The Ruy Lopez is the king of all openings.
Learning the Open games?
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pfren wrote:
The Ruy Lopez is the king of all openings.
Indeed, and @ chessteenager, you'll find as many games from old masters as you will from modern ones. The positions are complex and rich enough that it's never gotten old or gone out of fashion.
I mean like was their opening theory as good as modern days or is it out dated? and Ruy for white is a crazy amount of theory though correct?
Some good advice about openings is... don't be afraid of these main lines. The only practical way to treat the openings for a non-professional player is to attempt to reach a playable middlegame where you understand the main ideas. Main lines are the best way to reach good middlegames.
Also, opening prep isn't something done in a closet. You have to use the opening in games. If you can completely learn and prepare an opening without playing it then it's not a very good one. There may be a lot of theory in the Ruys, Sicilians, Slavs, etc but you're going to know as much as your peers, so it won't be a problem. If you screw up before move 30 in some deep theoretical line it's not going to matter unless you're facing GMs anyway.
Straying from super-theory will probably give your opponent a technically winning endgame... if he was Capiblanca. Or maybe he can sac his queen for 3 pieces and give a mating attack... if he's Shirov. When you and your opponents are good enough for that to matter you can deal with it then. Meanwhile you'll be building an excellent repertoire and gaining experience in important middlegames. Imagine making your repertoire obscure openings and having to discard everything at 1800 because it's all rubbish.
Oh, and the games played 50 years ago may be outdated, but they contain important ideas... not all of which are bad. Sometimes a certain way of playing is left because to the Capablanca's of the world the endgame is a draw... or there is an otherwise more enterprising way of playing. But it's all part of your chess education. Pulling old lines out can be very effective... and when your opponents do so too you'll know how to face them.
Again, memorizing the moves is truely useless. Understanding the reasoning... the middlegame ideas and meanuevers the opening leads to is the main focus. You can worry about the opening database in your head when you're rated 2600 :p
Yea but the thing is i just love studying openings its my favorate part of chess. But i also want to get better so while im studying openings i may as well look at great lines if these 1500 players insist on playing the Najdorf ill be glad to throw Bg5 at them and know all the ideas and theory on it. But what i really really want is to get better at chess. Thats all i want. But how? If its not openings. Then it must be in the middlegameo rendgame. Im currently studying the books my system and Silmans endgame REP. Also i do tactics daily, watch videos on current chess events like the TATA, and im starting to watch GM games played with my openings
Ruy Lopez is a great opening. The games of Paul Morphy are a (the?) classic thing to recommend for first studying open games.
Keep in mind if you are going to play black 1.e4 e5 you need to be ready for 2.f4 (King's Gambit)
I'm sorry, I can't relate. Opening study is the most boring part of chess to me. It seems most enjoy openings so I guess it's not very common.
It sounds like you're doing all the right stuff to get better... that's how you get better, you play, read, watch, analyse.
Opening study is fine, just be sure it's in the context of the middlegame. When you're a professional player maybe at that point straight memorization is useful. I don't know, you'd have to ask them yourself.
Well i just got out of a 6 round tournament with a time control of 1 hour in Miami Florida.
The thing is i played 1d4, 1...e5, and Kid setups.
I placed 13th place and its really funny because my rating is 1200 and i am the lowest out of the top 30 players lol! literally all the guys around me were around 1700 -2000. I won 4 and lost 2.
Back to the point is i want to learn the open games AKA play 1.e4 and 1...e5 i think i will remain playing KID because it is my favorate opening and i get the most out of chess playing its positions. The reason i am going back to 1.e4 1..e5 is because it is an essential part of a chess players "education". ive always played caro kann and 1.d4. I get truley disgusted by the positions that arise i really dont like either of them. Anyway here are my main questions about learning 1.e4 1..e5
1. Should i play ruy lopez or scotch? Which will help me learn more and is simply more fun for you to play?
2.When watching grandmaster games im going to filter it to players who play 1...e5 against e4. Does that mean old players like Spassky, steinitz, anderssen, and morphy? Or Carlsen, Adams, Karpov?