I play the caro kann as a backup but the after it are reserves : the modern and the alkeline!
Need backup for Caro-Kann?
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Sep 15, 2008
0
#5
What's the Nimzowitsch Defence?
I'm thinking about the French.
The Scandinavian is very similar to the Caro-Kann.
Sep 15, 2008
0
#7
The problem is that I don't consider the Scandinavian (or the Modern) to be "real" openings. I'm a classical player - against e4 certainly - and I just don't want to play e4 d5.
Call me crazy, but I don't like playing openings which are basically never played at the top level.
What's this ????????????
A "National Master" asking such kinds of questions ?????
I could also ask my wife, she don't know playing chess, should I open with the "d" or "e" pawn :-)
Sorry,but I can't take your question serious here.
ozzie_c_cobblepot wrote:
The problem is that I don't consider the Scandinavian (or the Modern) to be "real" openings. I'm a classical player - against e4 certainly - and I just don't want to play e4 d5.
Call me crazy, but I don't like playing openings which are basically never played at the top level.
The Caro-Kann isn't played much at the top level either. I think I saw Topalov play it once against Anand in this tournament but that's been the only sighting for awhile. If you're limiting yourself only to what is played at the top then you're pretty much limited to playing the sicilian (but only the najdorf,svesh,taimanov,dragon) and e5.
Tiviakov has had some success with the Qd6 scandinavian by the way
Sep 15, 2008
0
#10
When I say "top-level" I'm including several decades back. Botvinnik has played the Caro-Kann, along with Karpov, at the world championship level.
Bentley1958: I see what you mean (can you ask your wife what I should play against e4?). But - since I really only have one opening as black against e4, I thought I'd ask on here, to see which openings work well for other Caro-Kann players. Nothing wrong with that.
Anand played the Scandinavian against Kasparov in their 1995 WCH match.
He lost...but thats not really the point. (and everyone loses against kasparov no matter what opening they play 
)
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1018629
Bentley1958 wrote:
What's this ???????????? A "National Master" asking such kinds of questions ????? I could also ask my wife, she don't know playing chess, should I open with the "d" or "e" pawn :-) Sorry,but I can't take your question serious here.
Icompletely agree with you. It should be us asking this type of questions to a titled player.
Also, how do you become a NM only playing the same opening as black against 1.e4????.
Believe it or not, 2200's don't do much opening prep (if any). Novelties and theoretically battles really only come to the fore on the international level. (IM and up).
Have any of you ever actually played in a tournament with NMs and FMs in them? If not then how would you know what their play is like?
I always play the Caro-Kann. I really like the strategical ideas behind it. I don't think that it will ever stop being my favourite opening and the one that I know the most about, but i thought that if I wanted to play really competetive chess I should be able to play something else except onlyy CK, as i would be too predictable. After lot of reaserch i made the decision that the only resposes to e4 that i could use except ck are the sicilian and the open games(1.e4 e5). I thought that because:
- The French is too passive for my style and black cannot win unless white overextends his attack.
- The scandinavian with 3.Qd6 seemed interesting, but i always thought that the scandinavian is against the basic rules of the opening as you bring your queen out on move 2
- In the alekhine if white chooses a quiet line and simply develops his pieces he will just have a slight advantage.
- In the Nimzowitsch defence black seems really cramped in the most of the variations, and white could even reject to walk into this path and just play 2.Nf3.
- The Pirc and the Modern are just not of my style because white controls the center and black has to play presicely to keep the equality in many variations.
That left me only 1...c5 and 1...e5. Once someone told me"play whatever you want against e4, but if you don't know anything about playing the sicilian with black you can't say you know how to play chess." He was quite right i think. There isn't a single person with FIDE elo more than 1700 or 1800 who hasn't at least studied some games on the sicilian. This is what made me choose the Sicilian along with the fact that after e4 e5 white chooses the opening and not black as it happens in most of the cases.
I have never played anything else than caro-kann in a serious game, but I found a way to practise the sicilian:I became a greeter and as the games are unrated I can try whatever I want.
P.S. I prefer the Dragon.
kosmeg wrote:
If that's your opinion then you've been looking at the wrong lines. The french aint passive, ESPECIALLY compared to the caro-kann.
Maybe I didn't express my opinion right. I don't like certain positions in the french. When I play against the French I have never got out of the opening with something worse than equality. To speak truthfully i usually have at least a slight advantage. I Respect the French. I just don't like it.
kosmeg wrote:
When I play against the French I have never got out of the opening with something worse than equality. To speak truthfully i usually have at least a slight advantage.
That's generally how it works in every opening when you're playing white.
Please don't give the french a bad name, its a heck of a lot more dynamic than the caro-kann (excluding the advance variation of the CK which can get CRAZY!)
Personally, I love the CK, and have had great success with it. However, I guess I understand where you are coming from trying to find something else to use on occasion. Actually, I ended up trying just about every response to e4 there is, and from it learned that my favorites were the CK, French, and the pirc transposition into the philidor. With the pirc-philidor and the french, I really like the Winawer 3..Bb4 and although white gets to choose what goes on in the philidor by transposition, nothing there is too pleasing for white, maybe a slight edge with best play but for practicality it's just fine. I suppose the way I would go in trying to choose is to just play some(suggest at least 10) 5 min blitz games against your computer or against equal opposition and see if the given opening feels comfortable or not. That way, you are being practical as well as developing an intuition of what "feels right"
To any Caro-Kann player out there: What is a good backup opening?
I have my own ideas, but I'll post them only later.