Sicilian v. Caro-Kann (Ultimate 1. e4 challenge)

caro duh

@Dsmith42 can u pls replace the names on board 6?

the sicclian game i blundered a tactic i will probably lose it but the caro game oh that one's gonna be fun

agreed

Board 6 names updated.  Looking forward to the results.

I'm not really a 1500.  I'm holding my own against a 2100 right now in my own correspondence match.  As it so happens, I never lost to the C-K in the 20+ years I was an 1. e4 player (I play the Reti these days), and the number of draws held by such opponents could be counted on one hand.

Besides, what we're arguing about is not the C-K itself, but how it is used by amateurs - that is, by players around the 1500 level.  Any serious player will get to the 1500 level if they play enough against suitable competition, but many players, and C-K players in particular, tend to stagnate at that level.  Because C-K players don't lose quickly/badly, and they expect to lose more often than not with black, the C-K's solidity often gives players the false sense that their knowledge of the opening is "good enough".  It never really is, of course, but other, sharper openings (and the French and Sicilian both fall into this category) tend to expose such shortcomings more quickly, and result in players correcting them sooner.

That's the whole point I'm trying to make.  Certainly, the C-K can be very strong if played correctly.  But unlike other 1. e4 defenses, if black plays the C-K poorly, black just gets to a nearly hopeless but materially level endgame, rather than losing on the spot, as is common in the French and the Sicilian.  As a result, amateur C-K players often think they're closer to winning/drawing than they really are.

Put simply, chess players learn more from losing badly than you do from losing "close".

There's a lot to parse here. Thanks for explaining your position.

You appear to be hinting at the Advance variation of the Caro-Kann, which is only one facet of Caro-Kann theory. It certainly doesn't encompass every C-K variation, nor the various positional (and tactical) strategies that each variation employs.

While you're right that Black can (and should, in many variations) apply pressure to (or restrict) the d4 square, this isn't a universal truth, nor is it always the prime focus. There are many lines where Black doesn't even play c6-c5 at all -- or if he does, it happens only after other, more important, considerations are dealt with.

My main contention is with your repeated emphasis on a "loss of tempo" by Black, in many C-K variations, which I consider an overly simplistic description, and potentially misleading for less experienced players, who might see the phrase and think, "Oh! So it's wrong, then?"

Nimzowitsch was a trailblazer, especially when it comes to the hypermodern approach. Though his emphasis on his ideas (of dynamism and latent energy, among others) was, ironically, rather static and inflexible. There are many dogmatic concepts of his that, these days, have been shown to be either inaccurate or, at the very least, fallible in many situations.

Tempi counting is, in my opinion, one of those such concepts -- especially when the idea is embraced dogmatically. Calling Black's c6-c5 push (in many lines) a "loss of tempo" is overly simplistic, and doesn't provide any instructive value other than to disparage the move.

It's similar to the shallow complaint often lobbied against the French: that the queen bishop is "locked in" or "useless".

It's also inaccurate to claim that the Caro-Kann player's early deployment of the queen bishop "doesn't make much sense", especially when it's traded off for a "loss of tempo" (there's that emphasis on tempo, again). In such lines, it's not as if Black's queen bishop merely vanishes into thin air, with no impact upon White's position at all.

If an exchange takes place, then obviously White is losing a piece, as well. And, assuming Black is playing well, the piece that White loses will certainly have been playing a key role in White's position.

My overall point: chess has changed much since Nimzowitsch, and the understanding of openings (like the C-K) and such concepts (like tempi) have evolved greatly. To fall back on Nimzowitsch's ideas (and ideals) when discussing openings is to embrace only a fraction of modern chess understanding.

@BestSell - Fair point that a less experienced player might confound the C-K's slow central development for "wrong", but I think you understand that isn't what I was arguing about the C-K.  Also agree that the Advance Variation is only one part of C-K theory, though an important one.

The problem with understanding Nimzowitsch is that Nimzowitsch himself wasn't as consistent a practitioner of his ideas as one might expect.  Petrosian was far more consistent than Nimzowitsch himself with the application of Nimzowitsch's rules.  The correctness of those rules didn't hit me until I studied Petrosian, which makes it clear where Nimzowitsch deviates from his own system.

The reason the early deployment of the queen's bishop loses tempo in the C-K Advance is simple - 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. Bd3 and black has to move the f5 bishop a second time.  The exchange on d3 (which seems best, though 4. ..Bg6 is also playable) develops White's queen to d3 (a strong central square) and the two tempi used to get the bishop to d3 vanish with only one used on white's light square bishop.

Is this position horrible for black?  No, black still has a ripe and well-blockaded target on d4, but it will take time for black to target and white therefore has time to overprotect.  Again, the solidity of black's pawns provide some tangible compensation for the loss of tempo (tempo is just one form of advantage, as Nimzowitsch teaches, others can be just as important).  For example, black's weaknesses are more distant than white's and therefore more difficult to target (this is a theme in the French Defense, as well).  However, the loss of tempo is still clear.

The hypermodern system is not the whole of chess understanding, that much I will concede.  However, Nimzowitsch's system produced a World Champion (Petrosian), which could not have happened if there were a flaw to be found in that system.  Lasker shot Tarrasch's full of holes, as we all remember, and surely Botvinnik was strong enough to expose any clear weakness in Petrosian's game.  You might fault Nimzowitsch for being incomplete in his teachings (this is certainly true), but not for being incorrect.

