Should I Know More Than One Opening?

Making it to USCF Class A is the beginner phase, so how does this not directly confirm what the OP says?

1500 is not "advanced level".  Talking players with a "2" as the first digit of their rating, followed by 3 more digits after the "2".

I completely agree with you.  Crossing 2000 will require some serious opening knowledge.  I dont have the desire to study openings that serious, so i understand where i will peak, and im ok with that.

If he goes to the Philadelphia Open or World Open, I can report for you, too. lol

But how good did he claim to be? I think it's reasonable to say he's Class A strength...did he say he thought he was better than that?

Every player has a different interpretation of what a good or advanced player is. 1000s think 1800s are great, and 2600s think 2100s are trash. It's all a matter of opinion. Generally, though, I am an 1800 and I'm not proud of it. 

You should play in an open tournament sometime. See how you do. I'm sure there's something in Atlanta, or you can take a trip somewhere up north

He has claimed to be master strength in other posts, and as you can see in post 31, he claims to be 2200.

With what I've seen in a few of his posts, I doubt he'd make it past game 18 or 19 in the old fashion 24 game match format with standard World Championship time controls against me, as in I'd reach 12 1/2 by then.

Well if he goes to Philly next month for the open, I'll let you know how he does. Lol

I saw the title and thought to chime in with "why know any openings"? Then, I read the first post and decided that such a sarcastic response belonged elsewhere. 

I think the OP's initial salvo covers the issue well.

Yes, you must know more than one orifice !

With about 5 minutes left for the game plus 15 seconds per move, that move is not so obvious.

27.Nd2 Rd8 and now:

A) 28.Nxc4 Rxd1 29.Rxd1 Nxc4 and yes, the ending is probably better for White, but White isn't up material like your "obvious" comment implies.

B) 28.Rxe5 Bb3 29.Ree1 Bxd1 30.Rxd1.  White then has a piece for 2 pawns, but the pin on the d-file is annoying.

Does 27.Nd2 work?  Sure, probably does.  But it's not as obvious in time trouble as you make it out to be.

Going to the chicago open cost me 1400 dollars last year, its not really worth it for a college student.

I have never spent $1400 to go to the Chicago Open.

Entry Fee:  $207 if you register early enough

Plane Ticket:  $300 if you look carefully enough, possibly less.

Hotel:  $250 - Check in Friday, Check out Tuesday, 2 Doubles, Room with someone!

That's $757 plus food.  Even if you paid for the room yourself, that's $1007.  What on earth were you eating?  Filet Mignon made out of 24 karat gold?

This year I'm driving the 800 miles and will save even more money:

Entry Fee:  $207

Hotel:  $250

Hotel (Thursday Night):  $60 (Using Hotels.com)

Gas:  $80  (Driving up Thu Afternoon, staying over in KY, driving the rest Friday, and driving the 800 miles back on Tuesday - Charlotte to Chicago and back)

Total:  $597 + Food!

I could go to the Chicago Open twice for your $1400!

Still a pretty big fee for a college student. I've never flown anywhere to play in a chess tournament (I'm sure I will sooner or later), but I have taken the train a couple times and also driven 4+ hours with a friend to play in USATE. Playing in the Philadelphia Open last year cost about $500 (most of which my parents paid for- but the one thing they didn't pay was the entry fee!) and since I had the worst tournament of my entire life, it certainly wasn't worth it. I'm 17 years old atm...going to college next year. But that said, I love open tournaments and playing with long time controls against strong opposition. I am not looking forward to my college years when I will have to pay all the fees myself for several of these open tournaments a year. I'll certainly try to do it though; I love chess tournaments so much that I'm willing to put up with this. Definitely split the hotel rooms with (chessplaying) friends. You can help each other do late-night prep!

@Fiveofswords even assuming that you are correct and that it should have been obvious, one tactical miss, however simple, isn't evidence that someone is a bad player at all. One of my teammates at the USATE last month recently passed 2000 USCF. In one of the games there, despite being in no time trouble whatsoever, he hung a rook to a basic tactic which a 1300 could find. It was just a tactical mishap and there's no explanation for that. Stuff just happens. You can never use one game to judge a player. 

The underlying point is that regardless of what flaws you might find in Mr. McCartney's analysis, we know with a high degree of certainty that he is around 2100 strength in USCF and it wouldn't even be surprising if he became a NM in the next few years given that his rating has come quite close to 2200 at times. Meanwhile, we know nothing about your strength. You have almost no OTB history. You have some online history, but a) a lot of people screw around on live chess and no one takes it as seriously as OTB games and b) the player pool is different. We can't really make an evaluation of someone's strength until we see his OTB results. All we know is Mr. McCartney is an established 2100 player, and there isn't sufficient evidence to say you would be stronger than that (which is a bold assertion in itself).

First off, 28.Nxe5 is illegal, and after 28.Rxe5 Bb3 29.Nxb3 Rxd1+, White does have a Knight for 2 pawns, but it's not easy for White to hold everything.  The b-pawn is weak.  After 30.Kf2, 30...Rb1 would be Naive as White just plays patiently with 31.Re2, but 30...e6, while Black is clearly worse, White still has work to do.  If he goes after the isolated Black pawns on the Queenside, again, Black can go after White's weak Queenside pawns.  With doubled g-pawns otherwise, it's not as simple as say the position was once it was down to K+P vs K like you make it out to be.

Wow. There you have it...I refreshed the page to find that apparently the Fiveofswords account has suddenly been closed. That ends that discussion I guess

Fiveofswords' account has been closed for cheating.

ThrillerFan's objection that FoS didn't play OTB was certainly reasonable.

Maybe it was closed for being too awesome?

@SilentKnighte5 don't be ridiculous now

World War III on Chess.com has apparently ended!