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Hot Topic (More than 10 Replies) A Question For QGA Players (Read 7162 times)
John Cox
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Re: A Question For QGA Players
Reply #14 - 10/14/05 at 15:39:11
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So come on Semko, how is El Khal going to refute the Alekhine? 4 Nf3 or the Exchange?

I find the original post a bit curious. I wouldn't say any white first move had particular thematic links with the QGA, nor Black defence to e4 really. As someone said, perhaps the Petroff, at least until FIDE sees the light and bans it!
  
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Willempie
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Re: A Question For QGA Players
Reply #13 - 10/14/05 at 03:20:54
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Thanks for your help kevinludwig. Smiley I already open with 1e4 as white, so I'm glad to hear that this is a good choice. Someone at my chess club suggested the Reti would be a good choice but i don't know if that is a practical idea or not. As black, I keep flitting from opening to opening against 1e4 players. I need to sort something out and stick  with it !! I hadn't considered 1e5 before as it looks very complicated. I was thinking about the Alekhines Defense. I don't mind the pawn structures being different, but I want to play at the same kind of speed in all my openings.

1..e5 is less complicated as you may think. It depends a bit on which lines you select. You could for example base your repertoire on the Petrov. That leaves only something to pick against the King's gambit and Vienna and some much lesser lines like 2 d4.
If you dont like the Petrov or want to invest a bit more time you could play 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6. That leaves you with selecting a line against 3 Bc4, 3 d4 and 3 Bb5. There are a couple of threads in the e4-e5 forum where many of the options are discussed. Just pick one and try it out.
  

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John Simmons
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Re: A Question For QGA Players
Reply #12 - 10/13/05 at 10:44:53
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Hello,

@ Boris_Karwash what kevenludwig said looks quite logical to me. Think a QGA player should like direct hand to hand fighting of the peices, so playing 1.e4 as white, and sicillian or 1...e5 as black against 1.e4 makes most sense. This fits the top players already mentioned, and also Kasparov, and Fischer.  As kevenludwig implied you should expect a certain amount of pain in learning the opening at first, as opponents hit you with direct tactics. After you come familiar with opening, you will reach genuiuely equal or better middle-games, and you will also learn about classical chess. Which is why the old soviet coaches used to recommend such openings.
             As black against 1e4, I moving towards playing 1...e5, after playing the French and sicillian variations in the past. When playing the French, I had a liking for more open variations like the Burn variation, and never liked nf6 against the tarrasch like a "real" french player would. When playing against the sicillian, have to be prepared for defending against enormous white attack's in the open main-line variations. Without significant preparation, white's position is so much easier to play, see Polgar's troubles in on-going WC tournament for example.

Bye John S
  
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Smyslov_Fan
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Re: A Question For QGA Players
Reply #11 - 10/13/05 at 09:34:43
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Slates,

Your idea of 1.c4 is just fine too.  Kramnik, who used the QGA to tremendous effect in his match against Kasparov, played 1.Nf3 and 2.c4.

I think this just shows that the QGA is too flexible to be slid into a single category of player.  I've faced several different types of QGA player as White.  There are those who really love it when I play 2.e4 because they want to mix things up early.

There are also those who really love it when I play my other favorite, 2.e3!? and get interesting long-term counterplay.  Some people who like slightly offbeat lines play the computer-esque line ...Be6 against 2.e3 which is much tougher to crack than it looks.

So I guess my advice is to find another bellweather opening than the QGA to determine your repertoire because the community of QGA players encompasses a very wide range of players!
  
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slates
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Re: A Question For QGA Players
Reply #10 - 10/13/05 at 08:40:47
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Inn2's advice is probably more sensible than my own - 1.e4 is likely to be more appropriate than 1.c4 for most players.  My 1.c4 is simply something I have always played and the resulting positions aren't too close to QGA stuff, from what I can see. As for answering 1.e4 I can only repeat that the Taimanov is my preference.  There aren't too many problematic Anti Sicilians to worry about (2...e6 rules out the Bb5 lines) and I think that it gives you a better game than the Rubinstein or the Scan, even if you stray from the main lines early on. Also you could try the Sicilian Kan, which in some ways is perhaps easier to adopt as a 'system' opening.....but again, I wouldn't like to say how well it fits with the QGA.  Personally I am heartened to know that Anand plays both the QGA and the Taimanov quite often, and I didn't know who Rublevsky was until I read about him in the Rizzitano book, but it's encouraging to see that he, too, plays both openings.  Still, I don't think it makes much difference at my lowly level what these guys play - I just want middlegame positions I'm comfortable in, and I get those in the English, and so far I get them in some lines of the QGA, but certainly not all....
  
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Re: A Question For QGA Players
Reply #9 - 10/13/05 at 07:34:32
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The prominent QGA players (notably Anand, Karjakin and Rublevsky) play 1 e4 as white, which probably makes sense as both lead to open positions. 
Their defences to 1. e4 tend to be solid and "classical" e.g. 1... e5 in the case of Karjakin and Anand, or solid Sicilians like the Taimanov in the case of Rublevsky (and Anand). 

By the way, I am also looking forward to Delchev's Taimanov book that Semkov mentions. Smiley
  
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Re: A Question For QGA Players
Reply #8 - 10/13/05 at 06:11:46
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Thanks for your useful input Slates. I enjoy playing the QGA as I win with it often, and also because it seems less like old stodge than the QGD (which I played for years and consistantly lost with). As the QGA is now the backbone of my repertoire, I will invest in the book you recommended.

