Looking for a solid but non drawish opening

I am looking for a solid but non drawish opening,any ideas? 

 I think you should take a look at Botvinnik and Moscow lines of the Semi-Slav, Perhaps the Accelerated Dragon or the Najdorf of the Scilian... Those shouldn't lead to draws too often. :)

In all honesty, because your question is so general I can't really give great specific advice; maybe you should consider picking up Fundamental Chess Openings, Or Fine's The Idea's behind the openings and just look around until you find some things you like.

Pretty much any of them.

The Petroff may be a little drawish if you're rated over 2500.  Are you rated over 2500?  No?  Ok.  Pretty much any of them.

Below the rank of master, there is no such thing as a drawish opening.

People of 1800 who "know their theory" get crushed like bugs.  Because if you have a clue AND know your theory, you're 2200+.

My point was correct, yours is misleading, and another perfectly valid and helpful response is flushed down the toilet when a yahoo without a clue in the world speaks with pretend authority.  Awesome.

I do not look for "standard " openings. I try to follow several rules:

Do not let any oponent's piece pass the 4th rank,

Swapping pieces of equal value usually open board to more aggressive play.

Block potential landing squares of bishops or knights,

Castle

By keeping first rank free of lesser pieces allows for good use of rooks as back up support.

Do not create pawn islands but attack oponent's pawn islands.

Winning a pawn or two early on will be very benificial in end game.

Fienchettoed bishops will not come into play until well into mid game but the provide protection for your more mobile pieces.

I've noticed that my oponents like to use a knight, bishop in combo with queen to raise hell with whatever set up I use. Meanwhile the rest of their pieces remain in their original places. I guess I get lazy and not check all squares carefully enough.

Enjoy.

blobby12: Are you looking for something for white or something for black? I can't tell from your initial post.

If a couple of 1800s play a Petroff who "know their theory (translation: memorized the moves without understanding), they end up in an endgame in which White has an advantage.  Smyslov could draw this ending as Black, but probably not an 1800 player.

kings indian attack is solid. i don't know if its drawish or not.

and quit starting crap spaghetti before i ground you. understand?

I saw in another thread that this imbecile "called me out" in here.

Here are the facts:

If you check the large, amateur, freely-available online databases, you can see the results from well in excess of a million games played below the master level.

In these games, from the starting position of the Petroff, over 90% of all games end decisively.  NOT in a draw.

To put that in perspective, after 1.e4c5, that number is 88%.  From the starting point of the Dragon, it's 87%.

That is to say that the Petroff is LESS likely to end in a draw in amateur chess than most openings...even highly tactical ones.  Why?  Because it is WIDE open.  Pieces are flying about unfettered, from move two.

And the further truth of the matter is that yes, the Petroff is only...and ONLY..."slightly drawish" at master level as well, and the statistics bear this out as well.

If you ignore the free databases this time, and focus on a tool that is actually up to the job of understanding professional play, you can begin to see why.  The HUGE majority of draws in the Petroff -- just as in the exchange Slav and exchange French, incidentally -- are verifiably pre-arranged.  If you filter out games where the total moves were under 20 before a draw was declared, you will discover that the Petroff is not meaningfully more drawish than most other mainstream openings.  Considerably less so than some.  If you're willing to dig a little deeper, manually, you can begin to find a number of additional games with a greater number of moves that are also easily verifiable pre-arranged draws...games where GM's are shuffling rooks back and forth meaninglessly, in situations where tournament directors look unfavorably upon pre-arranged draws with less than 25 moves.

In sum, if either side is uninterested in ending festivities early, there is more than enough "openness" and more than enough "play left in the position" in the Petroff that the single pair of exchanged pawns and early symmetrical structure are far from telling.

Indeed, unbalancing the structure later in the game is a frequent tactic by player who want to take these "drawish" openings and get bloodthirsty with them.

Sorry for what must seem a divergence at this point, but I have little patience for small minds who insist that they are big minds.

Good luck, with whatever opening you choose!

The Caro-Kann is a good choice if you want to play solid. Unlike the Petroff it is asymmetrical, and gives both sides ample room to outplay each other, even at high levels. There are some lines white can play to really sharpen things up, but in general the positions are a lot less volatile than in sharp openings like the sicilian.

The french is good too, but the exchange variation can be a problem if you are worried about a draw, even at amateur level. But really, this whole discussion is pretty much irrelevant for club players. Our games are decided by mistakes, not by opening subtleties. So, just play what you like and do not worry if it is drawish, assuming you are weaker than 2200 FIDE or so.

