This is a good topic to start. I want to know the same thing. It seems too overwhelming to figure out. I stick with e4 as white and head to a kings gambit or spanish. I know. KG studied and loses whites advantage. But against average players it leads to fun tactical games which I like. Then the Spanish which is loaded with theory and stuff to study, can take off into areas I have never studied.
Most forceful opening for either color ?
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I seek to play the Ruy Lopez, but I end up playing the Sicilian variations, or the Caro-Kann, French, Indian, or Modern variation, blah, blah, blah...
It isn't that I don't want to learn it. I just want to find something I can learn at a much faster rate by helping to ensure repetitions of it. I think if I could master an opening that I could force someone to play a reduced number of lines with, I would get where I am trying to go much faster.
Against a Sicilian defense I try to head out of theory as soon as possible. I like 2. Ne2 I think it's the chameleon. Anyway, it's just different than what I see people play as white so I use it. I realize strong players will show up and tell me these are bad openings or I don't know what the hell I'm doing. . . and they are right. I just try to make good developing moves and play with sound principles, because I will never have the time to truly study openings.
No way as a player has options.
Take, do not take, Move piece, defend piece, attack another piece(Includes check on king)
The weakest opening of Your opponent may be Your strongest. 
See, I knew there was a reason I took a likening to you Lauri...
That is one of the wisest chess chess ideas anyone has ever cared to share with me...
royalbishop wrote:
No way as a player has options.
Take, do not take, Move piece, defend piece, attack another piece(Includes check on king)
See that's how I feel. Any game can head into uncharted (i.e. unstudied for that person) territory with one move. What happens when I study some line in the Ruy, and I play someone with no idea about the Ruy, and they make a move that's not theory? Do I at that point know what I am supposed to do to take advantage of the supposed breach of theory? No I do not. All I can do is try and make the best move I can.
I'm already getting tired head. That's why I spend my time available for study on tactics. I get and see results from that so yes blah, blah, blah to the Caro, French, Italian etc. etc. Give me a fork, pin, discovery, decoy, skewer, Removing the Guard et. al.
This is certainly true fellas, but the way I see it, if you make certain choices, even if your opponent deviates from what you hoped, there has to be a way that their alternatives are weaker than what they would have been, let's say should you have played a different opening.
I could be completely right, but we humans just don't play well enough to take advantage of it like an engine could.
I think in particular, the first move in defense could be awefully controlling on black's part, forcing white to make great concessions, if they don't play a particular response. I could have sworn I saw maybe IM pfren alluding to that about a particular defense.
I have time in a certain opening. After 3 months which is my normal time to know the opening to play against any opponent at any level. I had problems. Then i started playing Vote Chess and here players talk about the moves and many 2000- 2200 players in thes games. So after 6 months of them playing the opening i studied which came up about 50% of the games on that color. I really thought i was the BOSS. I crushed players when i used it so my head grew way beyond my skill.
Then as we know reality sets in and set in like ........ I found out about the other openings that could used against my opening and their variations which is about hundreds of lines of play. I found lines to counter the popular lines. So my head grew again.
And reality set in again and this time it made me humble as i had not Nightmares but Daymares. No such thing you say. Play enough games and can not for life of you figure out what is going wrong when everything was going so right.
I found out new lines we found to attack my opening and my Reference on my opening was poor as many are on openings. Trust me. They list the most common but fail to list all of them. Most likely the ones used in club play are listed and why?
At this point humble. And year later and find moves made against my opening that i was sure i would never see in a game. Which brought me to the point that i had a flaw in some basic fundamental of chess. When and did some research and found some detailed description of the opening i studied which i never came across in the 1 1/2 years study of this opening.
Now 2years later i figured it is not so much my study of the opening but my use of the pieces. Learning the opening is ok. I figure what can i do that will prepare me for any situtaion. Anwser was to learn how to use my pieces better to attack and defend. I tested this idea with an opening i knew almost knew nothing about and won a couple games with them. Hey i have an opening i still not sure how to use and win over 50 of my games with it and recently started using it. LMAO. Shhh do not tell my opponents as what they do not know...... will hurt them.
@royalbishop
That was a great post. It is a good insight into the game and how one progresses through an idea in chess, learning and developing, winning and being humbled. In the end one does just have to grind it out and make strong offensive or defensive moves as needed.
It would be great though to sleep with the MCO book as a pillow and wake up the next morning and viola, osmosis has taken place, and I'm an opening wizard.
Reality check, stiff neck and a cold sweat when I see the English. Really don'e know anything about it. 8)
Do You want to play with White or Black pieces, Hurter ? 
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I hope nobody get offended by what i am about to say.
I say this is the toughest site to play. But the weakest players. Why?
Well the players know so much here. And if they do not know it they will figure it out. They share the problems they have and when one learns over 100 learn and even quicker if it is posted in these forums.
Say for example i know several traps and tricks that are now workless here at this site. But if i take them to another site it will consistantly work at some percentage. After a certain amount of time me using them they find a way to counter them or way to avoid them and improve on both of the above cases over time.
