I agree with akafett..Scotch Gambit is out for me, too. The Ruy's first couple of moves are easy to discover you own. In fact, I thought I came up with Aaron openning until someone told me that Ruy Lopez already took credit. The problem that I have found with the Ruy is that the more experienced players know it inside and out. As a newer player, you only know the key points. I'll have to look at Q's Gambit, again. For some reason, D4 has always made me nervous.
Opening lines for lower rated players
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Nov 13, 2013
0
#23
AaronGo wrote:
I agree with akafett..Scotch Gambit is out for me, too. The Ruy's first couple of moves are easy to discover you own. In fact, I thought I came up with Aaron openning until someone told me that Ruy Lopez already took credit. The problem that I have found with the Ruy is that the more experienced players know it inside and out. As a newer player, you only know the key points. I'll have to look at Q's Gambit, again. For some reason, D4 has always made me nervous.
When I'm playing white I'm always nervous when Black makes his first move. Will it be a sicilian, I don't know sicilian. Will it be a Ruy? I don't know a Ruy. Will it be a philidor, a petroff, I don't know them. Worrying about openings at my level is crazy making. I just shouldn't play crazy moves, except for the King's Gambit, which I love cuz it makes for really fun games.
If you're going to play a gambit I think King's Gambit is an excellent learning tool, and its super fun for both sides. And my rating is super low.
Have a look at some of the groups on here they are very helpful. If you want to play a particular opening look for that under a group name. I belong to the Worldwide Learning centre group and there are who will play and advise you. I can play you if you want I normally play variations on e4 I'm around 1200 rating.
Danelyan wrote:
Anyone feel like playing a few games with me and then going over them together after? could do with actually knowing why I lose instead of just stewing over it myself. my standard rating is like 800 and my blitz is just embarrassing so I would like to think I have room for improvement lol
I have found going over games played (and lost) were more useful than just playing. Especially when I noticed the same mistake 2x (okay, 3x)
Susan Polgar is a good person to listen to - about chess and about teaching/learning. And what she said is the received wisdom. To understand why particular lines are played in a particular opening requires quite a lot of positional understanding and that is not something which can be expected of someone with limited experience of the game.
That said if you watch beginners, particularly children, they all pick up the scholar's mate/fried liver idea of attacking f7 and their early games are an exploration of that opening idea. So spending a bit of time considering the first few moves is a natural thing to do. It need not be completely wrong.
It is certainly worth getting hold of the general principles of opening play and the links above to the Exeter club resources are very useful for that. Once you have understood those it is worth slavishly following them for quite a while - a year or two unless you are one with a rare talent for the game. Although even while yourself following the principles you must constantly look at the concrete position before you. If your opponent hangs his or her queen take it off whether the move that removes the queen follows the principles or not.
The thing not to do is to find an opening and then try to learn by heart sequences of moves.
Actually, the reason I am studying openings is to understand them tactically. Popular openings are nothing more than what others have done that work well tactically.
If you learn why one opening works the way it does (tactically), you will have learned how to use that opening. That is better than memorizing a dozen openings and not understanding why the moves are made. I think if you can understand the tactics behind opening theory, you will begin to create your own openings. That is my goal in chess.
Just my two cents.
Nov 14, 2013
0
#28
i have found the london system helpful as a lower rated player. this is 1.d4 followed by an early bf4,, developing bishop outside the pawn chain and beginning an attack on blacks kingside without castling to give more time to the attack. Its adavantage is that the system can be set up in a small number of set moves irrespective of blacks moves and even if you dont get a good early attack will still leave you in a solid position in the middle game. worth checking out i think
Fear_the_Queen wrote:
akafett wrote:
Popular openings are nothing more than what others have done that work well tactically.
I admit that I haven't read the rest of this thread but even without that knowledge I feel like you must mean strategically not tactically. Learning opening traps is not learning openings at all.
You are correct. I was not referring to opening traps (which I stay away from). Perhaps I should elaborate.
If you learn only opening moves, but do not know how they apply stategically or to future tactics, you are then receiving little benefit. Repeating what others have done, i.e. Fischer, Morphy, etc., is a good way to learn only if you learn why their opening moves were chosen.
For example, if you study the Sicilian and do not bother to learn why c5 is played, the other moves will not make sense. Especially after the exchage cxd4, Nxd4 (white loses a center pawn while black has both).
I, therefore, believe that once you learn the logic behind openings, you can then begin to create your own.
Basically the Scotch Gambit is a backdoor into the Italian Game and limits White more then it limits Black.
I could not agree more.