Death of Chess Openings

Hi there, I would like to talk about the death of chess... kinda. As we all know the debate about if or when chess will be solved by computers is, well... debatable, but that's not what I'm here to talk about chess openings, because let's be real, no one wants to be forced to play a suboptimal opening just to get a playable position just because the main openings result in a forced draw.

Think about the Poisoned Pawn variation of the Najdorf. We didn't solved the entire variation, but as far as I know there some points in the line where white can force a draw and that makes the opening pretty much dead outside of correspondance play. Well, that and the gigantic body of theory the opening have.

What I'm afraid of is the possibility of that ocurring in other openings, I could easily see the Dragon being "solved" as it is a highly tactical opening and most lines could very well have a forced draw for one of the sides. Other opening I might consider too are the Berlin, the Marshall, the King's Indian...

So I want to ask, what other openings you can think of that died due to the amount of theory and what openings do you see that happening in the near future? Also, how much time we have until we "run out" of openings? How long till we are forced to play the "Scandinavian"?

As far as flesh and blood people are concerned, it doesn't matter how deep the theory of a particular opening is. Three are too many openings, too many variations, and too deeply analyzed for anyone sane to want to memorize them all. Look at Carlsen. He just picks a playable sideline, and goes from there. He wins the games in the middlegame and endings.

But that's my point, there's too much theory and nobody is going to study all the thory in the Najdorf PP Variation if their oponent can simply force a draw. If all three results were possible, then there are theoriticians that would gladly play it, but when a forced draw is possible, what's the point? It's a forced draw at best.

My point is that even if an opening is worked out to be a forced draw, people should play it, because the chances that the opponent bothered to memorize the whole line and all subvariations are small.

Actually, It won't matter much if an opening is solved. Atleast, the converse is true. Take King's Gambit for example. It is far from solved. But we do not play it because supposedly black gets and advantage. But white can still force a draw?

The main theory is, No matter what opening anyone plays, unless there is a mistake by either side, it will always be a draw. So that means, Unless playing 1 ... c5 is a mistake, ALL games with 1 e4 will be solved till a draw in the distant future. Same goes for king's gambit. If 2 f4 is not a mistake, it is still a draw. And since it IS a draw, then who cares about advantage?

I don't know why white's win rate is higher than black. My calculation is, it should be easier for black to win as there is a higher chance of his having the advantage in a zugzwang...

Don't worry about openings dying out. We won't win against computers, so why not just accept a draw?

Think of it in this way, the Najdorf PP Variation used to be quite popular and was played by some of the stronger GMs, they played it so much that the variation ran out of juice, most of the moves from the variation have been found and is very unlikely that a new move will be found that reignites the discussion of whether or not the variation is draw with best play.

1...c5 may be a mistake, or maybe it isn't, but we don't know that, that's why masters keep playing it, there is so many variations, so many brilliancies waiting to be found and players wanting to find them. That's why every week we have a new "I Found a New Opening!!!" thread, everyone wants to be an explorer and uncover something brilliant no one has ever seen.

The King's Gambit isn't a opening that died, I would say it hasn't even been born yet, besides a few GMs the opening has never been played a lot or explored as deeply as the Ruy Lopez or the Sicilian. In fact, even the French Defense is well underdeveloped when compared to those two and both of them are far from being "out of juice", the PP Variation is just a variation of the Bg5 Najdorf, there are other variations of the Bg5 Najdorf, there are variations besides Bg5 in the Najdorf and there are Sicilians other than the Najdorf.

In the end the whole discussion may not make a lot of sense to club players as they just want to play the game and don't care a lot about theory, but my question stands, besides the PP Variation, what other openings died through the ages due to "running out of juice"? What are some other highly theoretical openings that you simply don't see Masters playing nowdays? Also, a lot of masters already are leaving the Berlin out of their repertoir or, at the very least, avoiding the Berlin Endgame, so how far is the whole Berlin Endgame from fading away from the top level? I mean, we're not going to play the same openings forever.

