The triangle Slav

^lol alright...my question was intended as rhetorical but if you think the Classical 4...dxc4 Slav is a QGA then I don't see a point in talking with you further about this topic so adios

Yeh as Poucin said that is way off. There is a great book on it from Everyman... I would suggest u buy it! 

A lot of discussion about the terminology. U can call Semi-Slav without Nf6 "Triangle Slav", "Triangulated Slav" or "Bermuda Triangle" if U wish.  What does it change ?

it changes the opening! 

is a stonewall dutch a semi slav with f5?

In my opinion, I think that is just easy for you to say Cherub.  Because you know a lot about thought Process, piece activity, king and piece safety, tactics, general chess fundamentals, it's easy for you to wing it in any kind of opening.  The people without that need a guide.  I wasted a year of my life playing chess in Korea guarding a top secret facility and let me tell you I learned absolutely nothing making random moves with no aim or goal.  I know what you are talking about though.  It's stupid to just study openings 20 moves deep because at the lower level most people avoid mainline theory, and if your opening is not mainline, then that is just one possibility of out of thousands.  But I think you are attacking the wrong argument.  People who are saying study the opening even if you are a beginner aren't trying to tell someone to study an opening 20 moves deep, but to study the opening by understanding the ideas behind why the moves were made, the general principles behind the moves, etc.  I never said study openings 20 moves deep.  If that is what you want then study GJ_Chess videos, but if you want something more, then you're going to have to do a lot of work.  You disagree that a beginner doesn't need an opening Repertoire, however, coming from personal experience, I know just making random moves with no thought or idea behind why you are doing those moves doesn't help you, as it didn't help me any bit what so ever in 2002, until I learned basic chess fundamentals from a person who used to play with the masters in an LA Starbuck's.

In a nutshell, I think it just comes easily to you that it's possible for you to wing it in an opening so you carry it over to a beginner level, but I don't think that is the case.  Correct me if I am making a logical error please, or please, just continue on, or whatever.  I don't care.  But what I do know is that I myself once thought as you did.  In my life, I have played with 2 people that don't have a good opening for black, and they often lose a lot of games while playing black.  I also noticed that I lose a lot with black.  I checked the database, and it is clear that in a lot of openings white statistically just wins more often than black does.  Their belief, that "they do not have a good black opening," is just a phobia, or whatever, simply because it is not because of their opening, but, because that is just the way it is, statistically black just loses more often in most openings.  If they want they can pick an opening that black stands better, but then will I play into it?!  Probably not.  Anyway, I thought it was easy to pick a good black opening, but the weaker of the two players who said they don't have a good black opening, said, "I don't have a good black opening," and I said, "Ah just pick one," and the other guy who claims he doesn't have a good black opening, said, "That's easy for you to say."  

So in my humble much lower rated position, I think you are just saying that opening choice doesn't matter and you should spend zero time on the opening as a beginner, because it comes easily to you to solve opening problems in an opening you rarely play if at all so it naturally follows suit that other people of lower rating than you can do it, but that is not the case.  They do not have the chess fundamentals that you have in your head.  You've learned them over the course of years.  Though you have studied openings in the past, you've found for yourself that opening study wasn't really necessary, in my opinion, simply because you learned the fundamentals, and over the course of so many games you naturally learned enough opening knowledge to make it.

Dan Heisman himself, the guy who says don't study openings, said himself, study openings as you go.  What I mean is this.  When you play an opening that you've never heard of, look it up afterward.  This is how Hikaru Nakamura learned as many openings as he now has in his repertoire, simply by looking up the opening afterward.  Imagine how many openings one can learn if they just study it a little after the game is done.

Lastly, I just want to say Cherub, there may be something to what you are saying.  I mean you made it that far without really studying openings yourself, but at the same time you are pretty good at the fundamentals.  So perhaps you are right, studying the fundamentals, Thought Process, Piece Activity, King and Piece safety, General chess principles, tactics, maybe that is the key, and to keep opening training at a bare mininum or none at all until you are 2000, but I find it hard to grasp that one can learn to play without just beating their head against the dirt like I did in 2002, without any of the fundamentals, and no opening repertoire.  I mean if you don't have an opening repertoire by definition you are just making random moves without really knowing what you are doing, and that is exactly what I did.  So, I don't know....

