Pretty much any first move is OK for white. While not all of them keep the advantage, many of them just put the ball in black's court and generally speaking, white is fine with equality in many cases.
Don't worry about punishing things like that in the opening. Just develop, following normal opening principles and you should be fine.
c3 is pretty strong.
c3 is pretty strong.
Except I screwed up in the explanation. Not used to discussing moves. I meant C4, but that is cool. Thanks for the example.`
c3 is pretty strong.
Except I screwed up in the explanation. Not used to discussing moves. I meant C4, but that is cool. Thanks for the example.`
c4 is the fourth most popular opening move. There is nothing inherently weak with an English opening.
except that you can equalize
c3 is pretty strong.
Except I screwed up in the explanation. Not used to discussing moves. I meant C4, but that is cool. Thanks for the example.`
c4 is the fourth most popular opening move. There is nothing inherently weak with an English opening.
I'm feeling really dopey. I'm sorry, I am not used to discussing chess and algebraic notation, I just have learned everything from playing. I have completely screwed up this thread. I meant when someone moves to F4 (white's king's bishop's pawn), that's what trips me up.
Sorry, I am not trying to backtrack all over myself and waste people's time, but that's the opening that I have lost way too many times to when playing black. Any suggestions on good defenses and that's the gist of that opening by white?
Ah, the Bird. Yeah, it is weaker and pretty uncommon. In my larger database it is the 7th most common opening (8th in a database of more recent games).
I see how it could be interesting in blitz, since it is less common.
I've only played it a couple of times (not recently). The most common replies by black are d5, followed by Nf6. White scores more poorly with it than many other openings.
I don't know the theory behind the opening, but it does fight for control of e5 immediately.
The move 1.c4 is the 5th most active short term move in the beginning of the game.
Thanks, I found a thread from 7 years ago in the openings forum on the Bird. Studying it now.
http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-openings/best-defense-against-birds-opening
This is in the context of 5 minute Blitz and games where quick decisions need to be made, not longer games where I can study every option.
For some reason I get tripped up when white opens with c3. Should be pretty straightforward, right? I've been winning sometiomes or at least playing a betterdefense game with that opening of those lately, but just winging it. I don't feel like I really know what the best kinds of responses are. but the strange thing is, that seems like it would be a weak opening or very exploitable move. So far I seem to stand a chance when I answer with kf3, but I don't understand why, or understand the goals or much about the opening or why what works. I guess I need to study those games somewhere but not sure the best way to analyze them. The openings database?
What are its vulnerabilities, goals? Why does it tend to work? Is it a good opening or not? I'm thinking it isn't, but it seems to work against me too much.
The other opening is that trick where you take the opponent's queen and they checkmate with two knights. I don't take the bait anymore, I just capture their knight instead of take the queen with the bishop and can win some of those games now, but I still haven't memorized that scenario or know the right responses.
This is just from playing a lot of blitz. Maybe there's a good approach to studying these things, but I don't have any formal study approach, just playing.