The London System Thread

The London System first debuted in the Vienna tournament of 1882, unveiled by Irish-born master James Mason. Mason was the second strongest player in the world at the time, ranked only behind the first World Champion: Wilhelm Steinitz.

Due to this, the opening was known in the latter part of the 1800s as the "Mason Variation". It wasn't until the strong London tournament of 1922, where the variation was wielded by legendary players such as Capablanca, Alekhine, and Rubinstein, that the Mason Variation took on a new moniker ... and "the London System" was here to stay.

Fast forward half a century, and one of the future practitioners of the London System was born: Gata Kamsky. In his career, Kamsky went on to become a 5-time United States Champion, #4 in the world, and a World Championship contender, who attempted to dethrone Karpov. He also made the London a persistent staple of his opening repertoire, uncorking it time and again against Grandmaster opponents.

Now, in the post-Covid era, the London System has taken on a hotly debated reputation. Proponents praise it for its ease of use, and its ready-made attacks against the kingside if Black goes wrong. Critics derise it for being repetitive and encouraging "lazy" chess.

Are you for it? Against it? Or do you know little about it, but would like to learn more?

Let's talk about the London ...

I've played it a small amount as white, not much... but I've looked through the lines in the database, and when I see how black is outscoring white in many cases, sometimes substantially... then when I see how lacking in creativity the opening is, I feel it is a terrible opening choice tbh. Somehow it has managed to perform about as bad as the Colle while simultaneously being less creative than the slav exchange. I can't see myself ever playing it.

The only argument I could accept for playing it is... that you don't want to have to study the opening, you want to focus on the endgame or maybe the middlegame. The middlegame argument is a bit dubious though, because you're not getting interesting middlegames either. You're getting very boring and predictable middlegames... it's not gonna teach you alot. If you want to learn middlegames play something that leads to whole board complexity and many different pawn structures. And some people play it to have something viable that requires minimal effort... that's another matter but that's a lame mentality.

Magnus played it in the WC and people often point to this as legitimizing it, but it wouldn't surprise me if Magnus did that specifically to avoid having to prep super-deeply, it's something Magnus would do but who knows. 
Maybe the worst thing about the London, though, is black can't do much to make the game interesting. You just enslave your opponent to this slog of a game which he'll probably win but still.

Maybe if you transpose into specific London lines from some other system I could accept this. And if these lines turned out to be interesting in certain ways. Then I could accept it, but I haven't seen a very satisfying way to do this yet.

Correct

London is a solid opening. Anyone who says different looses creditability with me..

To get good at it, and.... what makes the London dangerous, is you have to master the resulting positions in the middle game. Most people look at the opening with a computer and say .. "Black is equal here if a play xyz" and don't look beyond that. I see that with my Colle.

On move one Black is equal. right? By playing systems like the London ... Move one is just delayed.. If White plays a novelty in an equal position say "on move 15/" (or.... at the time of there choosing) at that point in the game..... it's move 1, Black will have to fight for equality and have to find it in real time.

That said.... GM's i.e. professionals know openings... the nuance of a novelty is on a whole different level to those players. And being professional , with their opening choices being public, they have to vary what they play. (which 90% of the time is the real reason why they choose certain opening over others... i.e when you have to master multiple openings, they look for commonality between thier opening choices , play certain openings that lead to position they play well... e.g. Isolated pawn positions etc Or Opening XYZ results in the reverse of what they play as Black etc....

Joe lunch bucket, below the NM level, thinking they must mimic how a professional (who plays internationally ) approaches openings... Now that's mystery to me.

Black is not equal to white on move 1. But if you believe that it helps explain why you consider the London a good opening.

The idea of a novelty is it's some concrete line you've prepared which is unusual. You're not playing prepared novelties on move 15, you're just playing chess ... It's a unique game like every other game, what you really did was essentially skip over the opening phase, and all the opportunity available to white therein on account of his initiative. And you didn't even reach an interesting middlegame, you reached a very boring, predictable London middlegame.

When you speak of your approval, i.e. whether someone has credibility in your eyes, it suggests you actually have the authority or expertise for that to matter, but you do not, you're rated 1400. Your approval does not matter.

The London System is fine, if hampered by low-rated players' obsession with losing games via 1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Bf4 Bf5 4. c4 e6 5. Nc3 c6 6. Qb3 Qb6 7. c5 Qxb3? 1-0 where White's open a-file, doubled b-pawns, and incredibly strong bishop on f4 completely dominate the position with no real counterplay to be had. From Black's perspective the same is true, however, as I really shouldn't be regularly winning games with 1. d4 Nf6 2. Bf4 d5 3. Nf3 c5 4. e3 Nc6 5. c3 Qb6 6. Qb3 c4 7. Qxb6? where the EXACT SAME IDEAS give Black an advantage, albeit a minor one as opposed to the winning advantage of White's position in the line above.

