Learning the Dragon - Good for a noob? (and responding to 1. D4)

I like to fancy myself okay at chess, it can be a bit of a check to my ego when i come on here and get stomped down to an 1100 rating and such lol, but my fundamentals are definitely okay and so on, but i lack a great opening for black, both for 1. e4 and 1. d4 the 2 most common openings.

against 1. e4 i want to learn the dragon as my first and main opening. Is this a good opening for a new-ish player?

Also what are my options for black against 1.d4?

i am much more familiar with white where i play the kings indian attack like bobby fischer :D

(My name is Clara by the way, i'm australian so if anyone is on at around australian times and wants to add me to play in live chess feel free!)

Also what are my options for black against 1.d4?

King's Indian Defense ftw!!!!! because you already know KIA, and sicilian dragon and Kings Indian both follow the fianchetto concept!

I wouldn't recommend the sicilian dragon for new chess players due to the complexity of the opening unless your results with the opening are strong. Instead learn the caro-kann and french defense for starters or play naturally with...e5, Nf6, etc.

As for d4, play d5, Nf6, etc or learn the King's Indian Defense as Oraoradeki mentioned above.

I wouldn't recommend the dragon,for the simple reason that it's a lot of theory to learn,not to mention,stuff like early Bb5+ that people are gonna throw at you in every game to avoid theory or the easy way you can get destroyed on the kingside if you are not careful. 

I'd recommend just playing the Scilian four knights against e4 and the dutch against d4. Ideally, I'd recommend the Nimzo,but the defence is to strong a lot of white players chicken out and play 2.Nf3 or 2.Bf4 to avoid it. With the dutch defense you can almost always get the same sort of middle game you want,and it's good against a lot of the most popular d4 set ups. 

Just my 02.cents, i'm sure others will disagree with my choices! good luck!

thanks guys, i'm gonna look into some of the suggestions, and the nimzo sounds fun, a defense so strong that white players chicken out xD

if you like kingside fianchettos, look at the KID, the Modern, the Lenningrad Dutch, and heck, throw in the Open game, if you like tactics, then those should help, against a strong opponent play either the KID, or the Stonewall against d4, against e4 whatever you feel confident and comfortable with, also same for d4, but d4 you can get away with knowing one or two responces, which you just can't do with e4

Hi Clara,

If you're running with a rating around 1066, your fundamentals could probably use some work. Having a "killer opening" isn't going to win you games (although a weak opening will hurt you).

I would focus on your tactical understanding and the goals of the opening. By that I mean know what your objectives are (control the center, develop your pieces, ensure your pieces are safe, prevent structural weaknesses, etc) and how to meet them. Understand how you can use forcing moves (checks, captures, threats) to induce weaknesses in your opponent's camp and how you can convert those into a more tangible advantage for yourself. Understand square safety and you'll understand how to create threats and how to defend against them. You can reach a very playable position in an opening you don't know simply through this.

Now at the same time, it doesn't hurt to know the first few main moves of an opening (but trying to memorise 30 moves in is pretty ridiculous). It's more important that you understand why those moves are being made. You'll probably get lots of recommendations on your thread of 'play this' or 'play that'. Just play - try a few different ones and see what you like and what you don't like and where you made mistakes.

Heck the farthest I know in most openings is 6 moves, and I don't care to know more

   What is an opening?

good advice mezmer. i know some stuff like pinning and skewering, but i'm not good at recognising good structure really, many, MANY of my games come down to me trying to get a piece advantage (an extra pawn or two, a minor piece etc) then trading equally down quite fast to make that piece advantage i have become much more noticeable. i win many of my games by making it to the end game with a few extra pawns than the other guy. the amount of games i win via cool moves like forking the queen and king, king/rook, rook/rook etc is a lot less, and i usually get major pieces (rooks and queens) because of my opponents accidental moves, not my brilliant forward thinking.

at my level people play weird too, here's an example of a game i thought i played quite well with fundamentals, but i won because my opponent made a silly mistake rather than an actual victory

now he's a loss from me

any tips mezmer?

In the last game your opponent was only playing with his queen. That is certainly not a good strategy. To punish that you should (and I guess you did) try to develop with tempi (gain a move, when you develop a piece hitting the Q) and then try attack the king with your well developed army. Don't worry if the enemy Q munches a pawn or two in the process, you will usually have ample compensation.

