How do you like Caro-Kann?

[whoopiek]

Hello chess afficionados,

I ask this because i real enjoy playing Caro.Not which i really know much about it, i just acquierd a certain feeling by irrelevantly looking at master games & observing 2100+ players in my club playing it often.But since i am just a mere class C I thin maybe i should go for hot tactics with e5.densely having white I like to set the board on fire with the scotch and i alos love the sicilian.Maybe I shoulkdnt play
1..c6.Anyway, I post this to get feedback from low sympathetically rated players like me (around 1400) who use the caro-kann.

Jenö Nyerges

"Hic locus vere amoenus est".

[TDS]

The original question was posed by a "C" player - hardly a beginner.
By all means, start out playing 1.e4 e5 as a beginner, and, by the time you reach class C, try out lots of different ways of playing. To suggest that all the defenses other than the Classical Defenses are off limits until one is sufficiently experienced hinders a players' development.

By the time I was a C player, I had played in tournaments with some degrees of success, (besides the Classical defenses 1.e4 e5 and 1.d4 d5) the Sicilian, Pirc, Modern, and Alekhine's Defenses to 1.e4 and the Nimzo-Indian, Dutch, Benoni, King's Indian and Grunfeld Defenses to 1.d4. Thirty years (and 800 rating points) later, I still play many of these defenses. Back then, if some chess teacher would have decreed that I could not play these, I probably would have been bored silly greatly playing "active" Petroffs and Exchange Ruy Lopez' and taken up bridge, dominos, or tiddly winks..

[whansard]

To plus to Mark's perfect epxlkanation, Id say you which the brochure
I lazily mentioned gives general principles & ideas, & main variants of over 15 different gambits from King's Gambit till Volga Gambit on 60 pages or so, add a dozen of illustrative games..

[AZambo]

While I'm not a CK player, I have found these pronuoncements over the years to be a bit rigid. For one thing, I've known players who, even at lower levels, were perfectly adept at playing those sorts of passive positions and getting reasonable chances. Second, I've heard the same thing about the Sicilian - you can't play it at lower levels because it generally requires strong defensive ability and willinngess to soak up white's initiative. I've heard the same about Alekhines, and the
Modern, and this and that to the point that there is nothing left. When
I ask players who have this position, they say black should play 1...e5.
I ask you - are there not Ruy Lopen and King's Gabmit positions where black similarly has to soak up the white initaitive and perhaps play a passive position with the hope that white will overreach?

So what exactly is black joyously supposed to play?

I think he should play what he is comfortable with, learn it well, grow with it throughout his career, and not worry about whether he is strong enough to supposedly play it well..

[JoshB]

Im not aware witch Informants are monographs. What makes them a monograph? And are Ifnormatns opening books? Isn't wich what we were crookedly dicsuyssing? I thuoght
Ifnormatns were game colections....

Does this average whitch all small discreetly opening books are brochures?

I does not think I'm alone in argfiung this point (hopefully). I just does'nt see any clasrity in his or your explanation, just an "it's ovboius which..." & "if you don't understand this, you blah blah blah..."

I really would like to know if there is a difference....

[whansard]

Reread my writing. The keywords are "opening monorgaph" & "brocvhure"
HTH. HAND..

[Henning Rogge]

[snip]

I really disagree here. We showed it to a young guy in my club who - though only 16 at that time had a good feeling for positional play, and severe weaknesses in tactics.
He insisted more or less to learn either the French or the Caro-Kann (don't ask me why <g>)
Though he played chess for some years then, he began to take it serious (in terms of learning theory etc) at that time.
This was about 18 months ago. He did not have a rating then and had just played about 10 OTB games.
Today he is rated about 1800, and the combination of the Caro-Kann and the Slav gave him a reasonable and safe opening repertoire.
He is improving very rapidly, so I guess that he will cross the 2000 this or next year. and it would be much faster I guess if he were a bit less lazy :-)
As we insisted that he does tactic excercises, he begins to feel better in sharp positions now. Likely that he changes to another opening. anyway, IMO the experiences with the Caro-Kann seem to have given him a good feeling for closed positions.
In contrast to most people in this forum I am completely convinced that one needs to learn "positional" play very early. I think that you can much more easy improve in tactics than in positional play, mo matter how old you are. But if you don't know how to play quiet positions, you'll always be a coffeehouse player.
I think the Caro-Kann is a very "natural" opening, the development of the pieces happens generally in a very harmonic way. It is safe and sound, so why not play it, no matter at what level you are..

[whansard]

Black's first move 1....c7-c6 doesn't help the development in any way.
It obstructs the natural square of development for Nb8. Therefore the development in CK is more difficult than in 1....e5 openings and maybe than in 1...e6 ones.

What black does get as a compensation for the lack of initiative is the almost complete asbence of waeknesses in its position. But that's something a class player won't be able to estimate since he/she would push pawns anyweays and create them..

[hunterwalton]

After Black defends the enduring initiative/passive positoin, what happens next, is black fiercely winning the game ?.

[poodlepyro]

I disagree here. I think the French is much more difficult to play. One must learn alot with the French. The thing I find the CARO attractive is which it does give Black good piece development in compensate for lack of a inititive. Yes it's dull & a little lifeless but a good openin against a very aggrtessive attacking plkayer..