ChessPub Forum - Openings that you would never play

Smyslov_Fan God Member Correspondence fan Offline Progress depends on the unreasonable man. ~GBS Posts: 6902 Joined: 06/15/05	Re: Openings that you would never play Reply #85 - 08/11/11 at 04:53:46	Post Tools	Print Post
	Stigma wrote on 08/10/11 at 22:53:03: A couple of strange comments in this thread. First, Jupp53's second position comes from the Moscow variation (2.Nf3 d6 3.Bb5+), not the Rossolimo variation (2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5). They are often combined in a repertoire and there is a hybrid line (when Black plays both ...Nc6 and ...d6 in either order), but they are still considered separate openings. We should stick to that, to avoid confusion. ... My apologies for getting the name wrong. (As I've said elsewhere, I don't know the names of the openings as well as the ideas behind them.) However, my basic point remains valid.


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fling God Member Offline I Love ChessPublishing! Posts: 1591 Joined: 01/21/11 Gender:	Re: Openings that you would never play Reply #84 - 08/11/11 at 04:50:38	Post Tools	Print Post
	Stefan Buecker wrote on 08/10/11 at 23:25:49: Or maybe the amount of preparation which 1800- Blacks put into 2.Nf3/d4 is too high, and rarer lines are ignored. I think the last words are correct. I guess you with 1800- mean lower rated than 1800? Because I would think that players higher rated are well prepared for these lines, at least more than 1800 and below.


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Stefan Buecker God Member Offline Posts: 1386 Location: Germany Joined: 02/11/09 Gender:	Re: Openings that you would never play Reply #83 - 08/10/11 at 23:25:49	Post Tools	Print Post
	The best-scoring moves in 1.e4 c5 games between 1800- players are: 2.b4 (57% / 92 games in MegaBase 2008), 2.Ne2 (55% / 49 games), 2.c3 (52% / 1266 games), 2.b3 (51% / 129 games). Meanwhile 2.Nf3 (48% in 13.153 games) isn't too successful. "Top" moves are those which tend to lead to characteristic structures on the board. This includes 2.Ne2, Chameleon Sicilian - the move is usually played with a clear scheme in mind, when to play the Open and when to go into closed structures. Also 2.c3 and 2.b3 create typical positions. Or maybe the amount of preparation which 1800- Blacks put into 2.Nf3/d4 is too high, and rarer lines are ignored.


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Stigma God Member Offline There is a crack in everything. Posts: 3277 Joined: 11/07/06 Gender:	Re: Openings that you would never play Reply #82 - 08/10/11 at 22:53:03	Post Tools	Print Post
	A couple of strange comments in this thread. First, Jupp53's second position comes from the Moscow variation (2.Nf3 d6 3.Bb5+), not the Rossolimo variation (2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5). They are often combined in a repertoire and there is a hybrid line (when Black plays both ...Nc6 and ...d6 in either order), but they are still considered separate openings. We should stick to that, to avoid confusion. Second, I don't agree that White "must be prepared to sacrifice a pawn for attacking chances in the Bb5 sicilians"; at least not based on this line. White could have deviated with 5.c4 (most common on higher levels, but often very dry), 6.Qe2 (as in Jones' recent book) or 7.Re1. The first two of these are probably more serious tries for advantage than 6.c3 Nf6 7.d4. In the positional main line 5.c4 White does have to sacrifce a pawn after the risky double attack 5...Qg4?! 6.0-0 Qxe4 7.d4, but if anyone is unwilling to play that with White they really need to work on their dynamic play. Btw. there was coverage of 5...Qg4 (by Andrew Greet) in the recent newsletter from Quality Chess.

	Improvement begins at the edge of your comfort zone. -Jonathan Rowson
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fling God Member Offline I Love ChessPublishing! Posts: 1591 Joined: 01/21/11 Gender:	Re: Openings that you would never play Reply #81 - 08/10/11 at 22:24:13	Post Tools	Print Post
	Jupp53 wrote on 08/10/11 at 20:31:20: In the open sicilian I'd like black personally. The 2 bishops are my reasoning behind this. I think you are underestimating dynamic play, and this is one of the key aspects I think of today's chess. You can learn this without having to play anti-sicilians. The two bishops are often favored, but so is development. You should learn about the trade-offs.


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Smyslov_Fan God Member Correspondence fan Offline Progress depends on the unreasonable man. ~GBS Posts: 6902 Joined: 06/15/05	Re: Openings that you would never play Reply #80 - 08/10/11 at 22:23:20	Post Tools	Print Post
	Just a minor point: the second diagram comes from the Rossolimo variation, which is a well-tested option only available to white after 2...d6. White's play in that line is very similar to an Open Sicilian. In fact, by the time the second diagram has arisen, the position is "open". So I don't see these two diagrams as an effective argument in favor of playing closed Sicilians over open ones.