I think the sicilian dragon scores well against players <2000, few players will play the yugoslav attack and if they do you can always play the sideline 7.a6, i think it's called the dragondorf.

I would assume that by "Amateur Database", MountainGorilla might be referring to either (a) a database of nonmaster games or (b) a database with both master and nonmaster games. Could have been worded better, I suppose.

As for games won on tactics, I'd like to go off-topic just a bit and argue my point. Aren't all games (amateur or otherwise) won on tactics? At higher levels, I suppose you don't see as many knight forks and material swings, but it is still the *threat* of tactics that often tips the game one way or the other. In my opinion, you can't really separate tactics from the game of chess.

Is it possible to reach 1800+ with very little knowledge on opening theory?

Well, I think I recall reading somewhere that some people don't study the opening until they are much higher-rated. But I guess it has a little to do with what defines "studying" or "theoretical knowledge". I would think that you can get away with not knowing any specific lines, as long as you are familiar with the structures and patterns of openings in general - but what's the fun in that? :)

Yes, they are. The correct strategy is influenced by the ability to create threats, and the key threats to see are the especially tactical ones coming up. Most of the time though, the result is purely due to a miscalculation. Having a good position helps a little, sure, but compared to tactics it is a minute factor -- every game I lost had reasons of a very tactical and calculative nature; I learned this the hard way, through all my beautiful positions achieved against experts that simply could not be converted. Stop Trolling. It's disgusting. There was nothing wrong with what he said.

Anyways, I truly do believe that few openings are ridiculously drawish at amateur level. I destroy people as black in the french rubinstein and exchange variations; the queen's gambit accepted, when they are 400+ lower than me, just as would be expected; I can't tell you just how quickly they start to collapse (from the perspective of a much higher player; so, to a 2400, finding a way to weaken their structure). These openings are supposed to be very drawish, and yet chess is such a complicated game that there are still so many ways to go wrong. Even lines with early queen trades -- there is still the rest of the army left! There is always a way to keep some tension on the board with superior play, even if you make a few exchanges. If you don't believe me, try to play a computer with the most drawish openings and still see if you can last 30-40 moves; it should be instructive, perhaps eye opening to see how they can become aggressive so quickly -- it was to me.

In my experience, the whole thing is a myth, and I think it's an excuse for people who don't play actively enough to refute their weaker opponent's strategy.

@uhohspaghettio: I can see your point, but I should point out that what I said cannot be compared to the "isn't all philosophy science" question. Few people would argue that the tactics we're talking about here aren't a facet of the game of chess. But there are many people who would contend that philosophy is not a part of science and vice-versa. What I am saying is that because tactics are a part of chess, it is not really possible to isolate it from the rest of the game.

You seem to have reservations with just about everything that everyone has to say. While I understand your desire for preciseness or correctness or whatever, I think that it would do you a bit of good to let things go sometimes. Different people have different opinions and if you disagree with other people, that's fine, but do try and do it in a less than condescending manner.

@Elubas: What is the myth that you refer to in your last paragraph? The idea of drawish openings? I'm not bought on openings being drawn from the get-go either, but I will admit that some openings do seem to produce more draws in databases. In any event, the last sentence of your first paragraph brought some old memories to mind - back when I used to play ChessMaster and get massacred! I would play White and get into a losing position (down a piece or so), and so I'd "flip" the board and play up a piece. Funny thing - I'd STILL lose. :)

Of course, some openings are more drawish than others, but I certainly don't believe in this idea of picking some super solid opening and expecting to draw much higher players -- it just doesn't work. You might make it to the endgame, but it'll be a certainly lost one that your opponent will enjoy winning.

I guess that was, more precisely the myth: Stronger players will still have great chances to beat you in nearly any opening with little to no exception, at least at amateur level; thus, the whole drawish thing is largely exaggerated. With players of equal skill level, stuff will be more drawish... but then, a draw is not such an unexpected result against players of equal skill anyway ;)

@Elubas: I see what you're getting at now. I never really thought of drawish openings as a means of drawing higher-rated competition. I always thought it was more of a way to guarantee half a point against lower-rated competition (in, for example, a tournament situation).

@ajedrecito: Even the "endgame openings" you mention don't always draw at lower levels of play. I remember a recent endgame between two friends - Rook and two pawns vs rook and one. Believe it or not, the rook and one pawn won.