Yes, of course, I forgot about Yusupov. In view of the author and publishing house, I expect that's excellent. Although having said that I remember seeing it being flogged off for a fiver on bookstalls in England. Maybe that's why no-one goes for it?!

Kotronias' was fine of course but with a different slant. You wouldn't take the opening up on the back of that.

QUOTE: "I am not going to debate the question "is the Petrov boring?".  But in my database, with 1300+ games with both players ELO 2500+, about 70% of the games end in a draw. This rate is considerably lower for the King's Gambit."

First of all, I completely agree that people cannot debate whether an opening is boring or not since its completely subjective.  There's no point in trying since people need to do is shrug and say "well, its boring to me"...end of story.

I decided to check my database (BigBase 2006 with TWIC every week) to see how my results compared to yours.  I only looked at games where both players are 2500+ and 1.e4 e5 was played.   Here are the results:

Total games: 11885 games
2.f4 scored a standard 54% for white from 136 games (with 33% 1-0 and 42% drawn.)
2.Nf3 Nf6 gives white an impressive 57% from 1743 games (with 25% 1-0 and 65% drawn.)

The first problem is the relatively small sample size in the King's Gambit since its only played about 1% of the time at this level.  In fact, in recent years its actually gotten even less popular as there are only a handful of games per year.
Also a significant amount of the Kings Gambit games are from rapid or internet events (about 25%-30%) but, that said, this is still a very good showing for an unrated opening.  (BTW 2...Bc5 appears best statistically and scores 55% for Black with a 2653 performance from a 2556 avg rating; but again, its much too small a sample to get excited about.  Just thought I'd share that info).

Now, the Petroff only has about 5%-8% rapid games and is a more substantial sample (since its played about 15% of the time at this level).  It's clear that while black is obviously much more likely to get a draw than in almost any other major opening, his winning chances are quite low (10% versus 25% in the Kings Gambit).  So, if you simply hate draws then the Kings Gambit is much more likely to be decisive (no surprises), but you should also know that Black is more than twice as likely to win than he is in a Petroff whereas your own chances of winning improve much much less.  That whole risk versus reward thing...

However, as Yusupov and several others have pointed out, its almost impossible to get reliable statistics in the Petroff since its the choice of many professionals when playing a pre-arranged draw (where almost no one would play a King's Gambit when they've agreed to a draw). Who knows what the stats would be like if all the "rehearsed" games where removed.  So, take all this with a grain of salt, but these are the numbers as they are.

Cheers,
Nietzsche

OK, I stand corrected. Those are both quite old, aren't they, but even so I don't recall them starting much of a trend even back then. (Hooper did the QGA too, didn't he - maybe a trend here?!). I think Raetsky/Chetverik did a Petroff one recently as well, maybe?

IMJohnCox wrote on 08/02/06 at 12:36:52:

I have fond memories of David Hooper's A Complete Defence To 1.P-K4: A Study Of Petroff's Defence (approx title). A bit dated by now though.

kylemeister wrote on 08/02/06 at 03:52:29:


Have you considered switching to the Reti? 

I suppose the Scotch is a good choice but I personally have never cared for the opening.  I believe Kasparov has called it the only choice for White besides the Ruy Lopez that can seriously fight for an advantage.  Sam Collins also recommended it in his An Attacking Repertoire for White book.  I had just thought that Black was finding it easier to equalize against lately.  I suppose it would have been a tough job to try and cover both the Open Sicilian and the Ruy Lopez in one volume, but doesn't Starting out 1.d4! pretty much use all of the main lines?  Sure 1.e4 has more theory but I would have rather had a really large fairly expensive book or two volumes with the absolute main lines.  I don't think one has to go to the lengths of the Khalifman series to do this, if one is willing to leave out a lot of minor variations.  (Probably won't be hard for someone to convince that I'm wrong though!)

Just for fun, I decided to list some players who have used Petroff's (see if any of the names are familiar):

Morphy, Steinitz, Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Smyslov, Tal, Petrosian, Spassky, Karpov, Kasparov, Kramnik, Topalov, Anand.

Admittedly, some of them only used it a few times, whereas others (Smylov and Karpov in particular) used it quite frequently.

By the way, I knew Fischer's name would not come up but was surprised that Botvinnik also never played the Petroff.
Does anyone know why?  Does it strike anyone else as odd that Tal and Alekhine would try it but not Botvinnik??
I suppose there was a reason but I don't what it is. 
Maybe he was just too busy in the French to give it a go, but it was surprising nevertheless.  Anyone have the answer?

"When and who brought into fashion all these talks about the Petroff Defense being a boring drawish opening? This statement sounds old and amateurish. This opening offers many lines with complicated play and immense room for creativity! Work on, play and enjoy it!" - Shipov, http://www.chesspro.ru/events/sanluis05-12en.shtml

"The Petroff, 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nf6, is a boring, turgid opening line used at the highest level to neutralize the advantage of the first move. Unfortunately, you will also occasionally meet it in your games, as some ordinary players like to copy the play of the great masters, even at the cost of enjoying their chess." - McDonald

I got the both the e4 and d4 book today. (Remember my e4 vs d4 discussion?) I have to say that the initial impression by just reading here and there gives that the d4 book is much more serious. More serious lines, more serious comments, 40 more pages. I shouldn't say more before reading the books.