Someone just played that against me for the first time yesterday. I responded with 1. ... e6, then just went for natural king side development (Nf6, Be7, 0-0) and played d5 early. I got a reasonable game out of it, though that pawn sitting on b5 most of the game did limit me a little, since I couldn't get my knight out to c6.
--Fromper
I want to learn a new opening for white. At the moment I play the Queen's Gambit, but I've become a bit bored of it. I'd don't really want to go back to playing e4, but I want to play an opening that is attacking. Please bare in mind that although I say attacking, I do not mean a "throw the kitchen sink opening" (as my chess couch puts it); I like a good defence aswell. Nothing too risky.
As black I play the scandanavian (2. Nf6 variation) and I love it. Something a bit like this for white would be ideal.
Thank you in advance for your help.
King's Indian Attack !
d4 has been working well for me... but anyways, can't people still prepare for you if they read this blog?
You have exhausted the opening 1. d4 by playing it for months?
Shirley, you can't be serious!
He is serious... and don't call him Shirley...
d4 has been working well for me... but anyways, can't people still prepare for you if they read this blog?
They can, but I don't really mind if they do. In my opinion a person that goes through the effort of researching me deserves a reward. :P
"He is serious... and don't call him Shirley..." God I love Airplane, I should watch it again.
Against d4 black can initiate a lot of openings, the kings indian, queens indian, gruenfeld, benko, dutch etc. You may like to play white in these positions but you generally can't force black to play them unless you can find some clever transposition to bring one of these positions about after the fact. If black answers with 2...d4 then most people seem to play some version of the QG which you want a break from. In addition to the openings that others have mentioned, I think that white can initiate the Catalan (I don't remember the move order and I can't seem to find my opening book). A bit of practice is all that is needed to see if it suits you. I am more of an e4 person myself, so I don't have anything more profound to say.
I do the center games is white version of the center counter game/scandinavian defence. it goes likes this 1.e4...e5 2.d4!?....exd4 and so on......But the reti is an interesting but sound opening abit along the lines of an english/modern bononi idea 1.Nf3...d5 2.c4!?...c6 3.b3...e6 4.g3...Nf6 u get the concept i think.....
The problem as I see it is this balance between knights and bishops. I have won and lost games utilising both with the queen, so it is a bit of a conundrum. I have read that Fischer believes that if both players play the perfect game then a draw is inevitable, which I have to say I agree with as it concurs with my own experience.
I am playing a possible exception now, which is so tight it makes me wonder.
http://www.chess.com/echess/game.html?id=1213081
Please, no thoughts on the game itself as that would not be fair, but I post it merely to add to the debate.
How much did you pay your opponent for that draw?
Ok, now this thread has me thinking about my own openings. As I said, I play the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit, and I get good games when my opponents avoid the gambit, but I just realized that in my tournament games where my opponents actually played the gambit, I haven't won a game yet! 4 losses and a draw!
The author of the book I bought on the gambit says that playing it for a year or so against a wide variety of opponents is a good way to improve to around 1800 (USCF), because it'll teach you how to attack, so I was planning on sticking with it even though I'm not doing well with it initially. The whole point of my switching to playing gambits was the "learn to attack or die trying" method of learning. But it really only just occurred to me that I do so poorly with it in the actual gambit lines.
Now I'm seriously considering coming full circle and switching back to the Colle...
--Fromper
It's quite funny really, Fromper. I read a few of your posts and started playing the Blackmar-Diemar and have had a lot of success with it.
I don't know what it is, but my opponents seem to improvise well against it. I really haven't played it that many times, as many of my opponents avoid it, and I tend to get good positions when that happens. For instance, this last weekend, I played a tournament game where I tried to play the BDG and we transposed into the French (1. d4 Nf6 2. Nc3 e6 3. e4 d5), but my opponent didn't know how to play the French properly, so I won pretty easily. And the 5 games I was refering to are USCF tournament games. In practice games on the internet, I've had some wins.
But as I said, the book I'm using as my reference on the BDG says that playing it regularly will be a good learning experience. I think it's right, since I really am learning a little bit every time I play it. I think I need a second opening to play regularly, though, as I tend to play the same dozen or so people in tournaments the most often, so they're likely to prepare for it once they know I play it.
--Fromper