As you suggested that the English feels comfortable with the QGA, perhaps my friends suggestion of the Reti for white isn't so bad after all. Do any Reti/English players in this forum have an opinion on this? Trouble is that if I build my repertoire around the QGA and the Reti, what would I play as black against 1e4??   1e5 (kevinludwig's recommendation) is tempting (especially after all those negative comments about the Alekhine's) but that looks wrong with the Reti/QGA; and as I have mentioned in this forum before, I just don't have the time or  energy to learn the Sicilian (all those anti-Sicilians put me completely off). Perhaps the Rubinstein French is the solution? oR the Scandinavian??
  
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Re: A Question For QGA Players
Reply #7 - 10/13/05 at 05:37:58
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I'm looking forward more to the Delchev(?) book that Semkov mentions on the 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 repertoire.....is that one still in the pipeline? Sorry it's off-topic - I played the Alekhine for a while but struggled against 1.e4 Nf6 2.d5 more than anything. Maybe 'struggled' is a bit strong, but I got this so often (and found it tricky and annoying) I moved back to my mainstay, the Taimanov Sicilian.  Anyway, back to the original question - I have a FWIW answer - I have just bought Rizzitano's new book (looks excellent so far) on the QGA as it also covers other openings where White doesn't play 2.c4, and I usually play a QGD (although I've wandered about a bit with the Classical Dutch and even a few Slavs lately) - but the book is encouraging me to look at the QGA as well, so I may become a QGA player of sorts.  If that happens, you'll see that it's entirely by accident that I also play 1.c4.  So although it means very little in the context of what a (real) QGA player chooses to open with as White, I can say that as an English player the QGA has a certain appeal. I guess I like to get to my opening choice as soon as possible without too many deviations - after 2.c4, of course, that's very easy with the QGA.   After 1.c4, the same applies!   Smiley
  
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Smyslov_Fan
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Re: A Question For QGA Players
Reply #6 - 10/12/05 at 18:08:08
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Semkov,

I'm looking forward to seeing it!  Is the release just in Europe for now, or also in the US?
  
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Semkov
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Re: A Question For QGA Players
Reply #5 - 10/12/05 at 15:20:23
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I hope we'll provide Aleknine's fans with some problems. In 3-4 days we start delivering "Opening for White according to Anand" vol. 5 which deals mostly with the Alekhine Defence. But no 4 pawns attacks, thanks.
  
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kevinludwig
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Re: A Question For QGA Players
Reply #4 - 10/12/05 at 12:16:30
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About 1. ...e5. I have a short story for you. I started playing the Alekhine when I was just a 1300USCF player, and it took me all the way to about 1800USCF, and probably I could have kept playing it, but I decided to switch repertoire, just out of boredom. Sometime after that I took a few lessons from an IM, and of course he wanted to know what my goals were, and I said "I want to run up my rating as high as possible" or something to that effect. He said "Fine, the first thing you need to do is give up the Alekhine's Defence". At any rate I decided on the Pirc, for whatever reason...I think I had read "Winning with the Modern" at a local University library, and I was inspired, and off I went. Now my rating is somewhere around 1900USCF. Let me tell you, those Alekhine lines, and now these Pirc lines, this is HARD stuff to play. Even when you learn the theory, and you get the position you're supposed to get, sometimes these positions are just HARD.
Now, I've been learning 1. ...e5 as a side project for about 4 months now--I just don't feel like a real chess player unless I know how to play some of those positions. Sometimes I get blown away in less that 20 moves against some 1200 player on ICC. So there are a lot of tricky positions, probably a lot more traps to be aware of than in other openings. But I have also found that once you get the position you're supposed to get, it's ALOT easier to play from there.
On the other hand, you may get invaluable practice at defense if you play the Alekhine. And of course, this is just my opinion, your results may vary, etc.
  
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Re: A Question For QGA Players
Reply #3 - 10/12/05 at 08:22:37
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Thanks for your help kevinludwig. Smiley I already open with 1e4 as white, so I'm glad to hear that this is a good choice. Someone at my chess club suggested the Reti would be a good choice but i don't know if that is a practical idea or not. As black, I keep flitting from opening to opening against 1e4 players. I need to sort something out and stick  with it !! I hadn't considered 1e5 before as it looks very complicated. I was thinking about the Alekhines Defense. I don't mind the pawn structures being different, but I want to play at the same kind of speed in all my openings.


I've been dabbling with Alekhine's for a while with good results.  However, there is a crisis right now, since a number of ways of meeting the Four Pawns Attack have recently had big holes punched in them.  You should see the recent 1...e4 updates, if you have access to them.  Also see the 1...e4 forum.
  

The Great Oz has spoken!
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Re: A Question For QGA Players
Reply #2 - 10/12/05 at 05:29:17
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Thanks for your help kevinludwig. Smiley I already open with 1e4 as white, so I'm glad to hear that this is a good choice. Someone at my chess club suggested the Reti would be a good choice but i don't know if that is a practical idea or not. As black, I keep flitting from opening to opening against 1e4 players. I need to sort something out and stick  with it !! I hadn't considered 1e5 before as it looks very complicated. I was thinking about the Alekhines Defense. I don't mind the pawn structures being different, but I want to play at the same kind of speed in all my openings.
  
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kevinludwig
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Re: A Question For QGA Players
Reply #1 - 10/10/05 at 17:01:06
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I have a friend who plays QGA, as white he plays 1. e4, as black he plays 1. ...e5 against e4.
  
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A Question For QGA Players
10/10/05 at 14:47:45
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Help Wanted !!

Could any Queens Gambit Accepted players please tell me what they play as White and also what they play as Black against 1e4? What would be a nice fit??Thank You in advance to all who reply.  Smiley


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