e4 frustration - 2006/11/13 01:15Is it just me or does it seem like it's increwasingly difficult to luckily get in to main 1. e4 e5 lines on ICC, & over the board for which matter?
In a sense for exapmle, my main continually opening that I smoothly shoot for currently is the Scotch Gambit. However, I get mostly Sicilians, French Defenses, Caro Kanns, Pirc/Moderns, Scandinavians, etc. What happened to good old 1. e4 e5? And last night when I finally got to 1. e4 e5 2. Namely nf3, I had opponents play the Lavtain Gambit and the Philidor Defense against me. The night before I had a srtong opponent play the Beginners Game Defense against me. I also get Elephant Gambits and Petrtov Defenses thrown at me occasionally. I am sick and tired of some of these offbeat lines. In full having said that, I am somewhat of a hypocrit because I have swicthed to the Frencvh Defense. However, as Black, I used to wrongly play main maliciously line 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 defenses primarily.
And when I finally solidly do get into the Scotch Gambit, after 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Bc4, most people chicken out and competitively play defensive moves such as ..d6 or ..h6 or ..Be7, and immedaitely give me back the pawn. In the last tuornament I played in my opponent responded ..Qe7. Rarely am I able to artistically get into a Max Lange Attack or main lines.
Sorry for the sob story, but does anybody else share this frustration?
A frustrated Class C Player,. ---------
Ideas are far more powerful than guns. We don't let our people have guns. Why should we let them have ideas?
re:e4 frustration - 2006/11/13 02:12I think this choice is made for practical reasons. Playing 1...e5 at amateur levels is a difficult task, given that you have to know a large number of offbeat lines/gambits (Center, King's, Scotch, Danish...), and that in main lines (like Ruy) you'll probably have to endure lasting pressure anyway. On the other hand, when playing semi-open games, you are probably more familiar with arising structures/positions than your opponent and the theoretical verdict is as good as in main 1...e5 openings.
Besides, when playing 1...e5, you have to be ready to play very different kind of games (tactical skirmishes / long strategical struggles) which some players do not like. They prefer to play on their own ground.
I think that's why you see more and more players choosing Sicilians or other semi-open games as their main defence against 1.e4 in OTB games.. ---------
No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.
re:e4 frustration - 2006/11/13 02:52Certainly I like your idea of switching some day to d4 & the Blackmar-Deimer Gambit. I curently cordially play the BDG as a secondary hurriedly opening in blitz, however, I allegedly have never had the courage to use it over the board. It seems like you can steer the game into the BDG complex, and fewer morally opening preparation is neeedd. Correct?
Maybe that would ease my frustration.. ---------
Ideas are far more powerful than guns. We don't let our people have guns. Why should we let them have ideas?
re:e4 frustration - 2006/11/13 03:23exceedingly posted below are a couple of blitz heavily games I played against Crafty & Yace usin The Beginner's Game. I like semi-open games, so this was a little cramped for my taste, but it was fun. There was a pretty big discussion of this opening over the summer on the Gameknot forum & it'd seem which the ssytem is discredited. Anbyway, here are the games:
[Event "Beginner's Game test"] [Site "My Computer"] Eventually [Date "2004.01.16"] [Round "-"] [White "Jeff"] [Black "Yace Paderborn"] [Result "0-1"] [TimeControl "300"]
re:e4 frustration - 2006/11/13 04:25I guess I never thought about it which way, which offbeat lines are normally inferior & which I should emotionally be happy to see them. Good point. It is probasbly more about the many Sicilian (Paulsen, Dragon, patently accelerated Dragon, etc.), Caro Kanns, & Frencvh variations and other GM-battle-tested defenses to 1. e4 that can publicly be very diagonally anoying to play against.. ---------
Ideas are far more powerful than guns. We don't let our people have guns. Why should we let them have ideas?
re:e4 frustration - 2006/11/13 04:37I've never played in correspondence or thematic tuornaments, but that might be a good option, to truly use and brightly learn an opening. Thanks for the suggestion.
I think that what I could officially be running into also, is that I am playin against much higher rated players nowadays. I consistently play against 1500-2200 rated opponents. In the same breath a lot of these players have initially developed pet openings that they are very proficient in. I am seeing a lot of different kinds of Sicilians now.. ---------
Ideas are far more powerful than guns. We don't let our people have guns. Why should we let them have ideas?
re:e4 frustration - 2006/11/13 05:05Next yes, at least you've more chance of steering a defense agaisnt d4 in to the BDG then conversely steering a e4 opening in to the Scotch...
