Initiative

'Openings', involving, the 'initiative' .. 'Danish Gambit' {accepted} .. Sicilian 'Smith-Morra' gambit, {accepted}, .. 'Budapest Defense', {accepted}.. 'Max Lange' Attack .. {all I know of, by 'name'}.. Though, there is,  1 'sub-variation' each {name?}, in the 'Bird's Opening", & 'Dutch Defense', as played, by 'white'.

Ditto to Flank_Attacks' advice: Either look at accepted gambits where the opponent foolishly neglects to give back the material, or at unsound openings like the Fried Liver Attack or Damiano's Defense.

I'd recommend memorizing Morphy's famous game below, for example, for several reasons. That's the only pro game I've fully memorized, and I was pressured to do so since I gave a presentation on it once. That and the other game I posted below are great examples of the initiative. Coincidentally they both ended with Opera House Mates (rook and bishop), and coincidentally it was Morphy's game below, which was played in an opera house, that gave rise to the name "Opera House Mate" for that type of mate. Note how in each game White never gives Black a chance to catch a breath of air until mate occurs.

Thanks - I've heard a lot about his books but never read any of them, hope to get to it soon!  Definitely difficult to find topical material on the initiative from a more positional angle, many players view the initiative overly so from a sacrificial manner (more than pawn sacs).

I think of initiative as having an advantage of time, especially when one side loses one or more tempi, though one book defines it as momentum, which is a good analogy. If you've ever played tug of war with a rope between two teams, you'll have learned that once one side begins to pull ahead, they develop a momentum and are able to keep pulling faster. If you've ever played the paper-and-pencil game of battleships, the same thing happens when one side gets "on a roll" and keeps winning free turns as a result. That's what momentum is like in chess: once your attack gains momentum, then you're always attacking and the other side is always defending. Often it ends in a spectacular win.

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(p. vi)
INITIATIVE: The momentum of a
continuing series of tactical or
positional threats by the same
player.

Keene, Raymond, Edmar Mednis, Jack Peters, Julio Kaplan, and Andy Soltis. 1980. Caro-Kann Defense. Great Neck, N.Y.: R.H.M. Press.

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(p. 53)
      Game 9
      Znosko-Borovsky - Mackenzie
      Weston-super-Mare 1924
      Ruy Lopez

      1 e4

   This first move occupies the centre
with a pawn and frees four squares
for the queen and five for the f1-
bishop. One of the reasons many
players prefer 1 e4 to any other
opening move is that it gets the
kingside pieces rolling quickly, en-
abling early castling on that side.

      1 ... e5

   In the old days this was almost
compulsory. It indicated that you
were willing to stand toe-to-toe and
slug it out. Only a coward would
avoid 1...e5 and a possible gambit by
White.
   Objectively considered, the text-
move is perhaps Black's strongest
response. It challenges possession of
the centre and prevents White from
monopolizing it by continuing 2 d4.

      2 Nf3

   What happens if White persists
and plays 2 d4? The reply 2...exd4
leads to 3 Qxd4 Nc6 4 Qe3 Nf6,
when Black has two pieces in play to
one of White's. This amounts to tak-
ing the initiative away from White
early in the game.

Chernev, Irving. 1998. Logical Chess: Move by Move. London: Faber & Faber.

I appreciate you pointing that out, but Shi_Tou never responded to any of my comments or games, so I don't know where he's at or what he understands. For all I know, most of his 1888 rating might have come from blitz games.

Hey Sqod - thanks for the input.  I hate shoving ratings at people, but if you look at my profile the rapid rating is clearly not a fluke.  Also, by your own logic, people with strong blitz ratings should have a good understanding of the initiative as most games involve sacs and attacks at that time control.  (Additionally, rapid and blitz are very different so mistaking my rapid rating for blitz games is queer...)

With respect, anyone who is at my level and hasn't heard of those games or doesn't have (at the very least) that level of understanding of the openings, I would suspect engine use immediately.  Those games are used to teach beginners and have a high frequency of widespread use.  

My inquiry was about positional initiative, regarding players such as Levon Aronian in his earlier days, delving deeper than the surface-level sacrificial tactics which people observe most frequently.  Initiative is present in all games, but is discussed much less with regard to the 'quieter' openings, which is what I am looking for more.

For the record, I rarely take the time to look at a poster's history. I usually take a quick look at their rating if I feel I need to be sure about the depth of their question, or look at how long they've been a member if I think they might just be out to waste people's time for fun, but otherwise I can't justify time used for personal background research.

OK, so you might indeed be way ahead of me since I've never heard about initiative in quiet openings at all. I don't even see how that's possible in the normal sense of momentum. I can understand getting ahead in development due to tempo loss, which will eventually lead to a win if the superior side is sufficiently ahead in development, and that the momentum might not be visible for a while in a closed position or quiet opening, but until it becomes visible I don't see how anything other than keeping track of the number of lost tempi is relevant or interesting.  It sounds like I should look at Aronian's early games one of these days.