I once played the 8.Rb1 line against a very strong master (USCF 2450-2500) years ago in a casual game, way back when nothing was published about it yet (I had only seen it covered in about one page of Psakhis' Complete Grunfeld, so my naive 1400-rated self thought that it would be a simple way to play since there wasn't much theory)!  My opponent played an inferior line, I think the immediate 8...Bg4 or 9...Bg4, but after some mass exchanges I realized that his king was closer to the center and I lost some prosaic pawn ending because of that.  I don't remember now whether he had an outside passed pawn against my d-pawn, or whether the pawn structure was completely symmetrical, but I do remember that we traded all of the pieces off in maybe 20 moves max, after which I was completely lost.  Ever since then, I've thought differently about those openings that sometimes see a lot of pieces come off of the board quickly!

Equal endgames are often enough not really drawish OTB, especially the lower you get on the rating ladder. Equal and asymmetrical ones even less so.

Of course if both players play perfect chess, you won't get more than half a point, but that's already true for the starting position .. and there it's easier to play perfect, as it just comes down to learning moves by heart.

Just look at one of those endgames you're currently unhappy about, and ask yourself how confident you'd be in drawing them as White against Magnus Carlsen.
If the answer is something other than "very confident", you got some room to work with as black.

Of course it won't always work out, but how often do you actually end up in one of these endgames against a lower rated player, and how much risk do you fare as black?
For a 2600 it makes sense to be concerned about a 2300 playing for a draw against them, but for a 1800-2000 against a 1500-2000? It always seemed like a silly problem to me.
Straight out of the opening, as black, after White has played the correct (or at least very close to) moves for 20 turns, you get a risk-free endgame (working under the assumption White is worse than you), where you can prod for a win for a good long bit. What else do you really want?

Although conceivably yes in principle if both players are really booked up because it is quite a forcing opening and is so, so theoretical nowadays.

That's total, utter nonsense for lowish level 5 0 blitz of course

kylemeister wrote on 08/01/17 at 19:22:31:


Yes it does. It was mostly worthless 5 0 games (it's a braindead time control but it helps me quickly get familiar with diverse positions). The lines bothering me as far as winning chances were in the various exchange variations. It felt like the pieces were flying off and then each side blockaded the passed pawns. I blocked the center d pawn and he blockaded my passed flank pawn.

Bibs gave the exact response that I was going to!  Verbatim and in full.

Haha, care to offer more details as to why/why not?

I've played a lot of blitz with the Grunfeld lately and I enjoy the positions but they seem a lot more defined than with the NID/QID where you get a ton of pawn breaks and the game is closed longer.

What often happens is that I end-up in the exchange variation of the Grunfeld (the Bc4 line or Nf3 lines are both pretty good) and a lot of simplifications are basically forced as I attack White's center. I'm not under a ton of pressure if I know the theory/ideas but I don't really come out of it better even if White is a bit inaccurate. Essentially, it feels like a "successful" result of the opening is me having active play with 2 pawns on the queenside while White has a stable center after some simplifications. It's certianly nothing like the back and forth of a Dragon Sicilian or the opposite side battles in the KID. The reward seems very low for me in the Grunfeld. I am not aware of any lines that gives White a tangible advantage vs the Grunfeld but White's mistakes also don't feel as costly as in other openings. Moreover, some lines, I feel like I basically have to play into super drawish endgames (the Rb1 line) or I risk being worse.

Am I wrong? I really like the pace of the Grunfeld and how it feels but the positions don't seem to offer me as much room to outplay as I'd like. In the NID or even QID, I often don't fully equalize for 20+ moves but when I do, there is still so much complexity and so many pieces/pawn breaks that I can win very often. I feel like the same is true for the Semi-Slav but I haven't played it much.