Lolurspammed, you should compile your posts into a book "Chess Opening Pontifications from a Class-D Forum Troll." A collection of essays about all the openings you think people shouldn't play. Pfren would help you out by writing the introduction for it I'm sure.
The Sicilian for Children and Beginners - Myths and Facts:
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Trevor-D wrote:
pfren wrote:
FYI another Grandmaster, as well as FIDE top Senior Trainer (Adrian Mihalchisin) dismisses any idea about a rookie playing something like the Accelerated Dragon- and he gives a perfectly good reasoning.
Oh, wait... Adrian is not American. Does he really count as a trainer, or not?
Rather than having a pop at Americans, it would be more useful to the Thread to tell us what Mihalchisin's reasoning was?
The whole story is laid out in a FIDE Trainer's handbook (available for free to all FIDE titled instructors and trainers). It's at the club right now, so I will try telling the story myself.
- Young girl, age about ten. Adrian is her new trainer. Discussion about openings, and the classical Q
"What do you play against 1.e4?".
"My former trainer teached me the Accelerated Dragon".
"Umm... OK. And how do you meet the Maroczy Bind?"
"Oh... I was told that nobody ever plays that".
- After a while, she pressed her memory, and showed him a couple of lines, both fundamentally flawed, borderline ridiculous.
- He tried to show her some examples of Maroczy dark-squared strategy (pretty much what Dzindzi is advocating in his videos), but after a while he gave up: the girl had huge difficulties understanding the positional concept of such advanced strategies.
- Adrian eventually came up with the suggestion of an early ...f5 line, which sort-of-breaks the bind, at the cost of a "permanently" inferior pawn structure. He does not tell how well the girl performed with that new, simplistic approach...
Dec 23, 2015
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#24
Ah I see, so instead of making more of an effort to explain those positional concepts of chess which the girl could have learned a lot from, he just gave up on her as hopeless.
I was just rewatching Hou Yifan crush a future GM in her game from the under 10 youth championships with the Sicilian. A big difference between someone developing into Hou Yifan and how the girl in that ancedote ended up is that someone like Hou Yifan actually has coaches that believe in her. Hou Yifan never had anyone telling her "You're too much of a putz to play the Sicilian, stick with 1...e5".
I don't think that 1...e5 is a bad opening, I just think the bias towards it is ridiculous. If kids want to play the Sicilian, let them play the Sicilian.
Dec 23, 2015
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#25
You mean Class A forum enthusiast who clearly has more logical reasoning than you do. I don't care about your lack of teaching experience as much as about your assertions that someone has to be a tactical magician to recommend that other people study tactics.
Dec 23, 2015
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#26
Look here's 12 year old Garry Kasparov playing the Sicilian against IM opposition http://www.365chess.com/view_game.php?g=2454977
If only we had a time machne to go back and make him stop playing the Sicilian for 1...e5 so his development as a chess player wouldn't be damaged.
Dolphin27 wrote:
Ah I see, so instead of making more of an effort to explain those positional concepts of chess which the girl could have learned a lot from, he just gave up on her as hopeless.
I was just rewatching Hou Yifan crush a future GM in her game from the under 10 youth championships with the Sicilian. A big difference between someone developing into Hou Yifan and how the girl in that ancedote ended up is that someone like Hou Yifan actually has coaches that believe in her. Hou Yifan never had anyone telling her "You're too much of a putz to play the Sicilian, stick with 1...e5".
I don't think that 1...e5 is a bad opening, I just think the bias towards it is ridiculous. If kids want to play the Sicilian, let them play the Sicilian.
Hou's first opening against 1.e4 was the French, and Kasparov's the Caro.
It could be a nice try, though...
As a beginner I simply didnt understand the sicilian for black , in particular I was trying to play the najdorf because thats what Fischer was playing . After many crushing defeats I changed to alekhines defense but I did also play 1....e5 in many games , especially if I thought my opponent would play the Ruy because I liked playing the breyer lines of the Ruy as black . Ofcourse I was under 1400 at this time so really had little understanding of chess period , fortunately many of my opponents didnt either . Using 1...e5 and alekhines I made it to 1800 , A class and then had to move up to playing in Open sections . Suddenly I went back to losing most games when black and many of them badly . I switched to the french and used exclusively french until I reached 2000 , at which point I put the sicilian back into my repertoire and had much better results because my chess understanding had increased greatly from 1300/1400 to 2000 level . To this day I use mostly sicilians and the french in response to 1 e4 . Beginners don't defend well at all , this alone is good enough reason to NOT play sicilians because black very often comes under heavy , and often sacrificial attacks . Beginners cant defend such attacks . I doubt seriously Kasparov at age 12 was a beginner ... what was his rating at 12 and at what age did he start playing chess ?
Kasparov won the USSR Junior Championship at age 13 scoring 7/9... go figure.
Dec 23, 2015
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#30
Hou's first opening against 1.e4 was the French, and Kasparov's the Caro.
It could be a nice try, though...
Guess they didn't get the memo that beginners shouldn't play semi-closed games.
Dec 23, 2015
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#31
Dolphin27 wrote:
Hou's first opening against 1.e4 was the French, and Kasparov's the Caro.