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Jupp53 God Member Offline be Posts: 988 Location: Frankfurt/Main Joined: 01/04/09 Gender:	Re: Openings that you would never play Reply #79 - 08/10/11 at 20:31:20	Post Tools	Print Post
	How long did you think? In the open sicilian I'd like black personally. The 2 bishops are my reasoning behind this. But back to the main argument: Blunder probability is much higher in the open sicilian. But maybe this is a reason for a good trainer to recommend the open sicilian. You learn a lot from your mistakes. A forgotten remark: White must be prepared to sacrifice a pawn for attacking chances in the Bb5 sicilians. Else it doesn't make any sense to play this. If you are afraid of gambits you have to play the open after e4 c5. Funny but serious remark from my side. (If I'm wrong I'd be glad if you can show me my error.)

	Medical textbooks say I should be dead since April 2002. Dum spiro spero. Narcissm is the humans primary disease.
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SWJediknight God Member Offline Alert... opponent out of book! Posts: 916 Joined: 03/14/08	Re: Openings that you would never play Reply #78 - 08/10/11 at 20:08:21	Post Tools	Print Post
	I admit that the first position is more complicated but, as a player rated just short of 1900, I would much rather be White in the first diagram than in the second (admittedly this is mainly down to taste). In the first diagram the various sacrifices on e6 and b5 don't seem to work for now, so I would look to improve the position of one of my pieces, e.g. 16.Bh3 (developing a piece and eyeing sacrifices on e6 if the c5-knight moves), or perhaps 16.Qh5 or 16.Rg1. In the second diagram the choice is relatively easy as Black has a rook on the same file as White's queen, so 16.Qe3 suggests itself to me, attacking e6 and moving out of the way of the pin.


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Jupp53

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Re: Openings that you would never play
Reply #77 - 08/10/11 at 19:52:48

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MNb wrote on 08/10/11 at 15:49:17:

Jupp53 wrote on 08/10/11 at 12:30:47:

And if someone has a good point for playing the open sicilians is possible before understanding what's going on I will listen.

I have a counterquestion. What's hard to understand about castling Queenside, activating your pieces and pushing the g- and h-pawns? Or - like the Löwenfish Attack in the Dragon - playing e4-e5 as quickly as possible?
Your argument about blunders also applies to Anti-Sicilians. Or do you think you will play them flawlessly?
It's what Willempie repeatedly wrote. Proving an advantage as White after 3.d4 against all defences is very hard if not impossible. Finding decent moves isn't.

Playing flawless is not the point, at least not for a player on a 1850 level. That's an important reason to love the game imo.

The point is illustrated with the following two lines generated simply by clicking in ChessAssistant on the mostly played moves.

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6 7. f4 Be7 8. Qf3 Qc7 9. O-O-O Nbd7 10. g4 b5 11. Bxf6 Nxf6 12. g5 Nd7 13. f5 Nc5 14. f6 gxf6 15. gxf6 Bf8

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bb5 Bd7 4. Bxd7 Qxd7 5. O-O Nc6 6. c3 Nf6 7. d4 Nxe4 8. d5 Ne5 9. Re1 Nxf3 10. Qxf3 Nf6 11. c4 e5 12. dxe6 fxe6 13. Bg5 Be7 14. Nc3 h6 15. Bh4 O-O

Give this two diagrams ten ~1800 players and ask them for their evaluation of the position and for the next moves after 30 minutes of thinking. Create other positions in a similar way for different lines following your pattern of thinking.

My guess is that in the second diagram more players will find a good move than in the first diagram.

Hoping to have answered your counterquestion I ask now for your guess.

Medical textbooks say I should be dead since April 2002.
Dum spiro spero.

Narcissm is the humans primary disease.

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MNb God Member Offline Rudolf Spielmann forever Posts: 10777 Location: Moengo Joined: 01/05/04 Gender:	Re: Openings that you would never play Reply #76 - 08/10/11 at 15:49:17	Post Tools	Print Post
	Uhohspaghettio wrote on 08/09/11 at 23:47:40: But why on earth is it called a gambit when White can just collect the pawn with the Bishop and that's the main line??? And why is it called a "countergambit" when White hasn't played a gambit in the first place? I thought a countergambit was where in declining a gambit, you gambit yourself. Such are the mysteries of chess nomenclature. FM Bücker already clarified one. Jupp53 wrote on 08/10/11 at 12:30:47: And if someone has a good point for playing the open sicilians is possible before understanding what's going on I will listen. I have a counterquestion. What's hard to understand about castling Queenside, activating your pieces and pushing the g- and h-pawns? Or - like the Löwenfish Attack in the Dragon - playing e4-e5 as quickly as possible? Your argument about blunders also applies to Anti-Sicilians. Or do you think you will play them flawlessly? It's what Willempie repeatedly wrote. Proving an advantage as White after 3.d4 against all defences is very hard if not impossible. Finding decent moves isn't.

