected lines that can be studies and successfully and implemented over the board (the Dutch defense is just one of them) the whole point is to be unpredictable, to incorporate several lines. The majority of players (IMO like you and me) will simply turn the engine on smile and think “I’m .+07… I am much better here and stop preparing…. Ipatov is all about the practical game of chess! (so am I)
But our argument is about the viability of the dutch specifically. You're going off into completely divergent territory.
There are tons of much better ways of getting the opponent out of book that don't involve making major positional concessions that may lead to you clinging for dear life for the first 20 moves. The tarrasch and semi-tarrasch will get your opponent out of book up until like 2200 elo, I can tell you that firsthand.
And people do prepare for the dutch. Another mistaken assumption people make is they assume that the frequency of a move is directly proportional to the level of prep players will have for it. This actually isn't the case... I have a line prepared against the dutch, I've posted it in this thread.
And how long, or to what elo, do you expect this black hole of opening knowledge regarding certain less common lines to remain intact? What elo was your GM author even targeting? Because I'm pushing 2000 and striving to go beyond that, as are many players on this site. You're still 1400 - I don't know what your elo actually is but if you're pushing 1800 players will start to know the lines at that point. Which means you should learn them. And why are you so lazy, anyway? What else is it that you're actually focusing on...? Can you share it with us? Again I find it so ironic that your GM gives this advice to ignore openings but then the only thing he can think to write about is a bunch of openings. But anyway... this is a tangent that has nothing really to do with our original disagreement, but it is more nonsense.
A) Studying opening theory will make you a better player.
B) One should always follow the first or second line of a chess engine
C) That “IN THEORY” is equivalent to OTB… It is not! The last fallacy is especially dangerous because it implies that a player will keep on making the best moves in OTB and therefore sidelines should never be played, as the opponent will always find a way to retain and convert an advantage. That is theory and NOT actual PRACTICE most players will feel like a fish out of water once they end up in a position that is objectively better for them, but one that they never have seen before ( My own experience torching several much higher rated opponents using the Colle koltanowski var hits home for me…. FYI..... Why do you think the London system is such a rage at the super GM level… ??? Exactly what Ipatov is writing about…is the reason!
There are so many problems with your arguments here...
Firstly, the argument we're having about the dutch is just not contingent on any of your arguments here... For example, whether studying opening theory will improve your fundamental skill as a player says nothing about whether the dutch is a good opening. The arguments made against the dutch have not even been primarily based on engine eval, but the fact that the king has been exposed and this is a long term liability. As for your third point... playability is the main issue with the dutch - again, it is far harder to play with an exposed king. The engine eval of the dutch isn't good, it's like +0.28 - but in practice the dutch is actually worse than this due to the exposed king. The Leningrad may be objectively sound, but that doesn't make it viable... and that point has been made repeatedly in this thread. You aren't even paying attention or following the conversation... Playing openings that dramatically compromise your position, like openings that open up your king, will cause you to lose games. This has nothing to do with your arguments here.
But I'm going to address some of your arguments directly anyway, even though they're completely tangential to our conversation, because they are bad in their own right in a few ways:
A) if studying opening theory didn't improve your ability to win games there would be absolutely no reason to strive to get the opponent out of book. And yet... your argument is that we ought to strive hard to get the opponent out of book. This is a logical contradiction, your argument is incoherent.
B) Studying the opening develops pattern recognition, to claim otherwise is simply nonsense. Multiple GMs, including Magnus Carlsen, recommend playing many different openings as a way of developing pattern recognition and improving general skill. It improves flexibility, it also broadens your understanding of plans in the middlegame... Studying openings does improve general playing ability. Furthermore, the opening is an essential part of the game - it is like a third of the game. You cannot just neglect a third of the game and expect to get good... you're correct that that there is more to the game... but that is completely irrelevant, since no one ever suggested otherwise. And again I'll remind you that this entire point is a tangent since it has nothing to do with whether the Dutch is a good opening, but anyway....
In this two volume set… is game after game (example after example of professional players using off beat repertoires or sidelines of mainstream openings to achieve success … and guess what there is a section on the Dutch… Oh snap!
Well firstly, if your argument is that club level players don't need to know opening theory because it's beyond them... citing pro level games doesn't substantiate that point. You'd need to cite low elo games. But anyway... we don't need to rely on these useless anecdotes for how an opening performs, we can just look at the winrates of certain lines at a given elo.
And I'd love to hear just how high in elo you think a player should go before learning the opening. You said we're not GMs - are you therefor suggesting we should wait until GM to learn the opening? That's complete nonsense.
If you succeed in getting your opponent out of book, but you don't have a book of your own, and in the process you've compromised your position... you're just at a disadvantage, there is no real benefit to this. Except that maybe it allowed you to be lazier. In the Dutch White can put alot of pressure on black early. Black needs to play precisely to survive. Black needs to know his theory to survive. There are other openings, such as the QID or nimzo indian, that you can generally play intutively... especially at club level. They aren't as sharp for black.
Didn't read this... looks to much like Chin music
That one is good, I admit. That's also why I always play ...d5 after 1.Nc3.