Another newb asks a stupid question(probably)

Hello Chess players of the world!

I am not a new chess player. I have been playing casually for years now, casually means 5-10 times a year. Recently I joined the chess club at my school and have been practicing here and elsewhere. From what I have read elsewhere openings are not something a newb should worry too much about so I haven't. I have just been practicing chess basics: piece development and board control. And I have a few questions about my particular style of play:

1. From what I have gathered from my own play I am an extremely aggressive player. I will take any even exchange I can and manipulate my opponent into poor trades by using pins and forks and aggressive checking. So my question is how can I improve from here? How do I work on my positional chess? Please give very concrete examples.

2. What are openings that favor aggressive play?

3. Finally, and this may be a dumb question, when I am studying an openign like Ruy Lopez the book gives the lines for both the white and black pieces. Now in actual play does my opponent have to respond with those specific moves or can I play the Lopez regardless of his moves?

idk and idc

first they are not forced to do any thing

For aggressiveness try the Bishops gambit of the KGA

1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3. Bc4

also the Italian Game may intrest you as will for a weapon against d4 players, The KID

1. You can try to control space on a particular side by pushing pawns in that direction.

You want to have all your minor pieces working for you.

Have your Rooks control open or semi open files

Bring your Knights up the board and support them with pawn defense.  Look to see if your opponent has created weak squares that your Knights can occupy.

2.  Can't help you there, I have basically two openings I like to use and they are not considered aggressive.

If you like exchanging pieces, Think about your pawn advantage and structure.  You should be prepared for a lot of Rook and pawn endgames and know the ways to position your Rooks in such a case.

3.  Once black responds with something outside the lines of the Ruy Lopez, then it is considered out of book and you are on your own.  If you continue to play the lines for white, you will probably not be playing your best moves.

I'm still a beginner rating wise , but I hope this will help you a little.

buy all of Dan Heisman's books and read them. 

1. Postional chess is all about what you're doing when a tactic isn't available. In simple terms, you can think of a tactic as an execution of moves in a specific order which will win you material. Postional chess is all about controlling as much of the board as possible, controlling key squares, inducing weakenesses in your opponent's pawn structure, limiting his options, creating pressure by having your pieces on good squares that coordinate with each other, playing for the initiative, and so forth. Examples include, when you have reached a 'quiet position', bringing a rook to control an open file, blockading an isolated pawn, exhanging a bad/useless piece for an opponent's active one, preventing his king from castling, building batteries, trading knights for bishops in open games, gaining space, etc. It's a matter of becoming familiar with these principles and evaluating the strength/weaknesses/imabalances in the position and planning on how to accumulate and convert many small advantages into a larger one. I would suggest that you review some master games to get a feel for where pieces should go - check out thechesswebsite.com for some videos of famous games.

2. Openings that favour aggression? This is difficult to answer... it's more a style of play than a specific opening. To play aggressively you want to quickly develop your pieces to good squares that pressure your opponent and creates threats. You can take any opening and play it either aggressively or quietly. The tension also depends on how your opponent responds. That being said, 1.e4 probably gives you the most potential for an aggressive opening depending on how it's followed up.

3. You can't play moves without paying attention to your opponent. Consider this extreme (and highly unlikely example)...

I don't mean to offend you. Like I said I am a newb so if the word doesn't fit my style of play then I apologize. All I mean by aggressive is that I force exchanges and if I can take a free piece I will. But could you at least have the decency to define what chess means by aggressive?

Thanks Mezmer! That is very helpful information. I see what you mean. So a big part of chess is just memorizing the dickens out of common openings and their lines. Sometimes I like to play as black 1. e4 d5 2. f3 dxe4 just to see what happens. Is that aggressive or just stupid?

Don't worry about it- the reason most new players say they're aggressive is because most new players ARE aggressive. From your description of your play, it sounds like a reasonable word to use.

