Rethinking the opening: if chess is a forced draw (building a narrow, bulletproof repertoire)

Carlsen was not preoccupied with getting an edge in the opening, instead relying on superior preparation and technique as the game wore on.

Most of the old openings were created in an era where White was trying for an edge or a forced win, but now we know almost all roads lead to .  Why, then, should we do ten times the homework just to get a draw?  The London is a good example of a narrow, familiar opening that can be dangerous against anyone, saving time and minimizing memorization.

If chess is a forced draw, there have to be lines that prove this, and from those lines there have to be those which have fewer deviations, and therefore require less homework.  This can even be taken to an extreme.  Say White plays 1 e3:

1...c6 2 e4!  Same position as 1 c3 e5 (double the mileage from your opening prep)

1...b6 2 e4! Same as 1 b3 2 e5

1...g6 2 e4! Same as 1 g3 2 e5

1...d6 2 e4! Same as 1 d3 2 e5 

Now if Black goes to the fourth rank you get a free tempo:

1...e5 2 d4 exd4 3 exd4 and this can be played from both sides via 1...e6

1...c5 2 d4 d5 3 dxc5 is a QGA a tempo up

1...d5 2 d4 c5 3 dxc5 (see above)

You're more likely to force a draw and/or win from a narrow, bulletproof, completely memorized repertoire that covers almost every move order and which is nearly impossible to take out of book.

I believe this will be the next trend in elite chess and wanted to share it.  

This is exactly correct. Watch the 2013 Kramnik-Anand WCC Meran matches and you’ll see how literally one inaccurate move led to a devastating loss not once but twice. You see, in chess, forcing moves are king, and so while you could play something like the London, Black will have many many many ways to defend against your ideas and it’ll actually end up HARDER in the long run to win with because not only do you have to deal with a worse objective position but you also have to deal with many more Black structures and plans.

I just don't see the logic of playing 1. e4 and having to memorize a ton of exhausted main lines when I can play 1. e3, get equality, and most of the time just give "White" to Black if Black plays to the third rank, or get an extra tempo with "Black" if he plays to the fourth.

I've cut about 95 percent of my prep time with better results this way because I always get equality or better in a position I've seen a zillion times. Not surprisngly my rating shot up. I just think it might take years for this to work at the highest levels but what doesn't?

“In a position I’ve seen a zillion times” you mean like one of those main lines you were speaking of? How many hours would you say Anand has spent staring at the Meran? 5000? 10000? More? How many games has Vachier-Lagrange played in the Najdorf? 500? Maybe more? The difference is, you will never be able to memorize more than perhaps ten moves of “theory” (and that’s generous) because nobody will play the same way against it, whereas I could play 18 moves deep into a London, 20 in a Botvinnik Semi-Slav, or 25 in a Jaenisch Ruy Lopez because the theory is already there.

1.e3 c6 2.e4 c5!

1...c6 2 e4! Same position as 1 c3 e5 (double the mileage from your opening prep)

c6 c5!

Stockfish 27 is gonna have a field day with this, though I wonder if whoever would play 1...c6 is really into the Sicilian. Now if only I could give back the tempo again...

Having a narrow repertoire is a very logical approach. As long as you enjoy the resulting positions, why not become a specialist in them?

At the elite level, though ... players tend to strive to be unpredictable - otherwise, it's too easy for their opponents to prepare against them.

Instead of going narrow, they go broad, in many directions.

Caruana, for example, once mentioned that he intentionally searches for lines that are incorrect and/or worse, but still with enough complications to play - just so he can find something that his opponent likely has not studied.

It's a different ballgame at the top.

IronSteam1 wrote:

"It's a different ballgame at the top."

Fischer went the other way and did just fine. It might be that no one has an idea of how to outbook the others since everyone's using the same engine data now.

I also wouldn't call the Semi-Slav, Petroff, and Berlin Lopez plus some QGD/QGA much different, since those games often follow well-known theory.

The NBA once thought the big man was obsolete, then Patrick Ewing, Hakeem, and Shaq showed up.

IronSteam1 wrote:

"It's a different ballgame at the top."

How do you prepare to beat Carl Schlechter with an engine? You can draw him, if you have the technique.

"I believe this will be the next trend in elite chess and wanted to share it".

This is very true, and will surely happen whenever you become chess elite. It shouldn't be more than 788 years from now.

Mazetoskylo wrote:

"I believe this will be the next trend in elite chess and wanted to share it".

This is very true, and will surely happen whenever you become chess elite. It shouldn't be more than 788 years from now.

Are you trying to impress someone?

This simply isn’t the case. Positionally and materially, the game begins evenly, and so the fact that chess at the top level in correspondence, classical, and computer all tend towards draws more and more as the strength of the top increases is no coincidence.

