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Very Hot Topic (More than 25 Replies) Should the opening sections be reorganised? (Read 21402 times)
Leon_Trotsky
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Re: Should the opening sections be reorganised?
Reply #45 - 09/07/19 at 06:38:02
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Does the Hipoótamo get included in that fianchetto section too ¿ What about the double fianchetto Hedgehog lines ¿

The Awerbach should be in that section too, since most people play it expressly to avoid the KID.
  
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Confused_by_Theory
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Re: Should the opening sections be reorganised?
Reply #44 - 09/07/19 at 04:47:47
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Hi.

I think it sounds like a decent idea to group Dragon, Acc. Dragon, Pirc and Modern. There is overlap for sure, even if the Modern and Pirc both can go towards different structures entirely. If the Sicilian section is split not having to put the dragon somewhere there could make it easier as well.

What I'm thinking though is: where would the Alekhine be grouped in case Pirc and Modern leaves the section? Alongside Caro Kann like now but only with the Caro?

Have a nice day.
  
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GMTonyKosten
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Re: Should the opening sections be reorganised?
Reply #43 - 09/06/19 at 08:43:51
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Glenn Flear writes:
Quote:
As for any adjustments on the site. You probably shouldn't do anything (as it would just upset people) so I would leave all the columns as they are.
If however I was starting from scratch, apart from minor adjustments here and there, the only big change I would do is combine the Dragon with the Pirc and Modern.
'1.e4: Dragon and fianchetto defences'.


It's an interesting idea, and does make a lot of sense.
  
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Keano
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Re: Should the opening sections be reorganised?
Reply #42 - 08/30/19 at 00:55:18
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Grunfeld + Anti Grunfeld might be a section
  
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GMTonyKosten
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Re: Should the opening sections be reorganised?
Reply #41 - 08/29/19 at 16:02:00
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PatzerNoster wrote on 08/25/19 at 11:56:16:
The French and also the Dragon are openings that attract very dedicated followers, after all how many people are
there who only play the French for there whole life?
I can think of quite many.

By changing these sections, the site would become a lot less attractive for subscribers of that type, and I presume (please correct me if I am wrong) that there are quite a lot of subscribers to the French and Dragon sections.


Yes, that's true, it would risk annoying more subscribers than it pleased.
  
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PatzerNoster
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Re: Should the opening sections be reorganised?
Reply #40 - 08/25/19 at 11:56:16
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GMTonyKosten wrote on 08/19/19 at 16:49:21:
Personally, I like the idea of keeping two Open Sicilian sections, one with the Najdorf and the Schevy and one section with all the others - even now The Open Sicilian section often contains 80% or more Najdorfs anyway.
I also think that moving the Modern Benoni to the KID and maybe the Catalan to the Nimzo makes sense.
I'm open to all other sensible suggestions Smiley


I agree from a statistical point of view.
The Najdorf is the overwhelmingly most popular Sicilian and for that reason a specialized section would be sensible.
Also for putting French and Caro-Kann together as suggested.
But there another question appears: do all other answers to 1.e4 apart from the moves of the c- and e-pawns really need a separate section?
In that way it would perhaps be more logical to single out the Caro-Kann for a separate section and put the French with the remaining defences.

But from another, perhaps more emotional standpoint I disagree.
The French and also the Dragon are openings that attract very dedicated followers, after all how many people are
there who only play the French for there whole life?
I can think of quite many.

By changing these sections, the site would become a lot less attractive for subscribers of that type, and I presume (please correct me if I am wrong) that there are quite a lot of subscribers to the French and Dragon sections.


For me the issue I see with keeping the current structure is that Sicilians apart from the Dragon/Accelerated Dragon and the Najdorf (about 5/8 games in the Open Sicilian section) are underrepresented.

As a player who focuses on Dragon and Najdorf in the Sicilian I can live with that. How do others feel?

About changes in the closed openings:
Changing Benoni to King's Indian and Catalan to Nimzo sounds sensible.
David suggested to give the Grunfeld its own section, but do the remaining "Daring Defences" really need a section of their own?
  
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Bibs
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Re: Should the opening sections be reorganised?
Reply #39 - 08/19/19 at 22:25:14
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This all seems sensible yes.
I would agree with as Tony K suggests. Single Catalan / NID / QID / Bogo section, KID / Benoni section, two Sicilians etc.

Re: hiring, in my experience of this (I look after the p/t staff at my uni), more options is always better than fewer.
  
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trw
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Re: Should the opening sections be reorganised?
Reply #38 - 08/19/19 at 17:23:36
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fluffy wrote on 08/19/19 at 14:44:22:
This all started because of some issues with the 1.d4 d5 section as it looks like we'll need a replacement.



That's a different problem... I have several GM friends that would be a good fit... should I reach out? Tony?

GMTonyKosten wrote on 08/19/19 at 16:49:21:
Personally, I like the idea of keeping two Open Sicilian sections, one with the Najdorf and the Schevy and one section with all the others - even now The Open Sicilian section often contains 80% or more Najdorfs anyway.
I also think that moving the Modern Benoni to the KID and maybe the Catalan to the Nimzo makes sense.
I'm open to all other sensible suggestions Smiley



I think that sums up my feeling.
  
