Why Knowing Your Openings is Important at Higher Levels!

@thrillerfan, Most half-way decent players could wing that opening with white and not get into trouble. White's problem in that game was allowing black to do everything he wanted to do on the queenside, while white responded by making random moves that did not meet the demand of the position. For example: 10.Ba3 would have stopped black's queenside expansion in its tracks.

?? 10. Ba3 is a shit move

let's play it out

10.Ba3 in the game on post 1?? What is ur idea lol

Yes. The idea is to take the knight if it comes to c5.

Oh so you want to be strategically lost immediately? Alright... 

I want to play it out against those that think black is winning.

@thrillerfan, In the game that you posted you said that the common mistake for beginners is to trade pawns and then queens on d8. Actually, this is not a mistake, but one of the best continuation in this position. The exchange on d8 followed by f2-f4 pose serious problems for Black and was tested many times in many high-level games.

@gbidari,

glad that you agree with me.

@ThrillerFan & @eaguiraud,

by your logic, all loses and wins can be attributed to opening knowledge. In this game, at that point, they were in middle game and white lost because of bad calculation. It was not as if white fell into some kind of opening trap. It was not even a positional loss or something. It was a fork - tactical mistake.  Also, white seems to have made many time pass moves with his horses. Those time pass moves allowed white time to create attack on queen side. In short, white played a passive game strategically and made a tactical mistake, so he lost.

I never said black was winning, but your idea with Ba3 and then taking on c5 is just trash. It is strategically a terrible decision. And why do you want to play this out against me? You are only NM so I would be expected to beat you even when the position was not already in my favor.

White is lost long before the fork.  After Black's 16th move, White is lost, even if he plays a better move than 17.a3??

All 17.a3?? did was accelerate the loss to being in 3 moves instead of 30 moves.  You find the best move for White on move 17 and I'll still take Black in that position!

White is lost after 16 moves because his opening moves allowed Black to do everything in the early middlegame free of charge.  If the Queen were on d1 instead of e2, moves like 13...b5 would never have worked.

By saying white is strategically lost, that's the same as saying black is strategically winning.

yes when you take on c5...

The following opening I used here shows how powerful a single move can be in determining all of the moves that follow or don't.  

Let's see it then.

2004 is a long, long, time ago in the chess world, though.

No but in twelve years players can become stronger. But more importantly, everyone has had a miniature loss in their career at some point.

Lol nice one Bobby u found these games on chessbase?

White lost because he broke opening principles, 8.Qe2? is horrible move, doesn't contribute to the demand of the position; much better move is 8.Nge2 and probably equal. Even at expert level players can play bad and without a plan, this game Thriller share with us, white played aimlessly and lost badly; black play with a purpose and plan and won. Even if a player is not familar with an opening, sound chess principle can guide to a playable game. Deep theoretical opening  like Sicilian Dragon or Najdorf or Benoni and Gruenfeld should be avoid even by experts, any fool can memorize line and beat strong player, its happen before. Pick opening that don't require a lot theory, the French or Caro Kann is excellent for beginners or expert. Thriller is correct white lack of understand of opening cause his defeat, white keep making inferior moves and contribute to his lost; it also show white lack of sound opening principles and with little understanding of planning in the middlegame ( place your piece correctly is an important chess skill, what purpose did white have  with 8.Qe2?, every expert knows the knight belongs on 8.Nge2, at least white can have equality.

Ok, what would be the continuation if white had not played a3? Why is white already in bad position? a3 was the bad move. And Ra3 was a tactical calculation mistake.  Otherwise, White was doing fine before a3. White just had to castle as his king is exposed. Black won because white played passively(allowing white to mount an attack) and then made calculation mistake. This has nothing to do with openings.

I don't know in which universe white was doing fine before a3, but it must be very different from the one I live in.