The players on this site are more likely students of the opening than any other site i visited. At chess.com if you hope to catch any opponent early in the opening do not hold your breath. They have a pretty good idea what to play against your first couple moves(common).
But if you get some out on Unorthodox moves where they have to think you might have them. Too many players have Blitz and Buller on their mind here. Not taking their time, more so with moves they never saw before. This harder to catch the stronger players here as they can quote games quickly with specifics.
I find that because they know so much more than their playing skill that the game most likely will not be won till the end game. Look at the tournaments where it shows upsets. Every tournament i have seen i have seen 1-2 large upsets. This has to be due to the game going to the End Game. In that case the lower rated player must feel better about winning the game and even more so if things are even in material and or position.
My best games at this site is when i used unorthodox attacks that totally caught my opponent off guard and they never recovered mentally. The "Blunders and Mistakes" followed almost always. At another site they would grind it out most likely and less likely to blunder afterwards. I also have to say from my experience that the players at other sites are stronger in the End Game than at this site. But the players here know Basic Mating Patterns more here. 2 different things.
I know a couple other sites where in the End Game i might be already winning and just had to finish them off. Not as challenging at some of those other sites. I figure chess.com has created a situation where everybody learns after being here over a period of time. As when i first came here i was good but played on insinct and knew very little. Now i know why i made those good moves. Funny as it always fun when play anything good and do not understand why you played good!
Chess960
1624
| Highest: | 1688 (Mar 24, 2011) |
|---|---|
| Avg. Opp.: | 1266 |
| Best Win: | 1515 (amir_kabir) |
| Today‘s Rank: | #3,068 of 57,726 (94.2%) |
| Total Games: | 106 (89 W/ 17 L / 0 D) |
Hehehe
Looking at my Chess 960 stats. All my stats fell when i started playing 100 games at the same time. This has been going on for over 6 months. Just recently got it under 60.
Very hard to concentrate in over 70 games being played over a couple months and it stays at that level during those months. Do not let that
| Avg. Opp.: | 1266 |
|---|
fool you as i have played a couple friends who had a low rank. And players sending me challenges as they wanted to improve playing. And some of those players Online rank is 1500 - 1700 with a poor chess 960 rank.
Yeah my Avg Opp rank stinks which is my reason for trying to get my current games under 30. Only way to get respect on chess.com from opponents. More so they can not see the higher rated players i played and the rank of the lower rated players that wanted to play me which lowered it.
My only other way to prove my strenght is when players see my in Chess960 Vote Chess and they see the moves i vote for and the reason i like the move. Plus i give details why i like the move. Then i may even add comments on the opponents move.
So call me a weak Chess960 player if you wish. Say it 100 times. I play Chess 960 better than i play some of my openings. I take none of my stats seriously. Correction i do take on serios the amount of times i get to the final round in a tournament and did i win it. Players can only truly definded by Championships.
i think the scandinavian gambit is probably the most forceful.
1.e4 d5 (scandinavian)
Almost any second move other than exd5 gives black a nice, easy position. hey can transpose to a BDG, but you can just prepare a zieglar or something and be alright.
2.exd5 nf6
I beliebe nf6 is more 'forcing' than Qxd5. For one it will most likely take your opponent out of book, or more out of book than the mainline scandinavian. Whites moves are also more limited in the 2..nf6 variation I believe, having a centralised knight rather than queen wil be useful, and to expect any kind of advantage white must choose from 3.d4, 3.bb5 or 3.c4 with the intent to transpose to a panov against 3..c6.
You get into your lines basically every game, which is nice, even if your position will be slightly inferior to more popular openings.
Personally my entire repertoire is low maitenence, except for the noteboom/marhsall, which is ok because all the time i spend on openings can be devoted to them.
Hey does this count?
If you Open the game with gun to your oppponents head and
tell him not to play certain openings you do not like.
Not exactly what you're looking for, but I was in the same boat. What I did was play the openings I wanted to learn against a computer program first. You can create opening books for the program, basically telling it what moves to play for the first x moves. You can also give the computer options, so it will play different lines of the opening of choice. That helped me both to learn the openings a little bit and to see if I liked the games the openings led to.
Just check the help section of whatever program you have for creating an opening book. My rating probaby doesn't back up my advice very well, but this did help me learn the basics of a few openings.
For me that is the beginning of the END. I like to figure it out. So when i do it into a slup i will know what is wrong and find a solution for the slup. It is like having somebody look at the anwser section for part of a puzzle you did not figure out.
All to many stats on this site to influence the game. Wish we could go back to the days when we had no programs. Figure it out or have your teacher show you how to figure it out.
What openings would be considered the most forceful, in terms of, giving your opponent the fewest options to get you out of preferred lines, and or because of this, offer a learning player the advantage of having to memorize less opening theory initially ?
It seems like I am continually forced out of what I would prefer playing or learning, which is probably good for me in the long run, but I am looking for ways to shorten the learning curve. Ideas for either color are helpful. Your thoughts ?