	The book had the effect good books usually have: it made the stupids more stupid, the intelligent more intelligent and the other thousands of readers remained unchanged. GC Lichtenberg
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SWJediknight God Member Offline Alert... opponent out of book! Posts: 916 Joined: 03/14/08	Re: Openings that you would never play Reply #75 - 08/10/11 at 15:21:42	Post Tools	Print Post
	On the other side of the coin, the Two Knights Defence (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6) isn't referred to as a "gambit" despite the fact that it is usually used as a gambit after 4.Ng5. (Btw I agree with Smyslov_Fan's definition of a gambit, and it's not really worth getting too caught up over semantics IMHO- the line between a "true" and "temporary" gambit is often quite blurred). Btw in the Blackburne-Shilling "Gambit", 4.Nxe5 is playable if White finds 4...Qg5 5.Bxf7+ Ke7 6.0-0!, when White becomes the gambiteer, offering a piece for two pawns and an attack (although objectively 4.Nxd4 is even better).


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Stefan Buecker God Member Offline Posts: 1386 Location: Germany Joined: 02/11/09 Gender:	Re: Openings that you would never play Reply #74 - 08/10/11 at 14:46:00	Post Tools	Print Post
	Girkassa wrote on 08/10/11 at 08:11:21: [...] there are some more common lines which I have never seen labeled as gambits: - 1.Nf3 d5 2.c4 (Reti's Gambit?). But 1.Nf3 d5 2.c4 was called "Landstrasser Gambit", because A. E. Wolf played it before Réti. So Tartakower re-named it from Réti Eröffnung to Landstrasser Gambit. When someone found two older games before A. E. Wolf, it became "Prague Gambit" or something like that. Grünfeld didn't like it and wrote an article proposing a new name: Réti System. Savielly Tartakower was apparently tired of the discussion, calling it "Zukunftseröffnung". - There are many openings which have illogical names - just find a better one. If you are lucky, your proposal will survive.