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GMTonyKosten
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Re: Should the opening sections be reorganised?
Reply #37 - 08/19/19 at 16:49:21
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Personally, I like the idea of keeping two Open Sicilian sections, one with the Najdorf and the Schevy and one section with all the others - even now The Open Sicilian section often contains 80% or more Najdorfs anyway.
I also think that moving the Modern Benoni to the KID and maybe the Catalan to the Nimzo makes sense.
I'm open to all other sensible suggestions Smiley
  
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fluffy
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Re: Should the opening sections be reorganised?
Reply #36 - 08/19/19 at 14:44:22
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This is David Vigorito...

My idea was to modify the sections with the parameters of twelve sections. I do not think we can split the Open Sicilians, 1.e4 e5, Flank Openings, etc. One perhaps, if another section, like the Dragon, is 'absorbed', but not all.

It's hard enough to find decent columnists (Tony had to scrape the bottom of the barrel for the King's Indian section), but we cannot expect Tony to find (and fund!) columnists for a few more sections. This all started because of some issues with the 1.d4 d5 section as it looks like we'll need a replacement.
« Last Edit: 08/19/19 at 16:04:09 by fluffy »  
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Bibs
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Re: Should the opening sections be reorganised?
Reply #35 - 08/19/19 at 11:56:16
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Back to the ranch peeps. Back to the ranch.

1. Agree that change needed?
2. Suggest theory area combinations, total number of sections.


  
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GMTonyKosten
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Re: Should the opening sections be reorganised?
Reply #34 - 08/19/19 at 09:50:44
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trw wrote on 08/19/19 at 00:53:54:
I am 100% though that we are now completely off topic


Indeed, it looks like my thread has been hijacked! Maybe we should add a board for correspondence chess to this Forum?! Roll Eyes
  
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Jack Hughes
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Re: Should the opening sections be reorganised?
Reply #33 - 08/19/19 at 01:45:20
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trw wrote on 08/19/19 at 00:53:54:
I don't know the answer to your question because as previously stated I have never had a dragon in my life so I am not a dragon expert able to answer specific dragon lines... 

I am 100% though that we are now completely off topic so you need to start a new thread if you want to keep discussing this. I will say though that I have heard numerous people dismiss old correspondence games and you do that at your own risk (and it assumes you have complete mastery of that opening). Because more often than not you are going to be wrong to ignore such games. These people probably spent more time thinking about each move than any otb player has ever spent on a single game.

Fair enough, I agree that we've gone off topic. If a moderator wants to move these posts to another thread then I'm fully on board.
Interesting to hear your thoughts in regards to older correspondence games, I'll try to keep them in mind.
  
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trw
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Re: Should the opening sections be reorganised?
Reply #32 - 08/19/19 at 00:53:54
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I don't know the answer to your question because as previously stated I have never had a dragon in my life so I am not a dragon expert able to answer specific dragon lines... 

I am 100% though that we are now completely off topic so you need to start a new thread if you want to keep discussing this. I will say though that I have heard numerous people dismiss old correspondence games and you do that at your own risk (and it assumes you have complete mastery of that opening). Because more often than not you are going to be wrong to ignore such games. These people probably spent more time thinking about each move than any otb player has ever spent on a single game.
  
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Jack Hughes
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Re: Should the opening sections be reorganised?
Reply #31 - 08/19/19 at 00:14:58
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To be honest I don't think ICCF results seriously contradict the claim that the French and KID are only semi-correct openings. Almost no one claims that those openings are winning for white, merely that it is more difficult for black to prove equality there than in openings like the Berlin or the Grunfeld. And the statistics do support that claim. Comparing the KID to the Grunfeld, for example, white scores 56.5% after 3... Bg7 in 1759 games after 3... Bg7 compared to 53.6% after 3... d5 (restricting the filter to games from the 2017 archive or later where both players are above 2300). This is actually probably the most optimistic example I could give for black, since the Grunfeld doesn't score quite as well as the Nimzo, Semi-Slav, Marshall, Najdorf or Berlin and the KID scores better than the French. Those openings are played, as trw points out, to get winning chances rather than to equalise, and I suspect that most of those strong players would agree that the mainlines of those openings (along with others like the Caro-Kann, Taimanov Sicilian, Modern Benoni, Pirc etc.) offer black better winning chances than mainlines in the Marshall or Semi-Slav. There's a reason we see so many of those openings whenever the elites play sub 2600s in the Olympiad!
I'm a bit confused by trw's reference to games going back 30 years though. Especially in such 'spacebar-able' openings as the Dragon where I would have thought that theory changes at a very fast pace. Trw, do you think that these older games still have significant theoretical value? As an example, I would pretty much dismiss as theoretically irrelevant any game in the line 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 g6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6. Be3 Bg7 7. f3 0-0 8. Qd2 Nc6 9. Bc4 Bd7 10. 0-0-0 Rc8 11. Bb3 Ne5, which was the absolute mainline back in the 1980s but nowadays seems basically refuted by 12. Kb1.
  
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