Skinnyhorse wrote:
Such an easy question !! Play the French Defence!!! and win, win, win and have loads of fun doing so. Talley ho!
Besides chess, my other hobby is exclamation marks!
They reflect an excitement meant to cover up the pain.
Repertoire Help: Response to 1.e4
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I recommend 1. e4 f5 2. Kf7 into the fred defense. Allowing you to develop the King. Accepted leads to a sharp tactical middlegame. Refuted leads to positional play with many oppurtunities to equalize.
Fredalicious wrote:
I recommend 1. e4 f5 2. Kf7 into the fred defense. Allowing you to develop the King. Accepted leads to a sharp tactical middlegame. Refuted leads to positional play with many oppurtunities to equalize.
Yes, develop the king, folks, on move two. Forget about castling, who needs it?! The king is just fine in the center.
Squod wrote (~6 days ago):
The Vienna Game, Bishop's Opening, and Scandinavian Defense (= Center Counter) are considered suboptimal or 'second rate' because they don't give the opponent enough problems, such as not attacking while developing.
Fiveofswords wrote (~6 days ago):
well i dont believe the openings you named are suboptimal
Fiveofswords wrote:
unless white decides to play the exhange i think the ruy lopez is actually far more demanding in preperation for white than it is for black.
In what Squod actually wrote, do you see anything about the amount of preparation required for White?
The February 2016 issue of Chess lists the top twenty openings compiled from a list of 2580 December games where both players were rated over 2400 Elo. One can not take position on this list too seriously because it is greatly influenced by how the openings are grouped. For example, all the Retis are grouped together, while English is separated into 1 ... c5, 1 ... e5, etc. Nevertheless, for what it is worth, the list reports 131 King's Indians, 117 Slavs, 105 1 d4 Nf6 sidelines, 103 Caro-Kanns, 87 Declined Queen's Gambits, 86 Nimzo-Indians, 83 Berlin Ruy Lopezes, 76 Queen's Indians, 75 Najdorf Sicilians, 56 Classical Gruenfelds, 51 Taimanov Sicilians, 47 Semi-Slavs, and 45 Kan Sicilians.
Squod wrote (~6 days ago):
The Vienna Game, Bishop's Opening, and Scandinavian Defense (= Center Counter) are considered suboptimal or 'second rate' because they don't give the opponent enough problems, such as not attacking while developing.
Fiveofswords wrote (~6 days ago):
well i dont believe the openings you named are suboptimal
Fiveofswords wrote:
unless white decides to play the exhange i think the ruy lopez is actually far more demanding in preperation for white than it is for black.
Fiveofswords wrote:
ylblai2 wrote:
In what Squod actually wrote, do you see anything about the amount of preparation required for White?
no..i dont see him speaking about preperation. also he isnt speaking about jelly.
Fiveofswords wrote:
this is getting pretty absurd...i just do not think those openings are suboptimal...what is difficult to grasp here? ...
It is difficult to grasp what you have that does contradict Squod's "suboptimal" statement. Anything other than you believe otherwise?
curious, what do you guys consider 'center game', as in 1st 3 moves er so? ive heard it referred to a cpl different things.
Squod wrote (~6 days ago):
The Vienna Game, Bishop's Opening, and Scandinavian Defense (= Center Counter) are considered suboptimal or 'second rate' because they don't give the opponent enough problems, such as not attacking while developing.
Fiveofswords wrote (~6 days ago):
well i dont believe the openings you named are suboptimal
Fiveofswords wrote:
...what is difficult to grasp here? ...
Fiveofswords wrote:
ylblai2 wrote:
It is difficult to grasp what you have that does contradict Squod's "suboptimal" statement. Anything other than you believe otherwise?
oh you mean you want me to prove those openings give white about as much chances as 2 nf3? well i could probably do that. after all i did change my repetoire from italian to ruy to italian again to scotch to bishops and vienna. but somewhat beyond the scope of this thread.
First of all, I did not write "prove". Second, do you imagine that the play was generally optimal in your games?
Fiveofswords wrote:
you could just look at some database. the bishop and vienna score not really worse than 2 nf3 in master games. at the highest level the ruy actually scores horribly for white...the berlin is almost an automatic draw it seems. the veinna is played rarely...and when it is played its not usually by vienna specialists...but its score still isnt bad and white seems to usually get positions that look more promising than standard ruy or peteoff positions
Is there any reason to trust statistics that could be heavily influenced by the circumstances of the game, such as who chooses to play what against whom? For example, at the highest level, isn't there generally a high percentage of draws? If the Bishop's and Vienna are also optimal, why don't we see lots of them in high level games?
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Squod wrote (~6 days ago):
The Vienna Game, Bishop's Opening, and Scandinavian Defense (= Center Counter) are considered suboptimal or 'second rate' because they don't give the opponent enough problems, such as not attacking while developing.
