What is the Opening You Hate but most people like and vice-versa?

Trust me, 7.Nf3 Bg4 is what I always prefer and usually play against.

That's not what you said... 

You stated White has a 70% win ratio with 7.Be3

And I'm not comparing the Alekhine with the French... Get out of of the weeds with the semantics!

I'm pointing out two things (Which I think I proved my point... !!!)

A) You got nothing but your opinion... (If you think the Alekhine doesn't yield a decent win rate for Black... That's fine..... that's your opinion. But the line you gave is far from all crushing to someone who seriously plays the Alekhine!

and

B) Your sitting there looking at a data base assuming EVERYONE including you in an OTB environment, is going to have more expertise in dealing with the Alekhine THAN..... the actual person who plays the Alekhine! 

Wrong .... 

Besides, the data does not cover the win rate of Alekhine players who actually know what they are doing. Get rid of the low rated players who probably just play Nf6 because it looks cool or they watched a video on it and it's numbers will start to look better.

Do you not understand English?

NOWHERE did I EVER say that 7.Be3 scores 70%. I said it scores 63 percent, WHICH IT DOES IN THE MASTER GAMES DATABASE HERE, and I said the line 10...exd5 11.cxd5 Nb4 SCORES ALMOST 70 PERCENT, which again, look at the Master Games database here, IT DOES!

Nowhere, AND I MEAN NOWHERE, DID I EVER SAY 7.Be3 SCORES 70%. IF YOU ARE GOING TO USE THE PHRASE "ThrillerFan said ...", GD'it, you better be accurate. OTHERWISE, DO NOT EVER SAY MY NAME AND THE WORD "SAID" IN THE SAME SENTENCE, EVER! YOU GET IT RIGHT OR YOU DO NOT DO IT? YOU GOT IT?????????

ONCE AGAIN, NOWHERE (FIND IT IN A WHITE SECTION OF A POST WRITTEN BY ME, YOU WON'T FIND IT - DO NOT USE THE QUOTE SECTION, SOMEONE ELSE COULD MODIFY A QUOTE) WILL YOU EVER FIND ME SAY THE WHITE HAS A 70% WIN RATIO IN ANYTHING!

I SAID WHITE SCORES JUST UNDER 70 PERCENT AFTER 11...Nb4, AND SCORING JUST UNDER 70% (WHICH MEANS OVER 68% BUT UNDER 70%, LEARN ENGLISH!) DOES NOT MEAN 70% WIN RATIO. A 70% SCORE MEANS YOU SCORE 70% OF ALL POSSIBLE POINTS, NOT WIN 70% OF GAMES. A 70% SCORE COULD HAVE AS LOW AS A 40% WIN RATIO OF IT NEVER LOSES. IN 100 GAMES, 40 WINS BY WHITE AND 60 DRAWS IS A 70% SCORE!

AND HERE IS THE PROOF! PLAY THE MOVES IN TGE MASTER GAMES DATABASE 1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.c4 Nb6 4.d4 d6 5.f4 dxe5 6.fxe5 Nc6 7.Be3 Bf5 8.Nc3 e6 9.Nf3 Be7 10.d5 exd5 11.cxd5, and now look at 11...Nb4.

WHITE WINS 52 PERCENT OF GAMES

A DRAW OCCURS IN 33 PERCENT OF GAMES

BLACK WINS 16 PERCENT OF GAMES

Let's do a little math here.

52 + (0.5 * 33) = 68.5, which is ALMOST 70%, NOT 70%, ALMOST 70%. AND IT IS NOT AFTER 7.Be3, it is after 11...Nb4, AS STATED IN TGE POST PREVIOUSLY.

NOWHERE DID I SAY 7.Be3 SCORES 70% - SMH!

The reason that the Alekhine does not appeal to me is the Exchange variation.

It isn't very ambitious for White, but he does keep a small advantage by playing simple moves without needing to know much of theory.

You just need to play well the resulting middlegames, but this is far outside the opening's value.

This is a game that my long time partner played some time ago against a FIDE Master. The game was absolutely predictable: White came out of the opening with a slight advantage (I wouldn't play this exact way as White, but we made no preparation because her opponent has barely played the Alekhine before), which growed up and eventually turned into a winning advantage around move 17, then came the necessary blunder which turned the tables around around move 26, until Black returned the favor after a couple of moves later, and White was clearly winning, but with the clock ticking he failed to find the winning move (doing nothing and playing a preventive move like 35.b4! with a crushing position is not really what someone is considering with seconds on the clock) and finally the game was drawn...

This scenario applies to 99% of the games of non-professionals (sometimes even in games of pros: Your gains/losses from the opening hardly matter if you miss tactical and positional shots).

I don't like the London because everyone knows at least one way to counter it.

I also don't like openings that rely on traps like the Englund Gambit because people by this point already know the traps and won't fall for them.

(stuff cut)

I agree with all you say (of course)... but the 4 pawns is very fun to play. Long ago I saw a game of Bronstein and the game Ghizdavu-Tebourbi with the 4 pawns and have played it every since-- not as well as in those games and likely not as successfully as I would have been playing the exchange. I know black has improvements in the lines played there, (and Bagirov writes in his 1974 book ''sooner or later it is doomed to fail" ) but I've enjoyed every game.

