New answers tagged theory
1
Obviously the Rossolimo is a less ambitious option than the Open Sicilian. It is, however, easier to learn for white, less risky and less sharp and so likely to be less the cup of tea of ardent Sicilian players. Those are probably the main reasons for its popularity.
2
The queen on d2 allows for a future Bh6 exchanging the bishops and preparing a h4-h5 push with a strong attack for White.
With Qd3, you are exposing it to attack (...Nc6-e5 is a typical maneuvre in this type of posiiton). You also prevent your bishop from going to c4 which is a typical square where it's placed.
Also note that Black's ...e6 is a very bad move,...
4
Without giving a long, drawn out explanation, the simple answer is that you're decreasing the mobility of the queen. The queen only has three legal moves from d3 and all of them waste time. Qd2 loses a tempo since you could have played Qd2 the move before. Same with Qe2. Qd1 wastes two moves.
The value of moves comes from the value of the pieces and the ...
-5
it is very close and complex.
I have won many end games with 2ps vs rook.
here the black king is out of play and white has 3 pawns
black will have to work hard to get the draw.
I doubt any computer can analyse this far enough to give a conclusive answer and it was drawn as far as they could see ahead.
11
Qd2 is used in these lines to support the Be3, which is typically played to h6 to exchange for the Bg7, followed by a pawn attack on the king-side.
13
One of Black's development plans will include moves like Nd7 intending Ne5 hitting the Q and Bishop if the Q is on d3.
This will cost White an important tempo in this dynamic opening.
Black's plans revolve around control of the c4 square hoping to place a piece on this square. Depending on White's particular move order Black may play b5, Bb7, Nd7, Nb6, Nc4, ...
6
After Rxc2 Kxc2 Kxf4 we reach the below position, which is a tablebase draw.
The plan for White is really simple: queen the h-pawn (White can give up the rest of the pawns).
Black king is too far away to help, that is why it is a draw (there are winning techniques for Black, but they require kings to be in close proximity).
Feel free to test my claims with ...
9
Let's note the following: 1.Rxc2 and 1.Kxf4 and 1.Rd8+ are equally good, since they all draw. If we ignore 1.Rd8+ for now, 1.Rxc2 is clearly at least as good as 1.Kxf4 in the position, since it drives black's king back one square, meaning that black will at some point have to 'waste' a move with the king to get to white's remaining pawns (the option of 1.Rd8+...
-1
Is the Quaade Gambit in the King Gambit accepted winning for White? Tcec Superfinal Season 18. In the game, after the opening theory , variation with 7 d4 ( chosen by White) Stockfish itself saw its own loss on move 14 h6, which it played anyway , but its own PV (depth 51/89) lead to a position equal in material , but completely cramped. I further analyzed ...
2
I like Magnus Carlsen's philosophy: You can play any reasonable opening and still outplay your opponent. Here's a great post on Quora:
https://www.quora.com/How-strong-is-Magnus-Carlsen-in-the-openings
TL;DR: Rather than spending a ton of time on deep opening prep, Magnus will play slightly offbeat lines that might allow an opponent to have a slightly ...
2
A lot of useful and excellent advice has been provided.
Chess is a war game whose object is to destroy (checkmate) the enemy King!
So, mobilise your army and/or demobilise your opponent's army.
Try to seize the centre of the board, centralised pieces are more powerful!
Start with just one or two basic openings like e4:e5, d4:d5 until you get a feel for the ...
3
When you're new to the game, rote memorisation of a bunch of lines in an opening:
puts you in a reasonable position in the midgame if your opponent plays the moves you learnt;
takes a huge amount of your time; and
is incredibly boring.
It's a fantastic way to kill any enthusiasm you might otherwise have in the game, unless you are a very specific type of ...
2
True: When playing against (other) beginners games will rarely follow the text book openings for long. So yes, you have a point that learning deep openings as a beginner is a waste of time from a utilitarian point of view.
But the logical conclusion from this realization is clear:
You should focus understanding each opening, as deep as you choose to look ...
3
Quite possible- this would be a special case of the Tetris Effect, as would what you described with your experience with Breath of the Wild.
Anecdotally, someone I knew once played a lot of chess online and experienced similar effects. About 9 hours per day were spent on chess, roughly equally divided between play and study. This person experienced such ...
2
Yes there is an advantage, but not the one that is expected. I recommend studying a couple of basic openings not for the oepning itself, but rather for patern recognittion. Many chess games, will have similar positions and pattern recognition allows you to play the right move to gain an advantage, additionally the main aspects of openings, center control, ...
11
This is a very difficult question, and there are several sides to it.
1: This is the most important advice you will ever hear: Chess is 99% tactics. It is all about tricks, forking and pinning your opponents. I can not count how many times I have played a wonderful opening, gotten some advantage on the long term to lose on some simple blunder. If Bill ...
7
You should focus on understanding the openings principles- center, development, king safety. If you understand those ideas you'll usually be able to find good moves even if you don't know the theory.
Play openings that lead to open and tactical positions because those are the ones that will help you improve the fastest. 1.e4 with white. 1.e4, e5 with black.
...
16
The opening in those games depends on your opponent just as much as you, so with the sample size being so small, don't take the statistic too much into account.
The analogy with poker doesn't really work out too well. You definitely want to play "optimally" in chess against beginners! While in poker you can choose between different strategies that ...
14
Is there any value to learning openings as a new player?
Yes. The main reason is to get a feel for the kind of patterns of the way the pieces develop in different situations.
There are also good reasons to start with highly tactical openings since most of your improvement will come from improving your tactics, most of your wins will come from your tactics (...
1
I would recommend Chess Tutor Step 1. It is a training software that starts with the most basic level and goes until 1800 rating, more or less. The software costs around $20. When you finish you can follow with Chess Tutor Step 2 and Chess Tutor Step 3. Even they have several languages available. I have been a chess trainer for 30 years, and I have never ...
6
Please note that the ...e5 push Black does on your line is not forced and there are plenty of other variations Black can opt for (like 4...e6, or 4...g6, or 4...Nf6 5.Nc3 d6, or even 4...e5)
Each of this alternatives requires White to be prepared as Black will probably know a lot of theory about those (and have a good understanding of the resulting ...
3
This seems to just be a version of Chess960 restricted to certain openings to make castling more like "normal". Thus the positional considerations should be identical to regular chess, and regular chess principles (e.g. control the centre, develop your pieces early, gain space, etc.) should apply with equal force here.
What does change is the pattern ...
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