I admit to not studying Petrosian's games as much as I should. I've spent far more time on Karpov and Kasparov. Though I do plan to look more at Tigran's playing, now that you've spoken about him. So I appreciate the nudge in that direction.

Regarding tempo loss in that line you presented, though -- I really don't think it's even worth considering.

There comes a point where tempo counting can become irrelevant, or at the very least: more confusing than helpful.

Let's take a look at that line you mentioned, and continue it with natural, logical moves, just to illustrate my point:

Now let's do a tally of tempi, comparing pawns/pieces of each color that moved more than once.

On the Black side:

- moved the queen bishop 2 times

- moved the c-pawn 3 times

- moved the d-pawn 2 times

- moved the king knight 3 times

- moved the queen 2 times

- moved the queen knight 2 times

On the White side:

- moved the e-pawn 2 times

- moved the queen bishop 2 times

- moved the queen 3 times

- moved the queen knight 2 times

- moved the king rook 2 times

Are you confused yet, or is it just me?

Continuing forward, we can turn this into a running tally in our heads, regarding which player has used more or less relative tempi at this point . . . but I'd argue that such an exercise is both excessive, and ultimately useless.

The position is relatively equal here, and any decent player could conclude as much at a glance, without having to ask a question such as, "But how many tempi did each player use to reach this point . . . ?"

Furthermore: less experienced players, who've learned of the notion of "tempo loss", might find themselves second-guessing moves that don't need to be second-guessed. They may think, "But I already moved that pawn, or that piece, earlier in the game, and now I don't want to lose tempo . . ."

This is why I'm not a fan of the whole concept of tempo, unless it relates to a specific, concrete gain (or loss). Endgame play, for example. Or the specific moves in a tactical combination.

Counting tempi in the opening, though? Especially over moves that are both logical, sound, and thematic to the opening itself?

To me, this is completely unnecessary, and it mostly just muddies the waters, where they don't need to be muddied.

against bf5 i personally like h4

interesting lines

and against h6

Has the game of board 4 started

@BestSell - The move 9. c4 would not be in keeping with Nimzowitsch, 9. c3 overprotecting d4 would be recommended here.  However, even before that, count the tempo that remain on the board - For black you have the Nd7, Ne7, e6, d5, and c5 (five total), while white has O-O, Qd3, Be3, Nf3, d4, e4, and e5 (seven total).

As Nimzowitsch explained, when pieces are exchanged, all the tempi used to bring those pieces to the exchange vanish.  In your opening sequence, black loses tempo by taking a 2nd move to reach c5, and another by exchanging a 2-tempo bishop for a 1-tempo bishop.

The question the position itself poses is the classic hypermodern question - is the white pawn center an overextension, or is the space advantage more important?  The position may give good chances to both sides, but it is nonetheless clear that black's development is slow.  There are certainly other considerations (Lasker considered the king's bishop more valuable than the queen's bishop, for example), but in this line black is objectively slower than white.

Again tempo is just one type of advantage, but it is a type of advantage nonetheless.  Black in this line must judge whether the loss of time is properly compensated elsewhere.

If the C-K weren't at least sound, you wouldn't see World Champions play it.  But it is undeniably slow to develop in comparison to other common 1. e4 defenses.

Ck is slow if ck is slow sicillian is slower in najdorf ur three tempos dowm

This is the main point that I've been trying to make: that there are other considerations, aside from tempo, that can (and often should) be used to guide one's moves.

You'll rarely, if ever, see strong players counting tempi when playing. They'll certainly be aware (both from intuition and from opening knowledge) of how efficiently they're moving their pawns and pieces.

But they'd likely consider it both unnecessary and irrelevant to recall the number of times they've, for example, moved their knight, when considering whether or not to exchange it for their opponent's bishop.

It's much more common to see a strong player weigh their moves based on positional and tactical merit.

When Black exchanges his f5 bishop for White's d3 bishop, he isn't considering the tempi lost in the trade. He's looking at the position and identifying the relative value of the bishops (in this case, White's d3 bishop is clearly a more valuable piece than Black's f5 bishop, due to the central pawn structures).

I'd even go as far as saying that it's an inaccuracy by White to play Bd3 there, offering to give away his powerful LSB for Black's bad bishop, without any concrete reason for doing so.

Much more common, from modern grandmasters, is to develop their LSB to e2 in this position, and to use other means to deal with Black's f5 bishop.

Why, then, would modern grandmasters not immediately leap at the opportunity to play Bd3 and win a tempo, after Black is forced to exchange the bishops?

Could it be that, perhaps, counting tempi isn't the only consideration of importance?

Granted, there are moments where tempi certainly matter. When a piece can be harassed, for example, while simultaneously improving one's position. Such situations are where Nimzowitsch's emphasis on tempo shines.

But there are also times when tempo doesn't matter at all -- when tactical or positional considerations outweigh it.

Consider this line:

It's worth asking: why did Carlsen play Be2, only to play Bd3 the very next move? Wasn't he wasting a tempo, by doing so? Is he not aware of tempo at all?

Or is it possible that, sometimes, the needs of the position outweigh the importance of tempo?

(And is it possible that, when Black plays c6-c5 in the Caro-Kann, he's addressing the needs of the position in a similar manner?)

...

here is the sicillian game i lost i will annote it in a sec

here is the caro game i won

master blunder gave the games