If I started losing consecutive games I might switch to the exchange though.

Bill

MY EYES ARE ROLLOING RIGHT AFTER READING THIS... you most certainly DID... THEN YOU DELEATED IT... (i didn't write that.. I just hit the Quote button and copied it... )

The measure of your character is showing sir!

No, I never said that!

I said the position after move 11 scores ALMOST 70%. I have always said the position after 7.Be3 scores 63%, NOT 70%

YOU ARE A LIAR! DO NOT PUT WORDS IN MY MOUTH! I HAVE NOT DELETED ANY COMMENTS ON THIS THREAD! AND THE ONLY MODIFICATIONS I HAVE MADE WERE ADDITIONS, NOT DELETIONS! LIKE IN THIS MESSAGE, WHERE "I HAVE NOT DELETED..." HAS BEEN ADDED SINCE THE INITIAL POST OF THIS ABOUT A MINUTE LATER!

I have 2 words for ANYONE that put words in my mouth - Drop Dead! As a victim of false identity and false quoting in May 2018 here on this site, I have a ZERO TOLERANCE for anybody that mis-quotes me or alters even a single word in anything I say. So again, do not quote me if you intend to quote anything false, because if you do, once again I will say - DROP DEAD!

HERE YOU GO - IT IS AN UTTER DISGRACE THAT I HAVE TO REPOST MY STATISTICAL POSTS TO PROVE MY POINT - SMH!

POST 20:

Here you go again with inferior lines for White. If I got off my phone and went to my laptop, I could get you the numbers from Megabase, but just here alone:

10.Be2 scores 48.5% for White

10.d5, the FAR superior move, scores 63%!

I have zero interest in playing an opening that scores 37% as Black! I might as well play the Latvian Gambit if I wanted to do that. At least the Latvian is fun, albeit bad. The Alekhine is both not good and not fun!

I will also add that 10...Nb4 scores better than 10...exd5, so unlike you, I shall go with Black best statistically relevant move, and after 11.Rc1!, White still scores 63% across 39 games.

Anything beyond move 11 for White is statistically irrelevant as no line has 30 or more games.

POST 31:

Go a little deeper babes. This ain't the baby pool. After 10.d5!, 10...Nb4 11.Rc1 is scoring 63% here for White while 10...exd5 11.cxd5 Nb4 is scoring just short of 70%.

1...e5, 1...e6, 1...c5, and 1...c6 are what make e4 inferior to d4.

POST 39:

I don't make thinks up. In the left menu, go "More" --> "Explorer" and go through the moves yourself and witness!

And you are full of bleep or else don't know how to read a database.

365chess.com, chess opening explorer:

1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 3. d4 d6 4. c4 Nb6 5. f4 dxe5 6. fxe5 Nc6 7. Be3 Bf5 8. Nc3 e6 9. Nf3 Be7 10. d5 exd5 11. cxd5

There are 158 games with 11...Nb4. Of those, 19.6% are wins for Black. 31.6% are draws. That means Black scores 35.4% with this line. A far cry from your 42% claim.

And even after your line, after 15.Qd4, White still scores 61.05% (38.95% for Black, still well below your 42% claim.)

And even if Black does score 42%, which he doesn't, that is unsatisfactory.

Let's compare this to one of the main lines of the Winawer:

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e5 c5 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3 Ne7 7.Qg4 Qc7 8.Qxg7 Rg8 9.Qxh7 cxd4 10.Ne2 Nbc6 11.f4 dxc3 12.Qd3 d4 13.Nxd4 Nxd4 14.Qxd4 Bd7

Black scores 47.7% (40.2% Draws, 27.6% wins for Black, 27.6+20.1=47.7). And that's using your source, 365chess.com.

THIS IS ALL OF MY POSTS WITH STATISTICS IN THEM PRIOR TO YOUR OUTRIGHT LIE IN POST 40!

Hate that most people like --

Dragon. The Yugoslav gives white much more comfortable positions, from my experience playing both sides in the Dragon. I much prefer the Accelerated Dragon.

Like that most people hate --

London System. I think it's hard to say whether most people dislike the London System, but it's easily the most controversial opening at this point and gets an extremely large amount of hate, so I'll count it. I don't believe it is nearly as boring and drawish as people say. It can actually be quite fun. Similar to the g2-g4 ideas commonly found in the Jobava London, the regular London System has early g2-g4 h2-h4 ideas that are often objectively good and make for an interesting game.

Petroff. As with the London, there is far too much criticism about the Petroff being too boring or drawish.

If you're not a master-level player playing classical chess, the draw rate matters very little in my opinion. As for the Petroff being boring, I would argue this is entirely up to white. For instance, the Nimzowitch Attack (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. Nc3) often leads to opposite side castling and big attacks on both sides of the board. On the other hand, white can play the Cozio Attack (5. Qe2 instead of 5. Nc3 in the line mentioned above), which has very little going on. It just depends on what line white is playing.

Itallian

Scandi

Spanish also especially when you're playing as black

I don't know if people like it but I hate the philidor defence it just blockades the bishops diagonal