nocteus wrote on 12/31/17 at 15:53:59:

Moro plays Go now https://chess24.com/en/read/news/morozevich-on-go-computers-and-cheating, so who knows, maybe it would actually be a perfect fit

dfan wrote on 12/18/17 at 21:54:27:


That one I did not see coming! I guess we would need to define what type of open games would be acceptable. I am not sure Morozevich's repertoire would suit a go player.

nocteus wrote on 12/18/17 at 10:58:04:


When I used "formulaic," I was referring to your "single-minded pattern approach."  Maybe its not what you meant, but I took it to mean an opening with a clear and direct plan.  For example, the Stonewall, where White is basically going to play for Bd3, Nf3-e5, f4, g4-g5, Qh5 and Qxh7 mate.  

I don't know anything about Go, but the pictures of the board with all the White and Black stones interlocked remind me of pawn chains and blocked positions.  Hence the French, the Czech Benoni, and the Huebner Nimzo.    

   

So just complex, positional middlegames? 
Ruy Lopez with both colours (with White early d3 instead of engaging in theory discussions, Black Breyer), Be2/Bb5 Najdorf + similar, Nimzo/QID against 1.d4?
Page out of Karpov's (and Carlsen's) playbook

My actual advice would be to just ignore that they're Go players, because it's very unlikely that they will learn chess the same way they learned Go, their set of skills won't really transfer either way, and it's unclear yet what they will enjoy the most.

It's like saying.. an ex-basketball player picking up football shouldn't go in defense, because from basketball the player learned to never touch an opponent, so they can't defend; and vice versa they're good at dodging opponents, so they'd make a good striker. 
But will they still be good at dodging opponents with a ball on their foot? And maybe they'd love tackling their opponents to the ground, precisely because it is something entirely different to what they're used to (if they want to play "Go in Chess", why not just continue playing Go.. surely Go will be closer to Go than any "Go in Chess" you can find)?

Just have him play chess and not worry about openings very much. Have him read books on strategy, tactics, pawn structure, endings, game collections of great players, etc, etc. There is a ton of enjoyable material out there that your relative can work on that will help him to become a better player. 

Books like Pawn Structure Chess will teach him a ton about openings without having to memorize much, if any, "theory."  Eventually if he falls in love with the game, he'll become interested in a particular opening and want to study it more deeply. If he's starting out, he shouldn't have to worry about theory, there is so much more to learn. 

I think that it's a common misconception that a person has to learn a ton of "theory" to start playing chess well. You can get pretty far by just studying master games,  strategy, tactics, endgames, etc. When someone wants to learn heavier theory, they may.  A player really only needs to know enough to get a playable game against their opponents, and when someone is starting out it's much more useful to frame their mistakes in the opening as tactical or strategic errors, or as violating general principles, instead of talking about theory, which is off-putting and unhelpful. 

So I wouldn't recommend any openings to your relative, give them an inspiring game collection that would suit their level, and let them enjoy and investigate the game for themselves. I loved Winning Chess Brilliancies by Yasser Seirawan as one of my first books, and through it I became interested in a couple of opening systems.

A relative of mine, 1st dan in Go, decided to learn chess and confronted me to an interesting challenge.
Obviously, he is not thrilled about learning opening theory and asked me for a 'pattern-friendly repertoire'. As a go-player, he is more interested in collecting and memorizing patterns of all sort related to an opening or a structure than anything else. 
I gave him Sterren's 'Fundamental Chess Openings'. He is pleased with it but will not memorize theory beyond it, that is to say up to fundamental tabyias (10ish moves-deep).

Which openings do you think lend themselves the better to a single-minded 'pattern' approach and would maximise his strengths?