Tarrasch or Chigorin
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which do you consider more sound, the Tarrasch variation of the Queens Gambit Declined or the Chigorin defense?
Tarrasch as the Chigorin doesn't give me trouble at all but despite the Tarrasch leading to an IQP, it still gives me trouble. Also, the great @pfren recommended it as a great option especially since his friend Ntirilis made a book on it. For reference, I like the Exchange Chigorin as there is a nice trap that most people fall into but with the Tarrasch, I haven't faced it in a while but the Marshal Gambit can lead to a lot of complications which you can find out on Mamedyarov's video course on Opening Surprises here on chess.com
Tarrasch as it’s a solid opening. The Chigorin, like the Baltic and Marshall QGDs, is mostly a trick opening that just allows White a better position for little to no reason.
alexlehrersh wrote:
I like Tarasch a bit despite pfren being a fan of it
What do you mean despite pfren? I think if he is a fan of it, it speaks volumes about it. It's a shame he closed his account
I'm no longer playing the Tarrasch Defense since I took up playing the repertoire of the book Keep It Simple for Black (I like having my entire black repertoire in one very good book), but what I liked about the Tarrasch Defense was my king rarely if ever came under attack. The instant space was nice too.
Kasparov used it to take him all the way to the WC. After he lost two games to the positional great Karpov he gave it up but people who have studied those two games say it was not the Tarrasch Defense's fault. How many of us are going to face a Karpov anyway. It's no longer considered a top tier defense but it is considered practical.
alexlehrersh wrote:
Simply because me and others were survivors of clashes with him
Honestly, that was essentially always not his fault. 95% of interactions with him went like this:
IM pfren: this is good because this and this and this but you do have to watch out for this and this.
An inexperienced player with no knowledge of the topic: nO bEcAUsE I pLAy ThIS aLL ThE TimE aND iT’s VeRy GoOd iN ThIs LiNe YoU SAiD WaS BaD!
IM Pfren: you literally don’t know what you’re talking about, you’re like 950 bullet and have been playing for two weeks, focus on not hanging your queen every game.
Inexperienced player and three of his friends: PfReN Is StUpId AnD So MeAn RiGhT GuYs?!
alexlehrersh wrote:
Yep definetly Pfren attitude for atacking other player with the rating "argument while ignoring that even a chess beginnrt can use an engine(which is more important than rating)
Or atacking me for my teaching methodes. Ore simply ignoring when he lost an argument
Chess beginners shouldn’t use engines, at all. Maybe in analysis at the end of a game after they analyze it themself, but even then it isn’t great. Also, rating is way more important than engine. I can beat any 1000 who uses an engine on depth 50 for the first 10 moves because they’ll start hanging pieces immediately on move 11. He didn’t really attack you for your teaching methods aside from telling beginners not to use engines, and he never tried to argue with people, he just tried to help but was antagonized over and over and over again until he was left because he got fed up.
alexlehrersh wrote:
Ethan_Brollier hat geschrieben:
alexlehrersh wrote:
Yep definetly Pfren attitude for atacking other player with the rating "argument while ignoring that even a chess beginnrt can use an engine(which is more important than rating)
Or atacking me for my teaching methodes. Ore simply ignoring when he lost an argument
Chess beginners shouldn’t use engines, at all. Maybe in analysis at the end of a game after they analyze it themself, but even then it isn’t great. Also, rating is way more important than engine. I can beat any 1000 who uses an engine on depth 50 for the first 10 moves because they’ll start hanging pieces immediately on move 11. He didn’t really attack you for your teaching methods aside from telling beginners not to use engines, and he never tried to argue with people, he just tried to help but was antagonized over and over and over again until he was left because he got fed up.
I wa talking about using the engine in an disscusion about openings not in actual games.
Anad i never sayed that i say to my students about using engines. It was more about which openings i teach them if i would teach them openings
Even worse. If a beginner shouldn’t be using engines to play openings, why on earth would it be any better for them to use engines to discuss the openings?
As for opening choice for students, that’s mostly a matter of personal taste but I would have respected the personal taste of IM pfren in that case.
Jul 7, 2023
0
#9
yes 950 bullet players like @Optimissed
optimissed vs pfren went like this afaik
pfren: this line is better than this line
optimissed: no it isnt, heres proof, everyone knows this
pfren: im right coz rating
Just play semi slav. White will be sorry he ever played d4, cuz black can easily defend.
