Advise me; new opening

Lord-Svenstikov wrote:

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.

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LATELY,IVE BEEN USEING THE "KING INDIAN ATTACK!"(1.NF3 2.G3 3.Bg2 4.0-0 5.d3 6.Nbd2 7.e4)AND HAVE BEEN GETTING SOME NICE VICTORIES AGAINST SOME STRONG PLAYERS!TRY IT OUT FOR URSELF.

honestly my opinion on the matter is that there is probably a lot more for you to learn just continuing with the queen's gambit and such.  I say this to you because if your opponents are really studying for games against you, this works out a good opportunity for you to test out new ideas, as well as to play against conditioned opponents.  I was an almost strictly a d4 player throughout high school and played plenty of games that helped me with my positional and tactical motifs rising out of similar pawn structures.  My advice is to choose something and stick to it until you have really understood the subtleties of the position then move to something else.

lochness88 wrote:

You got to look harder Loomis!

I learned it as part of my opening repetoire after seeing the variation in NCO.

Do a position search here:

http://www.chesslab.com/PositionSearch.html

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 Thanks!

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 

Why not give the London Opening a go? It has many attacking lines that are more evenly paced than say the King's Gambit or the Blackmar-Diemer. White starts:   1 d4    2 Nf3   3 Bf4 to almost anything. The placid nature of whites opening belies the violence to follow. The opening is not fashionable these days, but is still good. I use it against stronger opponents occasionally, and have yet to lose. Another advantage of playing such a sensible, but out-moded opening is that one can become quite expert rapidly, as theory seems to be confined to a couple of fairly thin books.

Why do you call it London Opening Ray?  My sources call it the queen's bishop attack.

It has always been called the London Opening in England... and the books that I know of are entitled as such! The original question was posted by an Englishman, so I gave best information possible. Would you care for some references to authenticate my claim? It's just the usual variation with geographical location.

I've alwasy called it the London System. You can find it called that in many places on the internet. Do a search for "1. d4" "2. Bf4". Or the move order suggested "1. d4" "2. Nf3" "3. Bf4"

The reason, apparently, that this opening is so called, is due to it's emergence at the London tournament 1922. The original game cited in my text is Watson Vs Euwe.

I dont need any proof Ray, there are lots of openings called more than one name. Benko gambit is still called volga gambit by many and the petroff is known as the Russian defense many places, no problem. I knew of the London system against the kings indian, just didnt know its called that against anything black does is all.

Ok Reb... good point, well made. I am sometimes frustrated by the way a contributor in these forums is often pulled to pieces by an examination of the minutae of what he/she posted. The exact detail, it seems to me, is for historians and academics, but often clouds the issue for the person who posted originally. Anyway, it's night-time in Europe now and I'm hungry, so let's leave it there, I wouldn't want to put the "bite" on such able opposition!  

Sounds good to me, lets go have a good steak and down a few pints! 

Have u tried this one :

e4 e5

Nf3 Nc6

Bc4 Bc5

d3 Nf6

Bg5 Nc3

works every time!!!

Have you tried 1. f4 ? It is usually replied to by 1. ... d5 which leads to a defensive game but with interesting attacking possibilities. Check out the games of Henry Bird on chessgames. However you have to watch out for e5, which doesn't seem too bad, but I've heard that it can be rather tricky to counter.

I think I would like to play something a little more mainstream than f4. KIA and blackmar-diemar gambit are the ones I am investigating.

In that case Nf3 sounds like your best bet (which can transpose into many others)

Ok, I will start to use it.

Fromper wrote:

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 

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 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.

Perhaps the Polish/Tartakower? 1.b4 delivers black out of book.  The game is open and sound(at least at my level), with very little in the way of book.  A playful opening.