IM poucin, dpnorman & SuirenBoid: Dudes, U wanna show that U are awesomely scholastic. But, in fact, U try to prove to a mathematicin that "A+0 is not equal to A". For classification purposes, I factorise the category / graph of chess openings by the set of invertible arrows, i.e., reversible moves. Semi-Slav and Triangle Slav can be obtained from each other by a set of reversible moves. Q.E.D.

U are not obliged to make such a factorisation but please don't tell me about the "tremendous difference" between these openings.

Yigor Listen...Chess is not exactly maths that prove the valid of types. Move orders in the opening is what characterize the types. If you play the move order that defines the Triangle defense e6-d5-c6 then White can push e4 and we have a different type of position where you can't see in the Semi Slav with an early Nf6 because e4 is not valid/playable name it as you wish.

What characterize the name of each position is the potential that appears on the board and the sequence was played not the similarities. Don't think chess like a static universe, it's much more of a dynamic. Each move you make on the board compiles a totally different situation according to it move order.

That's why people here deny to agree with you. You are missing the f(X) variable in your equation.

Yigor I am certainly not trying to prove anything! But the knight not going to f6 is in fact a fairly big difference! It allows black to meet e3 with f5, saves a tempo so grabbing and holding the pawn at c4 is more viable, it also allows as has been mentioned the Marshall Gambit with e4. Most times black chooses not to transpose into any lines that one would call a semi-slav. The Triangle is not more a Semi-Slav than an Accelerated Dragon is a True Dragon. There are similarities in pawn structure but they are not the same opening, they are similar and yet have quite distinct variations, as such they have a specific and different name to set them apart. 

Well I guess whatever works for anyone works. 

I'm not intending to give my claims as objective or anything - I don't believe in objectivity in chess improvement. I'm just saying what I think. Obviously it won't apply to everyone. 

I used to think openings mattered a lot, and it turns out that I was wrong, and I noticed it, and so when I stopped studying openings so much, I actually got really good results against decent players, and of course the game results there had nothing to do with the opening, in which I was worse actually usually, and brought it back. 

And actually my knowledge is very small relative to a lot of players, since I haven't played seriously very long, and most of my training was just practice calculation/tactics/analysis, then checking w/ an engine, so I don't get a lot of new knowledge. 

Everything you see in chess shows that knowledge is overrated drastically (13 year old GMs, hopeless old players), so really it's worth just getting basic, useful knowledge, and really deeply understanding it before moving on to something a bit more advanced.

Bishop_g5: All right, I understand and partially agree with your point. But I dislike when someone is too categorical, pretending that only he/she possesses the truth, and all other viewpoints are wrong. I'm mainly interested in the classification of openings using pawn structures. From this angle, Semi-Slav and Triangle Slav is the same thing.

Cherub_Enjel: Well, that's a one more different viewpoint which is partially true too.

No problem, I understand your point. As far as U don't insist too much that only this is the absolute truth, I will not contradict U.

RoFL At least, U have a funny avatar with Brezhnev kissing Honecker.

That is the slav starting position, it is simply not a QGA. That is just simply not what chess players call this position or how the opening terminology works at all. I'm sorry this is confusing to you. 
If chess terminology worked this way the terminology would be incoherent, because just about any opening, through a legal sequence of moves, can transpose into another opening. For example, the caro-kann can transpose into a sicilian through a legal sequence of moves. So is every sicilian a caro-kann, then...? No.... because the chess terminology was not defined that way... by those who came up with it. People other than you, who fortunately could think more clearly.
Pretty much every d4 game would be a queens gambit accepted by your terminology. i.e. there would cease to be any meaningful terminology. In other words your thinking actually undermines and destroys ones ability to think.

Your answer is almost 7 years too late.

better late than never