is London the best chess opening?

The point is that famous players don't risk playing bad openings in high level competition.

@RussBell

No, a person playing against MAGGIE played 1. b3! There are exceptions to most things in chess, what you said included.

It’s not personal or individual. I’ve coached beginners for a quarter century. I’ve taught more than 1000 children how to move the pieces and the basics of checkmate.

My suggestion on openings is that they play what Greco played, or what Morphy played. Most of them can tell you they’ve seen the Opera game, which is a terrific study of development and the contrast between the material on the board and the material in the battle.

These students would look at a typical London game and tell you that none of White’s pieces, except perhaps the rook are “eating pizza”, that is spectators rather than players.

Noobs in action.

I took on a new student ten months ago who plays the London. Gotham and others influenced him. He’s won some local youth tournaments.

We looked at the London together and I showed him how I play against it.

When a slightly stronger youth player beat him twice, he asked to learn some other openings.

Q u e e n ' s G a m b i t

so many variations

People don't play an opening because it is the best. People play it because many people fall for it or because that opening suits their gameplay the best. I'm more of a defender than attacker in some openings and more of a attacker in some openings. For example, London System is defensive that rely on developing your pieces when Queen's Gambit is more aggresive and rely on having a good start with more developed pieces. KID rely on having a good pawn structure etc.

A beginner would probally play Fried Liver Attack or Wayward Queen Attack because they are popular and many people fall to the trap in beginning levels.

But masters are adaptive to most of the openings because they study bunch of openings and knows how to deal with them. So it wouldn't be much of a problem for masters.

A beginner would not notice the sneaky bishop when you play Polish Opening and lose the rook, but a master has a good board vision and they will save the rook. The same happened with me that's why I know.

For example; My favorite opening is Ruy Lopéz Opening: Berlin Defense, Rio Gambit Accepted because I like open games and I do not like complex games with complex pawn structures. I can't think about a move and get stressed when there is complex pawn structures and bad pieces. I would take the draw in a complex position when I am up a minor piece if i have time trouble. I can't win complex positions.

But if you like complex games, then you happily play the Advance Variation against French Defense.

That's why you have to find the best opening for you when you are beginning to chess. It is so important.

@ToastBread_1

Or by influence, or by accident, like stumbling on a cool variation. Ex. Giucco Piano, I play it a lot.

1. b3 is not an bad opening, it is possibily on the top 10 opening moves out of 20.

And it doesn't mean that everyone will play the same if one did.

There is 8 master games with this move sequence:

And out of 8 games, only one resulted with black winning and rest are white win.

The first time that I faced the Englund Gambit was an OTB tournament in 1996. I won in eight moves. Since then, I’ve lost a great many games online to the same trap, but not in the past two years.

@ToastBread_1

I used to play b3 a lot, my win rate with it is 60% I'm better than the average player so let's assume it's 50% that makes it average, do you think it's good now?

@Ziryab

I lost to that trap 4 times!

This game inspired me when I saw it in Chess Informant. I’ve been playing 1…a5 against the Larsen ever since.

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1790565

I did not said anything about the winrate.

@Ziryab

1. a5 against the Larsen in that game that you showed doesn't really justify, it's just the response Black had, it was adequate in most situations giving them the win, that doesn't mean 1. a5 did all the heavy lifting.

@ToastBread_1

The win rate is a factor on whether the opening is good or not.

Kádas Opening (1.h4) has the most winrate (as the first move) among the masters but it doesn't make the Kádas Opening any better as well.

Yeah, because it's played by masters and when only they know they have a high chance of winning, it's disrespect to their opponent, of course they win, I'm talking about the average player's opening compared to the London, not Master's win rate.

Five or six years ago, a guy at a tournament asked me what I play against 1.b3. I told him 1…a5. He laughed. We were paired in the next round. The game began 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.b3 a5. I outplayed him in the middle game and won.

Last February, an old friend and I played in a tournament. That game began 1.Nf3 Nc6 2.b3 a5. In the first sixteen moves, I played 11 pawn moves and 5 knight moves. I won his bishop that started on c1 when I trapped it on g3. From there I launched a decisive attack against his king.