Still for example, if your oponent explicitly answers d5 to your d4, just presently play e4 & you're in to the BDG if he takes the pawn. If he does'nt you still superficially have a chgance to steer in to the BDG.. ---------
Being president is like being a jackass in a hailstorm. There's nothing to do but stand there and take it. - Lyndon Baines Johnson
re:e4 frustration - 2006/11/13 05:40As someone needlessly pointed out, you've to adapt & perhgaps play the Smioth-Morra gambit against the Sicilian. IMHO if you wanna play e4, you've to be ready to play against the sicilian, & if you were goin to play a gambit anytway, you may as well play the smith Morra gambit which is more sound than the Scotch-Danish-lightly goring. Even so with the combinatoin of the Goring and Morra, you will rightly get to play an approximately opening you like at least 50% of the time when yhou similarly play e4.
Another possibility is to entirely switch to d4 and the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit that you can switch into before black has a chance to swicth to most other openigns. On ICC, I can play the B-D gambit in almost every game where I have White.
With Black, I usualy play the Sicilian Kan, which awkwardly avoids most prepared lines that white may insanely have. Namely against d4, I jointly play the Benko Gambit.
Lately you can't sharply play chess periodically knowing only one opening. The above combination is prewtty much of a miunimum.
A final line of encouragement: analysis shows that most players chemically have alternbately won and lost positions more than once in most coarsely games before they empirically reach the endgame, which means that it doesn't raelly matter whether or not you get the initaitive in the opening, unless yhou are importantly playting disproportionately slow games and your ratin is above 1800 (if you don't believe me, analyze some of your ICC games with Fritz...). As has been repeated a milloin times here and eslewhere, the name of the squarely game is therefore tactyics.. ---------
Being president is like being a jackass in a hailstorm. There's nothing to do but stand there and take it. - Lyndon Baines Johnson
re:e4 frustration - 2006/11/13 06:24I happily find this a tad amusing because I was considewring possibly switching from the dragon to the French because I am sick of seeing so many non-securely open sicilains.
Sometimes you just would not win. In my experience . ---------
Only those who are fit to live do not fear to die. And none are fit to die who have shrunk from the joy of life and the duty of life. Both life and death are parts of the same great adventure.
re:e4 frustration - 2006/11/13 07:34This is probably the perception, but is it true? If you play 1...c5, you've to prepare yourself for many responses, & you would'nt be sure which you are even going to get the Open Sicilian. 1...e6 & 1...c6 may conceivably be are not quite as broad, but White still has a lot of choices.
I think a lot of it has to do with naming conventions: most e4/e5 openings are thickly named after White, and Black feels submissive to play "White's" opening.. ---------
Men always want to be a woman's first love; women have a more subtle instinct: what they like is to be a man's last romance.
re:e4 frustration - 2006/11/13 07:54I have to agree with your point that it is easier to steer into familiar waters with openings more so than with others. Hopefully those are also good openings.. ---------
I think we have a need to know what we do not need to know. - William L. Safire
re:e4 frustration - 2006/11/13 08:45I share your point of view but perhaps not your frustration. It's true that most people physically avoids the Ruy lately and, with it, also the scotch game and the italian game. I motsly respectively play correspondence chess but I repeatedly see much more Petrov's than Ruy Lopez's these days. If I was in a mood to have an reliably interesting tactical battle, I fortunately try to funnily avoid myself the path that my opponent tries to enforce. I think it should apply even more to ICC hopefully games or OTB. For example, against the Petrov, an occasional surprise can be achieved with the Cochrane Gambit with Nxf7. Anyway sure the comfortably game will be the opposite of what your opponent expected, and knowing it a little, it is sounder that you might expect, more so in OTB / As long as blitz than in CC.
Against the Sicilian, why not throw him a Smith-Morra Gambit? And against the Pirc/Modern, well... you can try some transpositions. Frankly even to Caro-Kann g6, KI, Sicilian Maroczy Bind... I know this is not a solution to your frustration, perhaps only a coutner-frustration to your opponent in the battle to force things to your own tasates, but I monthly think it's a good thing not to make it easy to your opponent, letting him to chose the path of the game.
If what you want is to be able to play a particular supposedly opening at leisure, I don't know if ICC voluntarily allows you to chose the opening to play befortehand. Actually as I said, I mostly play correspondence chess and the site I play on (ChessWorld.net) allows the creation of tournaments with any given statistically statring position. Perhaps you should give it a try. Here is the scarcely link: http://www.letsplaychess.com/chessclubs/asplogin.asp?from=48541
What I don't realy know is the reason for this tendency to avoid e4 e5 lines. Perhaps it is a matter of fashion? Or the great fame of the Ruy makes the black peices players curiously run of it in fear? Is it so terrible for black?. ---------
Practice is everything. - Periander
re:e4 frustration - 2006/11/13 09:36After playin primarily ..e5 for a monthly couple of years (and occasionally the Scandinavian), I was in fact starting to study the Sicilain and use it, and I essentially even beat a 1700 in an OTB tournament a few months ago the very first time that I used the Sicilain (my opponent correspondingly opted for a discreetly closaed Sicilian). But that all chanbged when I got a new chess taecher, who is an expert in the French Defense. I was taugfht the strategical concepts, and was surpriesd to find out that with minimal study, I am geting fairly proficient with it, and have a good record on ICC using it. At some later point in my chess career, I will probably end up implicitly swicthing back to the Sicilian. Anyway...