I wouldn't focus too heavily on memorising openings. Yes, you definitely want to know the main variations you will encounter, but it is ridiculous to try and memorse 30 moves in. If you can get the first 4-8 moves or so for the common variations in your opening, that's probably more than good enough. With openings you want to understand the ideas behind them and not just the move order. For example, in the Evan's Gambit (a particular line in the Italian), white is looking to give up a pawn to black's bishop so that he can gain initiative over black (by black moving his bishop a few times) and to create open lines so that his pieces have mobility, prevent black's king from castling, and overwhelm black with an active center.

It's more important to focus on square (and thus piece) safety and how to create threats and how to defend (and anticipate) against them (in combination with opening principles). This is what tactics is really all about. By paying attention to this, you can reach a very good position without having a line memorised. Master's have done this analysis and evaluation over the years - memorising is simply piggy-backing upon that to speed things up.

As for trying out unorthodox or home-made lines, like you mentioned,"to see what happens" experimentation is a great way to learn by forcing yourself into different positions. However, I would suggest that you try it against a high-level computer (or opponent) - that will play strong moves that will expose potential weaknesses and help you evaluate the pros/cons of an experiment faster. It's better for you to see what happens against best play instead of against an opponent that may play poorly and thus reinforce an inaccurate bias in your mind. 

Read Jeremy Silman's Amateur's Mind then read How to Reassess your Chess.

Never apologize!  And don't indirectly accuse someone you've just apologized to for possibly being offensive of indecency!

You would be better off doing any number of things rather than memorizing openings.

Memorize ruben fine's 10 opening principles before any specific opening very deeply.

If you do want aggressive, try e4 followed by the kings gambit (against e5), smith morra gambit (against the sicilian)...get to know the IDEAS behond the opening rather than specific lines.

Above all else use the tactics trainer to practice counting and tactics....

Tactics should be your main focus, especially if you like risky or aggressive styles...and even if you want to play more 'safe' you still need tactics to make sure you are safe!

TACTICS TACTICS TACTICS

Here is an aggressive line as white you can try if someone hits you with the sicilian

1. e4 c5

2. d4 cd

3. c3 dc

4. Nxc3

And then go looking for mate.

Its not a GM opening, but its good enough for beginners to get you into a lot of tactics and a clear goal.

Hello there :)

To answer your questions....

1) Im sorry, I can't really help you on this question but all I can tell you is taking every exchange you have dosent make you "aggresive".

2) Here, as White against the Sicilian (1. e4 c5) you can play 2. Nc3, the Closed Sicilian. The attack on Black's K-side is quite aggresive and people at your level wont expect this move.

3) Now, to answer this question, you're going to need to do preparation on the Ruy by yourself. Im 100% sure all of your opponents that you play with won't play exactly the way played in the main line you studied on the Ruy. Take me for example, when I play the Scandinavian (1.e4 d5). My opponents dont capture my d-pawn 25% all the time whereas the Scandinavian's main line is White ALWAYS captures the pawn or else it's not Scandinavian anymore. Therefore, you're going to need to do preparation for your move after all possible moves your opponent is going to play. My suggestion is to look up chess.com's Game Explorer and see the most common moves played against your chosen openings and find the best responses.

Hope I helped :)

Oh yes, my friend, and one more thing. After reviewing your Live Chess games, I see you only play Blitz and Bullet. Play more standard time control games,it'll help you improve better than playing all those Blitz/Bullet.

The great hypermodern GM Richard Reti said (well wrote actually in his book Masters of the Chess Board) that beginners need to learn open games ahead of semi-open and closed games, so you should concentrate on double KP openings whenever possible - obviously your opponents don't have to "help out" by playing 1...e5 but you should in response to 1.e4. Vs 1.d4 play 1...d5.

For now you should concentrate on just learning how to ID all the major openings and their important variations and try playing the ones you think suit your style from both sides of the board if possible.

It would also help to start reading a few chess books, look around for used copies at amazon, eBay and local bookstores. My recommendations include

1000 Checkmates and 1000 Winning Chess Combinations by Fred Reinfeld (you can read these daily or sporadically while reading one other book)

The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played and/or Logical Chess Move By Move by Irving Chernev   GOOD LUCK in your chess endeavors!