Fiveofswords wrote (~6 days ago):
well i dont believe the openings you named are suboptimal
Fiveofswords wrote:
... well i could probably [prove the Vienna Game and Bishop's Opening give white about as much chances as 2 nf3]. after all i did change my repetoire from italian to ruy to italian again to scotch to bishops and vienna. but somewhat beyond the scope of this thread.
Fiveofswords wrote:
you could just look at some database. the bishop and vienna score not really worse than 2 nf3 in master games. at the highest level the ruy actually scores horribly for white...the berlin is almost an automatic draw it seems. the veinna is played rarely...and when it is played its not usually by vienna specialists...but its score still isnt bad and white seems to usually get positions that look more promising than standard ruy or peteoff positions
Fiveofswords wrote:
ylblai2
Is there any reason to trust statistics that could be heavily influenced by the circumstances of the game, such as who chooses to play what against whom? For example, at the highest level, isn't there generally a high percentage of draws? If the Bishop's and Vienna are also optimal, why don't we see lots of them in high level games?
because people just play what they know. the ruy has a strong tradition and despite its dismal performance recently its a perfectly fine opening and not worse than bishop or vienna. it would take a lot of courage to play the bishop opening at high level without knowing it very well...but regardless world class players still do it occasionally and the results arent bad. there really do exist fashion with openings. i have heard world class players say they think the vienna is about as good as the ruy(namely huebner which is where i started to get the idea of playing that way)...but they just happen to play the ruy. thats the opening all the historical greats played so thats just what they happened to learn. the amount of draws from the ruy or petroff is so enormous that many top players just switch to d4. its really quite bad. maybe they couldve tried the vienna instead and i certainly wish they did...but d4 is proven to score far superior to e4 at top level...so they just go d4.
This thing with the Berlin defense has been going on for over a decade. The February 2016 issue of Chess reported 83 Berlin Ruy Lopezes out of 2580 December games where both players were rated over 2400 Elo. (And there appear to have been somewhere over 300 games that were diverted by Black before they could get to a Ruy Lopez.) In all this time, there hasn't been any great movement to switch to the Bishop or Vienna and thus profit from these perceptions:
"at the highest level the ruy actually scores horribly for white"
"the veinna ... its score still isnt bad and white seems to usually get positions that look more promising than standard ruy or peteoff positions"
"play the bishop opening ... world class players still do it occasionally and the results arent bad."
"the amount of draws from the ruy or petroff is so enormous ... its really quite bad."
If I am following you correctly, there has been time enough for players to "switch to 1 d4". If the 1 e4 holdouts aren't enticed by the relatively unexplored Bishop and Vienna territory is it likely because of things like tradition or because they don't share your perception? And why don't sources like Chessbase, New in Chess, Informant, etc. excite readers with articles proclaiming that Vienna and Bishop are just as good as the Ruy?
Feb 21, 2016
0
#33
Mysound wrote:
curious, what do you guys consider 'center game', as in 1st 3 moves er so? ive heard it referred to a cpl different things.
The "Center Game" is a very specific line. 1.e4 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.Qxd4 (3.c3 dxc4 and now 4.Nxc3 is the Goring Gambit and 4.Bc4 is the Danish Gambit).
Feb 21, 2016
0
#34
@ThrillerFan, 1.e4 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.c3 Nxc3 is not a proper Goring gambit. It is much more commonly known as a half danish gambit. The goring is 1.e4 e5 2.d4 exd4 3. Nf3 Nc6 4.c3. Of course there can be transpositions from the other lines.
Fiveofswords wrote:
troy7915 wrote:
Fiveofswords wrote:
"You contradicted Squod's "suboptimal" comment. Then you seemed to express disapproval of his method of classifying an opening as "suboptimal", and, after that, I haven't seen you use the word at all. I HAVE seen a string of comments using various characterizations ("worth considering", "weak", "teir 1", "bad", etc.) without, as far as I can tell, indicating anything about your disagreement with Squod's "suboptimal" comment."
I dont understand the confusion here. I simply disagree with the implication that the vienna and bishops opening are somehow objectively inferior to 2. nf3. In fact the often mentioned 'point' to nf3...that it attacks e5...is an illusion. It puts some pressure on e5 but white is not even threatening to win it yet. So even if you like the idea of 'causing problems' nf3 isnt exactly a major threat. In fact as black i would be more concerned about the problem of white being open to play f4 which is MORE pressure on e5 than nf3 would be. I tihnk there are weak moves, like 2 a3 would be objectively weak, but i dont put bishop or vienna game in that category. I think if you are choosing to play 1...e5 as black you really should look at those options for white because they are serious options. I think you could problely ignore 2. a3 and jsut improvise the opening because it is not a serious option.
