cheating or good strategy?

I think it's a good strategy. I don't think using all your resources, unless otherwise prohibited, should ever be considered cheating.

Hm, I am not sure if that really is considered cheating or not. In competitive sports, coaches always research the other team/player to get a good idea what they're going up against, but this is chess... No idea. Sorry.

I have also played him. I however just used my normal strategy and beat him twice.

In top-level chess, most players beforehand try to look at their opponent's past games and prepare themselves with it. The way I see it, you're doing the same thing in principle. In other words, it's perfectly okay.

It's a perfectly reasonable thing to do

do people consider this cheating or at the very least not proper, or is it just good strategy? also, any comments on the game are greatly welcome and appreciated.

Are you serious?

I think its good strategy specially when you try to learn a new opening... (dont know if he did but fianchetto in the start arnt to normal).

It's very common to study the opponents previous games. Both online and OTB.

interestingly, referring to your game, there are Master games in the Game Explorer that reached the position you reached after 4 moves. However, had you played 4. Nf3 (rather than Nge2) and he had then responded 4. ... Bg7 as in the game, then there are 64 master games in the database that reached that position. So I guess you can conclude that black's opening was not crazy! Just extremely modern. BY 7. ... h6 black is just being too passive though.

I don't see how anyone would consider this cheating.  He's free to use whatever opening he wants.

ericmittens wrote:

do people consider this cheating or at the very least not proper, or is it just good strategy? also, any comments on the game are greatly welcome and appreciated.

Are you serious?

 okay, perhaps the word "cheating" was a little to strong. was just curious what others thought and do.

reflaxion wrote:

I don't see how anyone would consider this cheating.  He's free to use whatever opening he wants.

 i was referring to me looking at his past games, not his choice of opening.

It looks like black's just using a set position instead of responding actively to what white does, or white's threats, which is a pretty dangerous thing to do..

That's definitely an opening I've seen used many times before (not one I've used, though). It's a hyper-modern strategy of indirectly controlling the centre from the wings. Seems your research paid off, although advancing all those pawns was perhaps a little risky...

not cheating. Ever. IfAanand can walk into a bookstore and buy a book entitled Beating the Sicilian and Kasparov's biography, then prepare material against Kasparov, I don't see why you can't. The format of the media makes no difference.

actually if someone is learning an opening, it would actually be intelligent to work out the lines with a variety of opponents and situations. or it could be like many people he/she is comfortable with one type of opening and that is their game. it would probably be less obvious is it were always the spanish or the kings english but that doesnt make it wrong. as a matter of fact, the truly silly people are the ones like me who are playing a high number of games but dont really hew to any opening consistently enough to understand the nuances and play them as effectively as i could/should. it is no fun when your opening becomes a help mate position because you are clueless to where the line is leading.

This is called hippopotomus defence and info on it can be found at the below URL.

http://www.hippopotamuschess.hit.bg/

Like everyone else, I would say it is a perfect thing to do.

Black is trying to fianchetto both of his bishops (on b7 and g7) and placing the knights on d7 and e7 after the pawn moves d7-d6 and e7-e6.

I also think it was just a good strategy.  You didn't develop enough in the opening and relied too much on your pawns to save you.

Good game though.

Grayhound wrote:

I also think it was just a good strategy.  You didn't develop enough in the opening and relied too much on your pawns to save you.

Good game though.

 thanks for the advice. yes i wasn't too sure how to play against this opening so i tried something that i never tried before. it worked in the long run, but i agree that i probably pushed my pawns a little too far.