Sokolsky Opening. Has anyone had success persisting with the lines

you are not missing much, its not a repertoire book but feels like a giant info dump of lines . There is some good stuff here that Lapshun doent cover, but the book also wastes a lot of pages on total garbage stuff for some completionist dream no one asked for.

you have to get the Hansen book. New creative lines are shown and this times its actually engine checked and not some crazynesss lapshun baked up at Basman labs .

So now my question relates not to 2000 elo players or higher but to above average to intermediate players around 1700 plus. Still learning the basics.

Would you teach this opening and at what level.

Many say they have more success achieving a draw with white against higher ranked players than not getting the value and desired affect with white at the intermediate level.

Does this mean that the Sokolsky opening is not dynamic enough to assert yourself on the board in the early opening.More a strategic positional long game approach. Hence not really an opening for intermediate against intermediate players

Is it on the cards to be taught to chess players learning the game or just an opening for higher level players

While I do agree that some lines lack dynamics, I wouldn't say that this would make it inappropriate for intermediate players. This is mainly a style thing. Some players (especially older ones) aren't crazy about tactics but are very strong in the endgame and like subtle strategical battles. I would say that the Sokolsky is a fine choice for them, even if they are at the beginner or intermediate level.

Thanks for that assessment 😊😊

i vaguely remember getting a similar conundrum when i was a club  player. What was happening is that, honestly, its easy to play a lot of these hypermodern openings almost like a small collection of systems were you are just making your pieces float to their natural squares and this leads to lazy auto pilot chess. Since you have given up from getting a slight advantage as white your play can get lazy if you dont pay attention.

for example, if you play 1. b4 do you know by heart the few instances early f4 is preferable to early nf3? when is b5-superior to c4-c5? should kknight go to c3 or d2 and when? when should white play d3 vs d4? There is a bunch of ways the intermediate player  can choose to play good enough moves to get playable positions but not really "push". This is not unique to 1.b4 either. openings like 1.f4 and 1.nc3 can sometimes lead to similar bad habits at that level.

i was playing 1. b4 since i was a 1200 and i still play it a lot. I dont see any reason why you shoudnt learn it if you want to. You just have to fight the urge "to make a london" out of your openings.

Yes. It’s a sense you have given up the white advantage psychologically to play solid even chess if you can.

White has the “ advantage” because it creates the opening where black reacts.

During the early opening it seems that white moves and black reacts.

Is that an advantage to be given up to neutral. It’s only a small advantage but at some point in games there is a feeling that white loses the momentum and black dictates even if the position appears neutral. That turning point, is it the opening choice or a defect in play. That white is on the back foot.

Maybe that is why keeping the momentum of white is important?

I am no expert, but in two running ICCF games I also managed to place two pawns on e4 and f4. Is this a theme in the Sokolsky?

LOL!  It is funny that you say "especially older ones".  I did play 1.b4 back in 2008 and 2009 when those 2 older books came out.  It was difficult to get a hold of the ideas and results were often random.  I was in my early 30s then.

Then in 2014, at 39, I played it for about 6 months.  Drew a couple of 2300s, beat an 1800, lost to a 2150.  Results were better than 2008/2009, but had some trouble when Black played the Exchange Variation, the best for Black.

After getting Hansen's book, and using his 4.c3 idea, I have not looked back.  I have played 1.b4 exclusively since mid-May except for 1 game in late May at the Cherry Blossom where I played 1.e4, an Italian Game, and my only loss at the tournament.  With 1.b4, since mid-May, my score with White is over 70% over the board.  And at the ripe old age of 47, I save a lot of study time.  Some occasional study of 1.b4 is necessary, but the bulk of my focus has lately been on Middlegame, Endgame, and Defending 1.d4 and Flank Openings.  Defending 1.e4 is a non-issue having known the French for over a quarter of a century.

“”Drew a couple of 2300s,””

Would it be fair then to say that if you were to play an opponent with say 200 elo points higher than you with white then  the Sokolsky could be the opening of choice to try for a draw.

Clearly, most very high elo players will know all the main openings back to front so a lesser opening  like the Sokolsky which you have studied hard on may give you a better chance of draw opportunities

If yes. Would this not be a strategy of choice for intermediate players against advanced players?

Fischer played 1 b4 3 times in simul games, but never in classical games.
He played the better 1 b3 4 times in classical games against grandmasters and won all 4.
It is more like a strategy for a stronger player to avoid a draw.
However, an intermediate player who specialises in 1 b4 or 1 b3 can do well with it against stronger players if he has accumulated more experience with it than his stronger opponent.

Well actually no? The more uncertain a game is the less likely it is to end up in a draw. It probably speaks more to the fact that Thrillerfan played well and knew what he was doing.

I used to play the gambit

Wow. After black plays f6 and this variation begins it seems that white has excellent positional opportunities . A pawn down early for spacial advantage and control of the Centre for the moment.
Are there any games that move further into the middle game with this 

Thrillerfan mentioned once that the exchange variation was the hardest to beat for white.

https://www.chess.com/blog/Eugen/sokolskypolish-opening-1b4---the-exchange-variation

Hence blacks best weapon of choice?

Oh. Then we have the Kucharkowski-Meybohm Gambit. At the end of the above blog.

pawn to f4???

Good grief.

Maybe for speed chess the shock value begins the fireworks?

That is an eye watering move played by white. Looks like not for the faint hearted lol😊😊😊

One of the weirdest games I have seen😊

I am learning a great deal here in this forum from very strong players experiences and critical views.

Tartakower used to play exactly this line.

Tartakower vs Reti is an example. 

@58

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1325151 

Yes. very nice lines by Tartakower.