If you play 1...e5 and do absolutely zero homework on the kings gambit or vienna or bishops opening, and then meet an opponent who plays that stuff and knows it well, i seriously doubt that you are not going to lose the game. You are going to have to be a pretty amazing player to 'wing it' and get a decent game vs those options. But if you never looked at the theory of say white playing 2. b3....I tihnk you are going to be fine if you meet some 2.b3 'specialist'. Its not a terribly difficult position. That is part of the reason i would put 2. b3 in the 'suboptimal' category....but not the whole reason. But still i could imagine some possible circumstance that white may choose to play it and its some reasonable practical purpose...maybe white knows that black is very very good agaisnt his normal opening. I dont know. Opening choices are more complicated than that.
Playing 2f4 creates insurmontable problems on the king's flank. In the romantic era where excitement was ruling, this is ok, but in the era of computers the King's Gambit is simply too reckless. The point is not to actually threaten something on move two(!), but to develop while increasing pressure without creating unnecessary weakness. After, say, 2...Nc6 3Bb5 also isn't a threat to Pe5, but the pressure is building and after Re1 the threat is real. Initiative usually results in threats and later on in attacks, some unstoppable.
For over 100 years, 2Nf3 has been the only serious attempt to obtain an opening advantage for the white side.
i dont think the kings gambit is very good. i think its been analyzed to a point where black actually can expect some advatage if he does his homework. but i still dont agree with 2nf3 being the only 'serious' try for advantage. 2 f4 is out but 2 nc3 and 2 bc4 are both alive and kicking. as a matter of fact 2 nf3 has been somewhat over analyzed and at high level black not only tends to equalize at the end of his book he in fact reaches a drawish position.
I don't know what you mean by 2bc4--I thought we were talking about 1e4 e5. The point of 2Nf3 is that by avoiding it, one misses out on a lot of great, complex ideas, and so it's an invaluable learning tool which no world champion has avoided. And the question was asked by someone relatively inexperienced, for whom avoiding 2Nf3 is rather a trap.
Petrov defence....e4 e5 Nf3 Nf6.....is a good way to play if you want drawish positions and do want to learn theory....Also the middle game in almost all lines is not so intense for black as it is in sicilian najdorf.
Fiveofswords wrote:
he said he didnt like the amount of theory with e5 and i just accept that as reasonable. but i dont know what he should play...its a preference thing. ...c5 especially najdorf and ..e5 involve lots of theory. you can get by with somewhat less theory in various other moves but which thing hes best at is impossible for me to say.
He didn't like the amount of theory, but that was the point: there are no shortcuts to learning theory.
That being said, it depends what he plays with white; if he playes 1e4, he can't avoid 1...e5, so that's a must, albeit from white's vantage point.
If he plays 1d4, then 1...e5 can be avoided. when facing 1e4 with black.
Of course, 1...c5 would be sharper than 1...e5, but that's just me.
I still don't know what is meant by 2bc4. We are talking about white's second move after 1e4 e5 ( like 2f4). Where does 2bc4 fall in?
Kakori wrote:
Well, that depends on your playstyle. First off all, you shouldn't worry that much about offbeat openings like the King's Gambit, with a bit of knowledge and mostly good play you can usually get a decent position. Second, you shouldn't shy away from a opening you like because of the amount of theory, that being said, if you don't like to study a lot of opening theory then you shouldn't really play the Najdorf as black.
Ruy Lopez has quite a bit of theory, but as long as you know the first few moves and understand the ideas behind the opening you are well shaped until you get at least a few more elo points. Avoid the Scandinavian, it is sub-optimal at best.
Does kings gambit really leads to decent positions for black.Kings gambit is fav opening of my friends and when ever he uses it against me i have always got cramped positions as black.
Fiveofswords wrote:
troy7915 wrote:
Fiveofswords wrote:
he said he didnt like the amount of theory with e5 and i just accept that as reasonable. but i dont know what he should play...its a preference thing. ...c5 especially najdorf and ..e5 involve lots of theory. you can get by with somewhat less theory in various other moves but which thing hes best at is impossible for me to say.
He didn't like the amount of theory, but that was the point: there are no shortcuts to learning theory.
That being said, it depends what he plays with white; if he playes 1e4, he can't avoid 1...e5, so that's a must, albeit from white's vantage point.
If he plays 1d4, then 1...e5 can be avoided. when facing 1e4 with black.
Of course, 1...c5 would be sharper than 1...e5, but that's just me.
I still don't know what is meant by 2bc4. We are talking about white's second move after 1e4 e5 ( like 2f4). Where does 2bc4 fall in?
dude we have no idea if he plays e4. he never said he plays e4.
Yet we have an idea about his answer to 1e4, which is what he asked for. So your 2bc4 doesn't fit it with that move order ( after 1...e5) or mostly any other second move.
Such an easy question !! Play the French Defence!!! and win, win, win and have loads of fun doing so. Talley ho!
Besides chess, my other hobby is exclamation marks!