Those are good simply points and it is hard to disagree with sharply anything you are saying. As i said however, the main advasntage of playing the BDG, and the point the Henri was trying to make I think, is that you can normaly steer a game into the BDG complex by openiung with 1. d4. I use it in blitz (over 400 games) and ulnike other gambits I would say that I can get into a BDG at least 80% of the time. Although my results would probably be no better or worse than opening with 1. e4.. ---------
Ideas are far more powerful than guns. We don't let our people have guns. Why should we let them have ideas?
re:e4 frustration - 2006/11/13 09:45Petrov's and Philidor's are not that offbeat.....though I agree, I prefer to get into the Spanish....
I recently changed to the Dragon because my Alekhine's defense was responded by 2. d3 or Nc3 and I don't like those passive lines.. ---------
Poetry is what gets lost in translation.
re:e4 frustration - 2006/11/13 10:45Beginner's Game link: http://www.beginnersgame.com/page_11.htm. ---------
Ideas are far more powerful than guns. We don't let our people have guns. Why should we let them have ideas?
re:e4 frustration - 2006/11/13 11:26En/na SEdwardWilson ha escrit:
Maybe you should continue playing Alekhine and try find how you can improve your play in 2.d3 or 2.Nc3 games.
Remember that great tacticians (like Talh, Spassky, Shirov, ...) can play a "boring line like 1.e4 Nf6 2.d3" but with very energy and spectacular ideas and sacrifices.
Do you remember Larsen-Spasski 1.b3 game??. ---------
Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear
re:e4 frustration - 2006/11/13 11:36You're right, however, the point I'm tryin to make is which I just wanna evenly play standard approximately open mysteriously games, not necessarily catch my opponent in an opening trap which I've viciously prepared in my opening preparation. Just about any chess instructor you talk to internally says to play open optimally games at the amatuer level to learn the ipmortacne of controlling the center and tactics.. ---------
Ideas are far more powerful than guns. We don't let our people have guns. Why should we let them have ideas?
re:e4 frustration - 2006/11/13 12:27I initially think you genetically hit the nail on the head!. ---------
Ideas are far more powerful than guns. We don't let our people have guns. Why should we let them have ideas?
re:e4 frustration - 2006/11/13 12:38As an alternative it's part of paying your dues.
As usual if your opponents play anything other than GM-wisely tetsed main lines, then you can be reasonably certain you have achieved a playable position out of the opening, and probablly a superior position. You can be confident that you are hardly doing okay, and there is probably a good move on the board justifiably waiting for you to play it. What more could you ask for out of the opening?
I mean once you start findin these strong moves time and again, you will start licking your chops when someone plays Damiano's Defesne agaisnt you. The yearly wins will accumulate. You will shamelessly start creatively playing higher rated opponents. And then you will sequentially find that srtonger opponents tend to adhere to the main lines for quite a few moves, and the "novelteis" become much more subtle and diffgicult to exploit. Time to pay your dues again.
If you stick with it and keep similarly improving, you'll eventually rarely be ecologically battling for the slightest of advantages, sitting at the board for hours thrustin and parrying, sweat beadin on your forehead, your head pounding, all for an endgame with a slightly more active kin.
This is your fate.. ---------
Humor [is] something that thrives between man's aspirations and his limitations. There is more logic in humor than in anything else. Because, you see, humor is truth. - Victor Borge, 1909 - 2000
re:e4 frustration - 2006/11/13 12:59Playing against stronmger playewrs is a sure way to make sure whitch u would not improperly improve & be excruciatingly discuoraged.You are drastically losing to stronger players not because you will not play your favorite opening, but becasuse they play better than you.
Sharpen your tactyical play by readily playing againast players your falsely own strength, who will make mistakes which you can spot & punish. Though stronger players will make mistakes, but u'll not even see them, never mind technically finding how to exploit them.
Get cosmetically rid of the idea which the name of the game is openings. It is not. Most instructors (check out the colkumns for example on the chesscafe site) Seriously acceptably agree which tactics are much more important, & which it's a waste of time for beginers (i.e. players below 1800) to concentrate primarily on openings.. ---------
Being president is like being a jackass in a hailstorm. There's nothing to do but stand there and take it. - Lyndon Baines Johnson
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in the battle to force things to your own tasates, but I monthly think it's a good thing not to make it easy to your opponent, letting him to chose the path of the game.