The London is just like any other opening, both sides need to know chess and also know the opening or it's very easy to enter the middlegame with a bad position, be it either tactically unsound or positionally passive. Its reputation as "easy" and "safe" is nonsense. Players on both sides of ratings from 1000 to 2000 (and I'm sure higher or lower, but I have no experience higher or lower) just rely on this reputation and hope that everyone else is as uneducated about the opening as they are.

The London is like science - it's supposed to be boring. If it's exciting someone has messed up.

LOL

Looks like I hit nerve. Question : You really that soft? You can give me your address and I can send you a box of tissues. 

So, as a self appointed opening's expert.... You don't dissect positions your likely to encounter playing a certain opening? You just spontaneously think your way through the game? You don't breakdown the pawn structure, come up with attacks, or defensive measures? Or study likely endgames themes your most likely to encounter playing that opening?

Interesting... 

As for me being 1400.. well I don't play much here... over at Lichess: Blitz and Rapid Im 1850 and 1900 respectfully.. (FYI... I don't think my skill is that high... yet I'd never try to demeanor someone lower rated than me... People do that when they have lost the debate.

You can think about the endgame or the pawn structure all you like, but that's not what it means to "prepare a novelty" - a novelty is a new or unusual line that gets your opponent out of prep, by the time move 15 rolls around both you / the opponent are out of prep.. you'll be in a position that's either never been reached, or been reached a handful of times... i.e. the position is already novel...

The logic of your 'argument' is nonexistent, logic flew out the window when the conversation became about your approval or lack thereof...

The London sucks - I see people claiming it's a good opening, and giving some small justification, but nothing that addresses its core problems. And black has 4-5 ways of neutralizing the game, it's not just the Qb6 line - though that counts, that's performing well at high rating, it's not just low rating. White isn't testing black with anything he hasn't seen before... you can do so much more as white.

You're good at picking crap lines i.e. the dutch, I will say.

It took me a while to get the hang of the london system

now I can't live without it

Message me for details & classes!

The London was played in the 2024 World Championship by Ding in multiple games. So probably Ding and Rapport (Ding's main second) doesn't agree with you that it "sucks" and it's a "crap line".

So what's your address... I got that box of tissues.

???

Lol, even Hikaru made multiple videos criticizing Dings prep in that series... due to Dings opening choices he thought Ding was being very lazy and not taking the WC seriously.

The main thing good about the line is it allows you to prep 1 specific thing and ignore almost everything else. This could work for a lazy person. But if you take the opening seriously and are willing to put in the time... there's not much other reason to choose the London.

The point is that it's good enough to play in a WC match. It doesn't "suck" and it's not "crap".

Also, 99.9 % of chess.com users don't take the opening seriously. Not in the level that even the laziest superGm does.

- it's performing like crap, that's going by the actual data not the alternate reality you obviously mentally exist in

- it's incredibly boring and lacking in creativity, which makes it crap on another level

It's a crap choice for those who are not lazy due to the fact it isn't very good in another aspect. You can insist otherwise all you like, you're mostly just making a claim / insisting it's true, I see no argument addressing the core problems with it.

- the whole pretense of this forum / this thread is to study / understand the opening, i.e. we're taking it seriously. That's why we're debating the issue - we take the issue seriously. And where did you get your statistics? You pulled them out of a hat and passed them off as fact.

Keep trying

I have made no statistics whatsoever. I just noted the fact that the London is good enough to play in a WC match. That alone makes you look quite the fool.

Apparently it's confusing you that "99.9% of chess.com users ..." is a statistic. 
Your point on the WC is accounted for by the fact that Dings prep was lazy, I've already acknowledged multiple times that it could make sense to play for a lazy person - again, Dings laziness is not merely my opinion, it's an opinion Hikaru himself voiced. Considering how much prep is needed to play the WC there is some motive here. And the London also sidesteps so much prep, which is another advantage when you're crunching a set of new lines for a specific tournament. Again a lazy mans solution which wouldn't apply outside a tournament setting.

Of course I already made this argument, but I have to repeat it for you multiple times before you can process it and respond to it, this is always the extra effort I have to go through to communicate with you on a basic level.

And this is the only argument you've made - you have made no point at any time about the London position itself, why it's actually good.

i'm only against it when people use the london system as a way to avoid thinking in the opening. I've seen a lot of students learn the london system because its easy to play, but then they play very unambitious moves/they play moves that are mistakes, because they jsut want to quickly get the pieces out and then only after that they think.

It is quite annoying to play against since its pretty solid but i make them annoyed at me by playing reverse london xD

I'd say if you haven't studied anything the jobava london could be quite scary (but not too dangerous if you study it