It could be a nice try, though...
Guess they didn't get the memo that beginners shouldn't play semi-closed games.
Isn't this thread mainly about Sicilians?
Dec 23, 2015
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#32
lol @ this topic.
Dolphin, go train some beginners to 2000 level and then share your wisdom on successful training techniques for new players. As it is you're just spouting emotional nonsense.
Dolphin27 wrote:
Hou's first opening against 1.e4 was the French, and Kasparov's the Caro.
It could be a nice try, though...
Guess they didn't get the memo that beginners shouldn't play semi-closed games.
Both the Caro and the French make an early claim at the center- not at e5, but rather d5. Do you know what center stands for?
French and Caro semi-closed openings? Yeah, sure. May I ask you if you're drunk or something?
Dec 23, 2015
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#34
pfren wrote:
Dolphin27 wrote:
Hou's first opening against 1.e4 was the French, and Kasparov's the Caro.
It could be a nice try, though...
Guess they didn't get the memo that beginners shouldn't play semi-closed games.
Both the Caro and the French make an early claim at the center- not at e5, but rather d5. Do you know what center stands for?
French and Caro semi-closed openings? Yeah, sure. May I ask you if you're drunk or something?
I think this is a label given to 1.e4 defenses that aren't 1..e5. His main issue seems to be this idea that only 1...e5(especially compared to the Sicilian) is good against 1.e4 for beginners, which I'm not sure anyone's saying.
Dec 23, 2015
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#35
The french and caro are easier to understand than the sicilian. Kasparov playing the sicilian as a kid doesn't mean shit, he said himself that only GMs understand it and should play it. This is maybe too far but you get the point.
chessman1504 wrote:
I think this is a label given to 1.e4 defenses that aren't 1..e5.
Here and there and everywhere, you can find some random patzers who will kindly disagree with this, sir.
chessman1504 wrote:
I think this is a label given to 1.e4 defenses that aren't 1..e5. His main issue seems to be this idea that only 1...e5(especially compared to the Sicilian) is good against 1.e4 for beginners, which I'm not sure anyone's saying.
I am. And not just beginners, I think everybody should learn to play 1...e5. Every single GM that uses the sicilian in tournaments would still be able to play 1...e5, because it's fundamental learning. The same can't be said about the sicilian, that it's just mass of theory without any real principle.
- Open Game (1.e4 e5)
- Semi-Open Game (1.e4 other)
- Closed Game (1.d4 d5)
- Flank opening (1.c4, 1.Nf3, 1.f4, and others)
- Semi-Closed Game (1.d4 other)
@Reb, wasn't that opening that took you to 2000 level the Alekhine? That's not very classical is it? How did you ever make it to National Master by just playing things like the Sicilian and Alekhine and not ever having 1...e5 as a staple to your repertoire?
@Pfren No, you clearly can't grasp that you're still missing basic tactics in your games. Perhaps you should take your own advice and stick with 1...e5 for a bit longer until you're ready for the Sicilian and can face White's critical 2.Bc4 without blundering. I find your advice rather contradictory, you've provided a clear example that the vast majority of chess games are decided by tactial vision and calculation, not the opening. Yet you persist with your idea that playing a particular opening is the key to success.
By the way I'm a 1.e4 player and play the double king's pawn from the White side, as I'm sure many other Sicilian players do. One of my favorites to play against it is the Danish Gambit, and I can scarcely think of a more "open opening" than that. This is something else, the Sicilian is only one fraction of anyone's overall repertoire, which makes the idea that people shouldn't play it even more ridiculous.
I'm seen Adrian Mikhalchishin and his products on 1.e4 e5, as well as his recommendation that people play it. Yet I've not heard or read anyone him specifically saying the Accelerated Dragon should be avoided. The Accelerated Dragon is a fantastic opening for anyone because it can be very positional with the Maroczy Bind, but it can also be more tacical with the 5.Nc3 lines. Of course, we're not very likely to get this opening on the board as there's a wide world of anti-Sicilians out there which lead to varied and rich positions, and often positions which are more open that the ones I see arising after 1.e4 e5. I watch people playing Italian and Ruy Lopez games and a lot of the time the position looks closed to me. But what do I know, I'm not an expert in it, maybe it is good for beginners to be playing Petroffs and Berlin defenses all the time, or spending hours and hours getting their Marshall Gambit theory down. Only after this can be they be ready for the Sicilian. Of course, I jest. Actually if any significant improvement comes from playing 1...e5 by itself, it's from White players like me who play the Danish and create a truly "open game" for the edification of both parties.
As a final note I must say I like GM Mikhalchishin and your impression of Americans is wrong. What do you think Americans are ultra-patriotic xenophobes who dismiss anyone who isn't American? I'm not at least, and many others here aren't. I'm not interested in countries or politics. Don't make assumptions of me just because I happened to be born within a certain set of imaginary lines.
That seems a bit unfair to denigrate pfren's opinions on openings because he missed a basic tactic. Certainly the charge for him to work on his tactical vision is completely unjustified since everyone blunders, even Carlsen.