Opening for trade

Hi all. A question from a novice. I am trying to know more about openings. In particular, I would like to know what are the openings that white can use to ensure a significant number of piece trades.

Thanks

Luca

a

Dont trade you bishops for knights unless you absolutely have to. A bishop pair is generrally much stronger than two knights

There are no openings that force trade downs.

When offered the opportunity to trade, evaluate your piece and his.  For example, let's say you are White.  The game starts 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 (3.Nc3 is also good, but 3.exd5 gets White NOTHING!).

So we have the starting position of the advance French.  As White, assuming each of these trades are made with no structural damage to the pawn structure, would you want to make these trades? (First piece mentioned is White's).

Before I give the list and answers, a little VERY BASIC strategy.  Black is going to play 3...c5 and White 4.c3.  Black will pressure d4, but not trade pawns until forced (i.e. a3 and b4 by White) or White has moved his b1-knight.  Trading too early gives White the c3-square for his Knight.  So after a trade on d4 usually around moves 6 to 10, depending, Black attacks the d4 pawn and White's play is on the wings, the f5 pawn push, and direct attacks at the black king.

Should White trade the following if no structural damage occurs?

Light-Squared Bishops?  Avoid if at all possible!  It is your best minor piece, and Black's plays a passive role!

Dark-Squared Bishops?  Possibly.  Depends on d4.  It can be hard for Black to get at d4 with the Bishop, and usually uses the Q and Knights.  The DSB can be a critical defender of d4 (usually on b2).

Knights?  This one is too hard to answer generically.  In most cases, it does not alter the assessment one way or the other.

Knight for LSB?  Early on, no!  Later, if you have f5 and a kingside attack ready to go, this trade could be the knockout blow, weakening e6.

LSB for Knight?  Only if it causes fatal structural damage.  Bxf5 exf5 and ...Be6 is often very solid for Black.

Rook for c6-Knight?  This can often be positionally advantageous for White.  This play is not automatic, but it can often be hard to get the Rooks in on the Kingside to attack or defend.  Removal of the c6-Knight and replacing it with Rook or Bishop takes all pressure off the White center and is usually done when ready to follow up with a raging kingside attack.  This is almost never done if Black has not moved his b-pawn.  If Black can respond ...bxc6, he can re-attack White's center with ...c5.  This is usually only done when a piece other than Black's remaining Knight must take back.

There is absolute no reason to force trades!

So as you can see, pre-meditating trades or trading automatically when a trade is available will do nothing but lead you to total failure and you will become a total bust at the game of chess if you take on that narrow-minded strategy!

#10

I had to correct my post as one paragraph jumped out of place (I hate posting with a cell phone - this site blows for Cell Phones!)

I am not exaggerating!  I am not saying his position will have no damage.  I am saying the rules I put about trades apply IF THE TRADE ITSELF DOES NOT DO OTHER STRUCTURAL DAMAGE TO THE POSITION with that specific setup.

Obviously, there are other setups, and I'm merely making an illustration that pre-meditating a tradedown WILL LEAD TO TOTAL FAILURE!

He is best off finding out NOW that his approach is totally wrong and needs to be fixed immediately rather than let him go down that wrong rabbit hole for 3 years and then realize the problem and now you have to start all over again, and on top of it, avoid doing something you've now been doing for years.

It's like biting finger nails.  Teach a kid early, and they likely won't do it.  Let them do it for 2 years, and they'll still be doing it when they are 70!

There are books out there specifically about when to trade and when not to!

Andrew Soltis's books are specifically written with further explanation (which sometimes means fewer topics are covered due to page limitation, but at his level, that is a good thing).

He really needs to purchase and read "Your Kingdom For My Horse" by Andrew Soltis.  I would also highly suggest before that "The Inner Game of Chess".  I read the latter when I was 1400 and immediately shot up over 300 points after reading that book back in 1996.  It has been re-printed a couple of years ago, and so it is in print.

"The Inner Game of Chess" is a vital book on Calculation that is far simpler than those real deep books on Calculation by Quality Chess

"Your Kingdom For My Horse" is literally all about when to trade, when not to, and more specifically, WHICH TRADES to make based on the position.  Just saying "I'm going to trade 2 sets of minor pieces" is no enough.  You need to know which minor pieces you want gone, and which need to stay.

For example, I play the Closed Sicilian as White.  There are 2 main lines, 6.f4 and 6.Be3.  In the 6.Be3 line, holding off on f4, White's idea is to trade the Dark-Squared Bishops, a piece that covers all of Black's Kingside Dark Square weaknesses.  White has no interest in trading the other pieces.  The others are being used to attack the Black King.

Black, on the other hand, would love to trade a few minor pieces off, especially the Knights, but NOT the Dark-Squared Bishop!  That's the one piece he wants to maintain for defense (and possibly an attack on b2.