Reverse wrote on 03/19/11 at 15:52:38:

Indeed. You are only as good as your next opponent. When it comes to the Lopez, I have never seen the sense in wasting the tempo with a6....I always play Alapin's 3.Bb4 line and I have had few losses so it works for me
HTH

Markovich wrote on 03/20/11 at 02:24:07:


Yeah, it always amuses me to see amateur players refer to openings like the Petroff as "drawish". The Exchange French is another one that people always say that about. I always tell them that below master level, there's no such thing as a drawish opening. 

As a 1700ish player who has played the French quite a bit as black, I can't recall ever scoring a draw in the Exchange variation. And as a 1. e4 player, I only remember getting a draw once against the Petroff. And that had nothing to do with the opening, and everything to do with a hard fought game against an evenly matched opponent, which came down to a typically drawish rook and pawn endgame.

As for playing the Ruy as black, I don't think players at my level should play the main lines. I played the Chigorin for a bit, and it was just too closed and positional. I've since switched to the Open Ruy, just to get more open positions in my games.

Quote:


Are you mad? 1. ...e5 is the most open move you can make, in fact it's the only move that makes the game classified as an "open game". Any other response to 1. e4 is a semi-open game because both players haven't committed themselves to a fully open game. Double queen pawn games are closed, while something else to 1. d4 is semi-closed. This is basic stuff.   

There are a lot of GMs and tutorials that teach the open games (1. e4 e5) to beginners, such idiots they all are... right? How dumb is to teach beginners an opening that shows the simple concept of occupying the centre and is a symmetrical, easy move? *tut tuts* ooooohhhh gawddd all those idiot grandmasters and thousands of tutorials, manuals, books like "The Right Way to Play Chess" and the old Soviet Union Chess Schools for hundreds of years that teach that to beginners, they're just sooooooooooo stupid, right....?

Kasparov said: "When I first learned to play chess, I was taught the first 20 moves of the Najdorf. To this day I thank heaven that I wasn't taught 1. ...e5 by some fool, if I had been I would probably still be under 2000." 
  
And what the hell is the "e5 spanish" and the "d5 queen's gambit"? Like as if there'd be an "e6 spanish" or something? Your opponent gets to choose the next move... I know I'm getting into very detailed technicalities here....    (I suppose you could play petrof's defence, but why didn't you just say not to play the Ruy... and the "d5 queen's gambit" makes zero sense whatsoever). 
   

I am rated about 2000, but I am not a normal 2000 player, I have won some tournaments already, there are some other 2000 players who just build up themselves with c4 g3, and don't do anything than waiting for their opponent, this might be enough to get to 2000 by drawing against higher rated players, but this won't win you tournaments ... I also drew an IM already and recently performed 2400 performance in a blitz tournament ... but tbh. currently I don't have so much time to play ...

you say open positions are fundamental? I completely agree, but the spanish and QGD are actually more closed than open positions, and the french can very well be an open position, when you just play 3. ... dxe4, and the sicilian with e6 is open anyway,
the nimzo is open, the modern benoni is open, and well against c4 ... c4 often remains closed, when played by weaker players, but when c4 remains closed, black is already equal, if white wants to have something in c4 he must play d4 at some point and you can just exchange your c5 pawn against it ...
and the hedgedog (misspelled it as eagle previously , because I know the opening as "Igel", the names sound just so similar) is very well playable ... and btw in contrary what chess literature says 1.c4 2. g3 does not deny the hedgedog, black can just play nc6 and still play b6 Bb7, it's perfectly playable ...

btw, markovich, you always recommend the tarrasch, 
I can't recommend it, the position is open yes, but you just end up defending your isolated d5 pawn, and when you lose that pawn you are just one pawn down in the endgame ... if white knows his stuff, you'll get down in this opening and can not hope for much than a draw ...

the spanish ressembles maybe the czech benoni a bit, but definately not the other benonis. Since the pawn remains on e5, it ressembles more an old indian opening ... 

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 d6 8. c3
O-O 9. h3 Na5 (9... Nb8 10. d4 Nbd7 11. Nbd2 Bb7 12. Bc2 Re8 13. Nf1 Bf8 14.
Ng3 g6 15. a4 c5 16. d5 c4 17. Bg5 h6 18. Be3 Nc5 19. Qd2 h5 20. Bg5 Be7 21.
Ra3 Rb8 22. Rea1 Bc8 23. axb5 axb5 24. Ra7) 10. Bc2 c5 11. d4 Qc7 12. Nbd2 Nc6
13. d5 Nd8 14. a4 Rb8 15. axb5 axb5 16. b4 c4 17. Nf1 Ne8 18. N3h2 f5 *

don't know why people are so stupid and recommend e5 to beginners ... 
open positions yes ... e5 spanish, d5 Queen's Gambit NO

Markovich wrote on 03/20/11 at 02:04:40:

Not totally sure how learning the Ruy as black is anymore difficult than learning any other opening as black, especially in the current age of theory we're in.

Thread-starter mentions the French/C-K - both openings require black to be able to turn on a dime based on variations white chooses. Attempting to play "system chess" is just a great way to hand white free rating points.

Some other views have been expressed above that seem freaky to me. Does anybody seriously think that the Berlin is a good weapon for sub-FM players, or sub-IM players for that matter? I sure as hell don't. Nor do I think the Petroff is particularly conducive to Black's taking the half point when played at these lower levels. So either some of those posting above are a whole lot stronger players than I thought they were, or they are ridiculously exaggerating the importace, for amateur players, of tendencies and fashions at the top.

e5 followed by Nc6 is a grandmaster's opening, just like the Queen's Gambit Declined. It is always said that the Open Games/Ruy Lopez against 1.e4 and the Queen's Gambit Declined against 1.d4/1.c4 are the fundamental openings for a beginner. But this is very wrong in my opinion. Because these 2 openings require a lot of positional understanding and patience that you don't have until you reach a master level. I tried to play e5 myself, but it is so damn hard to play against Ruy Lopez, that I have decided to give it up, and the Berlin Wall is not really an alternative to the Ruy Lopez (imo it's a GM opening). From a positional viewpoint, the e5 spanish variations ressemble mostly positions from the king's indian defence against 1.d4, and tbh. the king's indian defence is a very, very hard to master opening, these positions in e5 are a bit different, but still very hard to play ... Also the Queen's Gambit Declined, being said to be so easy to play is actually not easy to play, one reason is the catalan, other reasons are all this so called equal positions, that black can be forced into where black is always passively defending, these positions might be theoretical equal, but from a psychological view point a non-master player will just fail ...

if you want an easy opening against e4, play an e6 sicilian (d6 sicilans are all very theoretical and hard to play, can't recommend to any non-master player to play najdorf/scheveningen, dragon or classical sicilian), a good alternative to the e6-sicilian would be the french ... against d4/c4 play some nimzo/benoni/eagle-combination or alternatively slav with a6 (against c4 play ... c6 giving the white the possiblity to play a panov attack from caro cann, but this is good playable, unlike the other variations (advance/classical) in the caro kann, where black is always passively defending) ... believe me, I have done a lot of research and trials in numerous openings, browsing through databases for ages, and trying out many openings in otb tournaments and playing almost any opening that exists on icc, these opening combinations for black are the ultimate choices for non-master players.
You can ask me about any other opening and I will tell you why they are not good for non-master players.