It's not that King's indian was not explored, but it was explored in the wrong way. The 3... g5 variation is not what's played now, only because black does better in others like the d5 or d6 ones. And the time when King's Gambit was popular people didnt know how to defend properly. So as I see it, King's gambit hasn't run out of juice, but no one want's to take it up and defend it against accusations. Simply because Ruy lopez is better option.

French Defense was played extensively against e4 at a time when Sicilian was considered unsound. Aron Nimzovich has made a thorough study of the advance variation. I'd admit the exchange and Winawer variations aren't as deeply analyzed though.

I got your point. You are asking, How long do we have till all openings have been totally played out. When that happens, chess will become a game of memory maniacs, too far into the future.

There are complex openings not played by grandmasters. If I say King's Indian, then it is not enough since King's Indian is still played by it's experts. But what about Urusov Gambit and Queen's Indian Defense? I don't really know about Queen's Indian, But Urousov is really unnoticed and possibly underrated.

Whether chess gets solved or not should be irrelevant. As a human chess will always remain unsolvable, and that's all that matters as a player.

I don't think it would be irrelevant... If people can remember an irrational number upto it's 500th digit, why can't they memorize most moves of the game and beat/draw against anyone?

LOL

If the Posion Pawn Variation is a clear draw.

Why do I keep losing in it when I play it from the black side.

I guess it is only a draw if you know the continuation LOL.

White wins more games at the highest level because the advantage of moving first is a big deal betweem fairly equally rated master level players. That is why all the opening advice you see for Black is just showing how to equalise in the main lines,it is impossible for Black to get any advantage if White plays correctly.

You don't see the King's Gambit at the elite level because the best White can hope for if Black knows the theory is a draw, they worked this out a hundred years ago so it has only ever been used as an ocassional surprise weapon by Bronstein, Spassky and in recent years Short (who called it 'A lousy opening' after he got crushed by Luke McShane in a game at the 2011 London Chess Classic so I doubt we will see it again)

At club level it doesn't matter, you can play the Grob and beat people if you are a much better player.

Because the number of possible chess positions that can arise from the opening is something like 10^120, thats a 10 with 120 zeroes behind it. Not 500.

Someone once lold me the correct answer to the question why white wins more than black. It is because white gets to play the openings he wants. I am an e4 player, but as black I will HAVE to play d4 openings against a d4 player. So there's the advantage. Moving first isnt the big deal, but being able to determine the nature of the game is a pretty big deal.

I always thought the oposite, yes white might choose between e4, d4 or c4, but that's only three options, four with Nf3. If you start with e4 you oponent might choose between c5, e5, e6 and c6, that's 4 diferent choices your oponent has and all of them are good. With d4 your oponent might play a QGD, a Slav, a Semi-Slav, a KID, a QID, a Nimzo-Indian or a Grunfeld and besides the Nimzo-Indian you can't avoid any of them if you play d4.

Sure, you can always make a early deviation, but those almost aways offer black at least equality, while in the main openings, equality is something black usually has to fight for. I'm not sure how much this apply to c4 or Nf3, but you get my point.

Chess might as well be a forced win for black and white has an advantage simply because is harder to play as black. That being said I thing Chess is a forced draw, but hey, all three results are possible.

We should cancel the Olympics. Cars, horses, and forklifts can do everything better than the human competitors. Darn!

I'm pretty sure we can beat horses in a volleyball game.

Do you people even read the initial post? It was never about chess being solved, much less about computer play, it was about openings, or should I say, opening variations dying because of the extensive amount of theory. GMs don't play the variation OTB because of the amount of theory and people don't really play it in correspondance because the extensive theory will most likely lead to a position that has little play left for both sides.

As I mentioned the Poisoned Pawn Variation of the Najdorf is a good example of that, it was played a lot by Kasparov himself, now no one plays it anymore. This topic went way off-track.

You still wrote about chess being eventually solved. I wrote what I wrote because I think it's not relevant. Also if opening are all known then remembering them is a part of the game.

You should learn the openings or you will not reach the middle game.

Check King Maneuver Attack in this site