Ethan_Brollier wrote: 8thMarch2023 wrote:

White always wins if white plays correctly.

This simply isn’t the case. Positionally and materially, the game begins evenly, and so the fact that chess at the top level in correspondence, classical, and computer all tend towards draws more and more as the strength of the top increases is no coincidence.

If chess is a forced draw, there are openings which prove this. Of course this would put chess publishers out of business so maybe people don't want it to be true.

Without middelgame and endgame technique all the opening prep in the world won't help except to frustrate the player who gets crushing positions that s/he cannot finish off.

My repertoire is down to maybe twenty forcing lines to cover both colors. Tons more repetition and practice in these lines (Fischer did this btw), greater familiarity, and more time to study the endgame and middlegame.

Rating has gone up recently so I'm pleased with this approach.

I don’t think there’s one opening that’s a forced draw, I think literally everything after move one is a forced draw with perfect play (except the Grob, that loses by force). You see this with engines. If you ‘play’ a game of chess where you run SF 15.1+ NNUE for 5 minutes every move and then play the top choice, no matter how many times you do that the game should end in a draw. Pick any first move (except 1. g4) and repeat the process, the game should end in a draw).

Ethan_Brollier wrote: 8thMarch2023 wrote:

White always wins if white plays correctly.

This simply isn’t the case. Positionally and materially, the game begins evenly, and so the fact that chess at the top level in correspondence, classical, and computer all tend towards draws more and more as the strength of the top increases is no coincidence.

If chess is a forced draw, there are openings which prove this. Of course this would put chess publishers out of business so maybe people don't want it to be true.

Without middelgame and endgame technique all the opening prep in the world won't help except to frustrate the player who gets crushing positions that s/he cannot finish off.

My repertoire is down to maybe twenty forcing lines to cover both colors. Tons more repetition and practice in these lines (Fischer did this btw), greater familiarity, and more time to study the endgame and middlegame.

Rating has gone up recently so I'm pleased with this approach.

I don’t think there’s one opening that’s a forced draw, I think literally everything after move one is a forced draw with perfect play (except the Grob, that loses by force). You see this with engines. If you ‘play’ a game of chess where you run SF + NNUE for 5 minutes every move and then play the top choice, no matter how many times you do that the game should end in a draw. Pick any first move (except 1. g4) and repeat the process, the game should end in a draw).

Then which forced draw is easiest to memorize? Reduce the homework to next to nothing, memorize these lines, and chess is practically solved.

I think 1 e3 is the most flexible and avoids ambushes while leading to main line openings as White or Black (when playing White or Black!).

The Petroff seems to be how GMs arrange draws given that they play three or four lines that are dead equal so often.

cutting down on opening theory is a plus. But I have experienced two drawbacks to a very limited repertoire. one is boredom from playing the same thing all the time. and the second is not learning new ideas in various positions.

Agreed.

A lot of experienced players prefer to expand their repertoire - rather than narrow it. Because playing different openings and defenses can keep the game fresher, more interesting.

Most artists wouldn't want to paint the same picture every single day. Today, they might paint a futuristic city. Tomorrow, they might paint an ancient forest ...

I’m not sure where you get this idea that there are simply better players than the best, stronger computers than we have, a level in chess that we simply haven’t reached yet that would render all else obsolete. Go look up the win/draw/loss statistics for the ICCF, and notice how incredibly high the draw rate is there.

Besides, “it’s impossible for Black to defend if White plays perfectly” is a ridiculous statement. If White plays perfectly and Black plays perfectly, you know what advantage White has? A tempo. That isn’t enough to win a game off of, and good luck convincing anyone who has played the game longer than a year of that and is above 1000 of that.

Which forced draw is easiest to memorize? That’s easy. It gets played all the time at top level too, so there’s that benefit.

You talk a lot of smack for someone that doesn’t even know how top level players operate. Rote memorization? Please. If any of what you said were true, every game would end the exact same way, as every player would memorize the best plan, play the best way, and chess would be a draw every game (once again confirming my theory). 
HOWEVER, this doesn’t happen. Every single GM plays the game drastically differently (up until they reach a position in an endgame that is simple enough to be solved and memorized) with different openings, variations, plans, ideas, middlegames, endgames, and overall fundamentals. Listen to any commentary on chess and I’m sure you’ll hear about the different way every GM plays, about Duda’s insane defense, about Rapport’s wacky innovations, about Giri’s drawish play. Very very very rarely has a GM who uses rote memorization done well, I’ll tip my hat to you on that one, but it has been done. There was a tournament where Anand was ONLY shown pictures of the logical conclusions of the variations he was likely to play, and nothing else, because they knew that his decades of experience would allow him to memorize the logical conclusions and then work his way back and understand not only which moves to play but also when and why to play them. Rote memorization is bad, but nary a GM does it.