Even better: Nimzo Indian
alexlehrersh wrote:
Ethan_Brollier hat geschrieben:
alexlehrersh wrote:
Ethan_Brollier hat geschrieben:
alexlehrersh wrote:
Yep definetly Pfren attitude for atacking other player with the rating "argument while ignoring that even a chess beginnrt can use an engine(which is more important than rating)
Or atacking me for my teaching methodes. Ore simply ignoring when he lost an argument
Chess beginners shouldn’t use engines, at all. Maybe in analysis at the end of a game after they analyze it themself, but even then it isn’t great. Also, rating is way more important than engine. I can beat any 1000 who uses an engine on depth 50 for the first 10 moves because they’ll start hanging pieces immediately on move 11. He didn’t really attack you for your teaching methods aside from telling beginners not to use engines, and he never tried to argue with people, he just tried to help but was antagonized over and over and over again until he was left because he got fed up.
I wa talking about using the engine in an disscusion about openings not in actual games.
Anad i never sayed that i say to my students about using engines. It was more about which openings i teach them if i would teach them openings
Even worse. If a beginner shouldn’t be using engines to play openings, why on earth would it be any better for them to use engines to discuss the openings?
As for opening choice for students, that’s mostly a matter of personal taste but I would have respected the personal taste of IM pfren in that case.
In a discusion you do need to prove your points and when your disscusion oponent takes about the value in position you should be able to use the engine too prove your points
And he did mostly disscus with players on a higher club level like Optimised and me so nope we were not beginners
And second i would habe respected his choices for openings for beginners if he would have respected mine.
He did not so I pointed out the flaws in his arguments
Sure but the engine evaluation in a position really doesn’t matter in like 90% of cases, so the engine does nothing but prove that you don’t know how to accurately evaluate a position and so you need to rely on a computer to try to do it for you.
I don’t know if I saw the Optimissed v pfren conversation but Optimissed, while usually at least mostly correct, has some odd opinions about certain openings that pfren most definitely would have unfortunately discarded out of hand.
This whole notion of “I would have respected his ideas but he didn’t respect mine” is a ridiculous notion. Give me one good reason why anybody should listen to you over IM pfren. Not only does he have years of experience and respected advice but he’s also a highly qualified player, while you are an 1800 online blitz player. Surely you see that the respect due you and the respect due him are drastically different.
ok. so , so far the Tarrasch seems to be more popular than the Chigorin. I tend to believe that the Tarrasch is more sound.
alexlehrersh wrote:
So you say he should habe respected oprimissed idea and not mine or you say he should not have respected optimssed even when he is mostly right
Man you contradict yourself
I didn’t say either of those things. Don’t put words in my mouth. I’m saying that you should respect IM pfren due to his skill and experience, while IM pfren is under no obligation to do so and for him to respect you would have been a nicety as you hadn’t earned it. As for Optimissed, if you could link the full interaction here that would be appreciated as I have no context on which to base my point. My current preconceptions are that Optimissed advocates for the O’Kelly while pfren vehemently advocates against lines like that as they are suboptimal, so it wouldn’t shock me if that were the context but I simply don’t have enough to know right now.
the tarrash is an extremely good opening but you are forced to know all of whites trys at trying to win a pawn
the mainlines are fun though
With pfren, he only intervened if there were some inaccuracies that needed to be addressed. He's helped me deal with the traditional Orthoschnapp and the Ponziani along with correcting some of my misunderstandings. Also, I found some of his suggestions in chess books which has to prove that he knows what he is talking about if the author mentions his name
I have been studying the Tarrasch and I am surprised at how similar it is to a Catalan where black takes the c pawn but still plays Be7.
chessterd5 wrote:
I have been studying the Tarrasch and I am surprised at how similar it is to a Catalan where black takes the c pawn but still plays Be7.
I'm not sure what you are referring to. Usually in the Tarrasch Defense it goes 1 d4 d5 2 c4 e6 3 Nc3 (or 3 Nf3) c5 4 cxd5 exd5.
It depends a lot of what kind of player you are. Do you play defensive as black and want better control of your position - then the Tarrasch is best.
If you want a double edged position because you are good at calculating messy positions and you want some winning chanses - then the Chigorin is best.