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Jupp53 God Member Offline be Posts: 988 Location: Frankfurt/Main Joined: 01/04/09 Gender:	Re: Openings that you would never play Reply #73 - 08/10/11 at 12:30:47	Post Tools	Print Post
	fling wrote on 08/09/11 at 14:00:23: MNb wrote on 08/08/11 at 20:48:32: Jupp53 wrote on 08/08/11 at 17:07:16: exchanging a center pawn against a wing pawn and making the Nd4 to an object for a lot of black attacking patterns - can this be right???? For me it's too confusing. You forget that White has the more active pieces. Learning how to use them to good effect is mandatory for chess improvement. So you should play 3.d4 for the same reason as for playing the Open Games. Now Fromper is right that this applies to the Morra Gambit as well. Like him I scored heavily with it - until I began to meet opponents who knew how to handle it. At that stage proving sufficient compensation against all possible black defences became a lot of work ... I didn't answer the previous post by Jupp, sorry. But Mnb has a good point. It is easier to win against strong opponents with equal material. I agree though, that the Smith-Morra might not be unsound, though it is not less work to make it work than the Open variations, as been stated here before. Back to Jupp. Chess is a lot about trade-offs. In the Open Sicilian, White trades a center pawn and semi-open c-file for a well-placed knight and a semi-open d-file. This has nothing to do with how high rated you are IMO. It is chess education. Even if you play the Closed Sicilian, there will be times you want to play d4 anyway as White. The trick is to know when, and an understanding of Open variations will inevitably help you. I wouldn't be so dogmatic in classifying Open games as a first must, compared to your mentioned alternatives. They form a good basis for chess understanding. But you should know how to play lots of different positions well, as well as all phases of the game. Many endgames will teach you how to play well in open positions, much better compared to several lines in the main line Spanish e.g. As the closed sicilian comes a second time here - it's something I will learn later maybe. The Bb5-lines and the KIA came to me (and it's the G. Jones repertoire as I experience now two years later). This repertoire gives me control over the game as white till the deep endgame against opponents rated +100 DWZ points if there's no blunder in the first 15-20 moves. Show me another opening and especially the lines of the open sicilians doing this. The open sicilian is a matter of luck. At my level (DWZ ~1850 - ~Fide 1900+) there's always at least one real blunder from each side in the first 20 moves. And what's about understanding: Someone wrote the Nd4 could only be attacked by e5. There are 4 further standard attacks (Qb6, Nc6, Bc5, Bg7) and black may choose what he wants and how to combine this. So this is an example from one person defending the open sicilian without understanding what's going on. And you find legion of this in the clubs. Download game in pgn format From Stefan Bücker's column on chesscafe Quote: After 11.b4: "Spassky has a fine position, but hasn’t played his best tournament (the final result was place 16 of 18 players) and offers a draw. Garry Kasparov, who later won the event, declines." After 19.Qh4: "Jan Timman reported in NIC Magazine 8/1988: “At this point Spassky repeated his offer. … [He] likes to accompany such an offer with a bit of chat. In Belfort he had spent at least a minute persuading Kasparov that it was pointless to play for a win; now he was saying something like, ‘I’m giving you a last chance. If you refuse the draw now I will wipe you off the board.’ […] Kasparov wisely accepted the offer. And it was true that his position had become extremely dubious.”" I'm very far from comparing myself with an IM and even more qualified players let me simply listen and think about what's good for the lower level I'm on. But playing something working on the highest level with some understanding seems to me more appropriate than hacking around with extremely complicated openings like the open sicilian, black fianchetto defenses with g6 and Bg7, etc. But if this is giving you fun, play it. I'm not the one who owns the truth. And if someone has a good point for playing the open sicilians is possible before understanding what's going on I will listen.
	« Last Edit: 08/10/11 at 15:06:37 by Jupp53 »
	Medical textbooks say I should be dead since April 2002. Dum spiro spero. Narcissm is the humans primary disease.
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Girkassa Senior Member Offline I Love ChessPublishing! Posts: 433 Joined: 04/07/07	Re: Openings that you would never play Reply #72 - 08/10/11 at 08:11:21	Post Tools	Print Post
	Wow, I didn't foresee my reply would lead to such a titanically intellectual, and not least on-topic, discussion. Sorry to continue off-topic, but since Uhohspaghettio's reply was directed to me, I would like to reply. Quote: This is how a gambit is in chess, I think it's a good way because it's completely objective. Otherwise you get into subjective issues. I mean what the heck is "foreseeable future"? I hope that others don't get ideas like you and openings are new mislabelled in future going against the established and traditional way of labelling them. (...and I hope someone doesn't find an exception already). Yes, I agree that my definition gets into subjective issues. So does every other definition I have seen (except for yours). And so does most other chess terms (combination, advantage, counterplay, attack, etc. etc. etc.). Not to mention opening names. There is no rule stating what an opening should be called, any opening name just becomes standard at some point. I believe giving a 100 % exact definition of a gambit just makes the word lose its relevance. Some examples have already been mentioned, here are some more common lines which I have never seen labeled as gambits: - 1.Nf3 d5 2.c4 (Reti's Gambit?). - 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 0-0 6.Be2 e5 (Classical King's Indian Gambit?). - 1.e5 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 b5 5.Bb3 Na5 (Norwegian Gambit?). - 1.d4 c5, 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5, 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 c5, and probably many other 1.d4-openings where Black plays a quick c5.


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Stefan Buecker God Member Offline Posts: 1386 Location: Germany Joined: 02/11/09 Gender:	Re: Openings that you would never play Reply #71 - 08/10/11 at 06:55:02	Post Tools	Print Post
	A titanic intellectual conflict indeed. Uhohspaghettio wrote on 08/09/11 at 23:47:40: MNb wrote on 08/09/11 at 22:08:22: Anyhow, another example of a gambit which isn't a gambit: 1.e4 d6 2.d4 f5 is often called Balogh's Countergambit. But why on earth is it called a gambit when White can just collect the pawn with the Bishop and that's the main line??? And why is it called a "countergambit" when White hasn't played a gambit in the first place? I thought a countergambit was where in declining a gambit, you gambit yourself. In Wiener Schachzeitung 1928, p. 208, János Balogh commented his correspondence game Dührssen - Balogh. After 1.e4 d6 2.d4 f5 he wrote: Quote: Diese Eröffnung habe ich in acht Fernpartien bei der Wiener Schachzeitung angewendet und als spielbar nachgewiesen. Bis ich einen entsprechenden Namen für die Eröffnung finde, nenne ich sie: Baloghs Gegengambit. Translation: Quote: In eight correspondence games at Wiener Schachzeitung I have used this opening, proving it to be playable. Until I find an appropriate name for the opening, I call it: Balogh's Counter-Gambit. In those days Staunton's Gambit was still a feared system. Balogh may have thought of his d6 as a weapon against Staunton's Gambit, in the move-order 1.d4 f5 2.e4 d6. In one of his games, there followed 3.exf5 Bxf5 4.c4 e5!? 5.dxe5 Nc6!? 6.exd6 Bxd6 and Black (= Balogh) won. If Balogh regarded this as a main line of his brain-child, it may be an explanation for the term "Counter-Gambit". But I don't know a comment where he explicitly confirms my speculation. - In my articles on the opening I have simply called it "Balogh's Defence", to avoid this kind of confusion.
	« Last Edit: 08/10/11 at 14:33:11 by Stefan Buecker »

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