Openings for Interesting Games

Which openings seem to lead to sharp positions and lots of tactics but aren't necessarily gambits or traps?

Sicilian

I like the italian and the Ruy lopez, but if you want a really interesting and sharp position try the kings gambit, many amateur players doesnt like to give a pawn in the beginning of the game but this is the beautiful thing about the kings gambit, you give a pawn that sometimes you can recover really fast sometimes you dont, but in return you have a quick development and a fast attack, and if black is greedy can lose in the beggining of the game

As a general rule, openings with lots of piece exchange and/or symmetrical pawn structures tend to be more boring.  A prime example is the exchange French: if both players just mindless trade on the open e-file, the game dissolves into nothing very quickly.

For this reason, more interesting positions generally arise from openings that keep pieces on the board and feature asymmetry in the pawn structure.  Virtually every semi-open opening (Sicilian, French, Caro-Kann, Scandinavian, Alekhine, etc) fits the bill, as well as the Indian systems.

At the same time, 'interesting' is a subjective judgement, so there's no definitive answer.  Especially below master level, any opening can become sharp or dull, simple or complex, often at a moment's notice.  Not something to worry about, I feel.

Yeah you're right but I thought it could be an interesting topic and opportunity to learn from the more initiated

Lately I have been having fun with the Van Geet Attack. None of the lines rely on gambits or traps, but it is honestly proving troublesome to learn because it is so nuanced and sharp. Here's a typical position:

Black has the upper hand in terms of space. White has to avoid getting crushed by a pawn storm. However, Black's big center is more or less fixed in place, and his pieces are suck in passivity unless he can manage some big breakthrough. In the meantime, White a lot of thematic ideas at his disposal that can create pressure on either side of the board -- f4, c3, b4, Nh4, Ng5, Nh5, etc. -- and seemingly innocuous moves will make the evaluation see-saw back and forth. It is easy for either side to make a move that loses to a hidden tactic or causes them to be strategically lost; that is the definition of a sharp position, IMO.

Here's another line, where Black quickly tries to cramp White and limit the scope of the bishop:

The queen will round up Black's e-pawn and the d-pawn in the next few moves, and White ends up with three pawns for a piece. The computer is skeptical at first -- Black gets a big lead in development and White's king is in the middle -- but it eventually starts coming around to the possibilities of White's structure. White still has all of his pawns and will get a big passed-pawn center that can easily roll down the board and make queening threats. Plus, black has to find some slightly unnatrual only-moves to avoid handing white the initiative right off the bat.

Seems like fun to be had. Maybe worth someone's consideration if they are looking for something sharp/unbalanced.

"... many of the lines one sees played at club level are gambits, which lead to the kind of exciting open play that many players find attractive. ... Openings such as the Blackmar-Diemar Gambit, Albin Counter-Gambit, Latvian Gambit, etc., are all played regularly at club and league level, ... there is much to be said for playing such systems at lower levels of play, particularly if you enjoy playing sharp attacking lines. Many players find it uncomfortable to defend against an opponent who is prepared to sacrifice material in return for speculative attacking chances. In such positions, the cost of a single error is much higher than in quieter openings. If you make a mistake in a typical Reti Opening middlegame, you may end up getting a small positional disadvantage, but if you make a similar mistake in the sort of wild tactical positions which often arise from gambits, you are quite likely to find yourself being mated, or losing a substantial amount of material. ..." - FM Steve Giddins (2003)

"... Did we not contain conscious brains ourselves, how would we know that other brains are conscious? Truth be told, you can really only know that you are conscious, and it seems polite to give other people the benefit of the doubt. ..." - CGP Grey

"I am Dr. Roger Korby." - bot

OP: "Not gambits or traps."

kindaspongey: "Latvian Gambit Blackmar-Diemer Gambit Albin Counter Gambit..."

Come on, dude, at least read the question before you start bombing the thread with copy-pasta. It's really no better than spam at that point, and there are forum rules against spammy posts.

Are all nongambit nontrap openings equivalent in the degree to which they "seem to lead to sharp positions and lots of tactics"?

Another quote for the legions of quote fans:

"... For players with very limited experience, I recommend using openings in which the play can be clarified at an early stage, often with a degree of simplification. To accomplish this safely will take a little study, because you will have to get used to playing wiith open lines for both sides' pieces, but you can't eliminate risk entirely in the opening anyway. ... At this level, you should be studying tactics indepently, and it's good pracice to play openings of at least a partially tactical nature. ... teachers all over the world suggest that inexperienced players begin with 1 e4. ... You will undoubtedly see the reply 1...e5 most often when playing at or near a beginner's level, ... The Four Knights is a sensible opening choice as you start out. After 2 Nf3, 2...Nc6 will occur in the bulk of your games. Then the Scotch Game ... is a possible first opening, but I recommend taking up the classical and instructive move 3 Bc4 at an early stage. Then, against 3...Bc5, it's thematic to try to establish the ideal centre by 4 c3 and 5 d4; after that, things can get complicated enough that you need to take a look at some theory and learn the basics; ..." - IM John Watson in a section of his 2010 book, Mastering the Chess Openings, Volume 4

Was something mentioned in this thread that would make you think all such openings are equivalent in this regard?

Just some constructive feedback: your posts might be more readable if you can frame your source material within your own dialogue to provide context, and insert your hyperlinks into paragraphs written by your own hand, rather than pasting the entire URL. This, I think, would go a long way toward alleviating the most common complaints I hear others make about your posts, which are usually full of potentially relevant material but sometimes make it difficult to follow or continue the discussion.

"In its grossest and most servile form quotation is a lazy folly; a thought has received some signal or notorious expression, and as often as the old sense, or something like it, recurs, the old phrase rises to the lips. This degenerates to simple phrase-mongering, and those who practise it are not vigilantly jealous of their meaning." - Sir Walter Raleigh

In view of some of the previous comments ("Any opening can lead to sharp play"), it seemed to me to be desirable to explore the issue.

I think the Alekhine Defence leads to very unbalanced games a lot of the time. 

One thing is for sure. French Defense Exchange opening is not interesting.

What would be a good place to run a computer simulation on some of these openings?  That way some can be played and see the various variations which they can come about.  

"... Nearly 170 pages [in The Mammoth Book of Chess] are ... devoted to various chess openings. ..." - Steve Goldberg (2010)

https://web.archive.org/web/20140708093123/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review756.pdf

That sort of reading would be a pretty daunting task, but I think this book differs from most others in that it has a lot of sample games (played by humans).

1. g4 as white

...1. g5 as black against anything including Nf3.  And no i am not in the least bit joking.