Then maybe the Kings Own Gambit is for you Count, or how bout the pteridactly or even better The French Defence (1. any 1-0)

And as black, in response to white's 1.d4 you have two main options:

1... d5, leading to Queen's Gambit Declined after 2. c4 ... e6, or Queen's Gambit Accepted after 2. c4... dxc4, or Slav Defence after 2. c4... c6. They are all playable, with QGA leading quickly to an open game, while the others are semi-closed.

2. the other option is 1... Nf6 leading to different Indian systems. For example after 2. c4 ... e6. 3. Nc3 ... Bb4 is Nimzo indian where you put direct and indirect pressure to the central light squares e4 and d5. That is extremely solid black defence. It often loses the bishop pair early on, but knights are handy against weaker opponents anyway, those forks can be really deadly...

Play what you like. It doesn't really matter if an opening is complex with a lot of theory because your opponent likely won't know any of it. Even if he does, it won't help him very much at your level. The game is going to be decided by a hung queen or rook.

In the first game there are so so many blunders. You need to work on tactics, not openings. Get good at tactics and watch your rating explode.

Where can i learn these tactics?

This site has a tactics trainer, but it's almost useless if you're not a premium member. You can get only three a day as a basic member.

chesstempo.com has a good free tactics trainer, and I'm sure there are plenty others on the web.

Just playing a lot should also improve your chess.

Experience gained by playing and looking over your games. Sure, there's Tactics Trainer, chesstempo, etc. but nothing sticks quite like a tactic that costs you or wins you a game.

It might actually be good for you to eventually try different flavors of openings, just to get a sense of what's out there. There's no hurry to do this, but just keep it in mind. (Using myself as an example, I used to hate the French because closed games seemed so stale. Recently, I discovered how wonderful it could be if played well.)

The reason I suggest trying out a variety of openings is because they get you in different positions, and as a result, you'll experience a greater variety of positions and tactics, ultimately leading to faster improvement.

One more thing:

Tactics. If you're not a premium member, go on chesstempo.com until your eyes bleed, then do some more. Eventually, you'll notice tactics with a sixth sense. At minimum, you'll stop dropping pieces, and you'll play much better. Trust me, dropping fewer and fewer pieces makes chess much more fun.

Well... looking at your loss you hung you rook. If you hadn't have done that you were a very easy position to win. That was a simple example of where to ask "is it safe?" It's easy to see our opportunities, but we have to take into account those of our opponent. You didn't play that game terribly... but there were a few mistakes that stand out (taking a very quick look).

9... Nh5 - doesn't really accomplish much. You essentially waste a move to attack his queen and can't really follow up as he moves out of the way. It doesn't gain any tempo to have one piece chase another around and you've moved the knight to a square of less influence (in that particular position). Better would have been to develop and play the ...Bd6 there instead of the next move.

17. Qxa7 Rc7 - 17...Qc8 could have won you material. The bishop on c1 had only one defender and you would have had two attackers. Play could have continued 17...Qc8 18.Nf3 Rxc1 19. Rxc1 Qxc1 and you get the bishop and exchange rooks, or 17...Qc8 18.Ne2 Bf5 (attacking his hanging pawn on d3) and preventing him from castling safely.

Anyway, as the other's have said, practising tactics is a good way to improve. Keep in mind though, that tactics doesn't refer to only fancy pin and fork combinations - it's basic square safety and the ability to calculate. If you google "novice nook" by Dan Heisman you'll find some great material on this. Move 17 as mentioned above is a good example of this - nothing fancy, just solid chess.

Playing long games is a great way to practise. You may even consider trying the online games with a stronger opponent (you can play unrated games with takebacks and discuss ideas during the game with that setup). It helps your mind develop a stronger thought process (speed comes later with pattern recognition).

You are new and you want to learn Dragon.Do you know the basics?Start with Queen's Gambit(1.d4 d5) , Spanish (1.e4 e5) and French(1.e4 e6) as the  great Botvinik recommended(widely recofgnised as the best teacher ever.If you don't you will pay for it (as all do) later.It isn't just the openings.There are a lot of essential concepts in these openings , need to be learned.

   For example:

a)Do you know how the pawn structure affects the opening the middle-game even the endgame?

b)Do you know what Minority attack is?

c)Do you know how to play against(or with) an isolated pawn or  hanging pawns?

If you don't know all these , learning Dragon is like trying to learn Algebra without knowing the numbers, how far can you go?