I haven't read most of this thread, but I thought I'd cast my thoughts upon you guys, just to continue this discussion.
1. Why is 8...Re8 the best move? It seems to move as those 8...Nc6 might be more precise. Sure, ...Re8 makes a threat, but White's response is a move he's almost surely going to play anyway to allow g4 as well as not having to worry about ...Ng4 at some point. After f3 it's not clear what the rook is doing there (maybe allowed ...Bh8 in response to Bh6), and it may be more useful to play a move like ...Nc6.
2. Is 4...g6 the best move order? If I was black, I wouldn't want to give White the option of 5. c4, which seems to me to be a good Scotch for White.
3. I've noticed that people are trying moves like ...a6. Sure, it allows ...b5, but this plan doesn't even work in the Dragon when Black has a little more counterplay on the queenside. Surely it's too slow here. Black has to be a little quicker.
4. The website www.chessexplorer.com gives the most popular (or close to it) to be 8...Nc6 9. f3 Be6!? (...Nxd4 will lead to the same thing) 10. g4 Nxd4 11. Bxd4 c5 12. Be3 Qa5 13. Bh6 when it looks like White's won nearly all the games.
5. Does anyone have Christian Bauer's The Phillidor Files ? I would be interested to see what an expert GM has to say.
Originally posted by Mark AdkinsI'm ahead of you.
what about 9...Nc6. That develops a piece and if 10.Nxc6 then 10...bxc6 opens the b-file for Black's heavy pieces, which can then mount a queenside attack to complement the bishop and/or queen attack along the long diagonal.
I tried that against Streetfighter and another 2200 player.
I had a lot of fun saccing my Rook on b2 and against an under
1800 I can see it working. (Weak players cannot defend themselves).
However SF & partner are attackers at heart so they let me have my
fun whilst they got their attack in first. Exciting games but I was
always one or two moves behind.
It's worth a punt but basically you are playing a Pirc.
Black has no e-pawn - White has no d-pawn.
In the Pirc (I've played it for the past 10 years) you need your
e-pawn to stop you from getting slaughtered in the opening.
White's loss of the d-pawn favours him as he is better developed.
After 0-0-0 the d1 Rook is a monster and e4-e5 is always a threat.
(no e-pawn to block it). And that is just one attacking idea that
White has.
It is a difficult opening to play against players of SF's class and
attitude (attack - attack - attack). Especially the h4-h5 plan.
Don't get too obsessed with openings.
Don't start looking for the 'truth' in every opening move.
You will go mad with worry.
There is no perfect opening all have good and bad points.
Your job is to find the opening that suits you.
You may not be a Pirc/KID/Dragon/Benko/ player.
Karpov never plays these things. He plays openings that suit his style.
If you feel comfortable getting the positions you get from that
Larsen line - play it. Do not try to analyse into the ground.
Finally, don't force an opening onto yourself if it's not for you.
Pirc/KID players are born.
You cannot wake up one morning and decide you are a KID player.
Play to what you are. Know Yourself.
I'm lucky, I found out what I am and what I am not.
I am not a 1.d4 d5 player. I get chumped everytime I try to
defend the Queen's Gambit.
I dislike playing symetrical pawn formations as Black.
As White yes - I'll do it all the time.
So why not play 6 games as Black and play different openings.
French, Khan, QG. QGA. KID and the Philidor.
It really is the best way to learn - playing. Nothing is better than playing.
Originally posted by !~TONY~!I have Christian Bauer's The Phillidor Files . According to them:
I haven't read most of this thread, but I thought I'd cast my thoughts upon you guys, just to continue this discussion.
1. Why is 8...Re8 the best move? It seems to move as those 8...Nc6 might be more precise. Sure, ...Re8 makes a threat, but White's response is a move he's almost surely going to play anyway to allow g4 as well as not having to worry ab The Phillidor Files [/i]? I would be interested to see what an expert GM has to say.
1) 4...g6 5.c4 transposes into Kings Indian defence type positions and black may have problems if they will develop knight to e7 instead of f6. But they can avoid 5.c4 by changing move order - 4...Nf6 and only after 5.Nc3 - 5...g6.
2) After 8...Nc6 9. f3 Be6 10. g4 Nxd4 11. Bxd4 c5 12. Be3 Qa5 13. Bh6 white has better chances. And it seems to me that this line could be refutation of 8...Nc6 (without Re8) plan.
3) System with 8....Re8 9.f3 Nc6 with 10....a6 could be considered as the best black option.
4) Conclusion about this system is following: ...the kingside fianchetto offers Black dynamic counterplay, but it`s quite difficult to handle and probably fundamentally suspicious.
This is entirely true and very good advice indeed from Greenpawn.
When i first started playing chess seriously I wanted to play like Karpov; he was World Champion at the time, his games were everywhere and he almost never lost! (I vividly remember my school chess club teacher taking us all through to Glasgow to watch him play a simultaneous against some of Scotland's finest young players. His technique was simply awesome.)
However, it took me several years to realise that copying his openings and style of play was totally unsuitable for me; I just couldn't control a game 'positionally', and I was neglecting the tactical side of the game almost completely.
Then one day i picked up a book by Tal (The life and Games...) and that was that! I was spellbound by his amazing vision and tactical flair, his creativity struck a chord with me, and i changed my style of play completely. Once i realised just how difficult most club-players find defending is, I constantly looked for sharp opening variations, learned countless tactical patterns from puzzle books, and my results shot up accordingly.
In short, i had found a way of playing that suited me and which was practical.
Funnily enough, i found many years later that I understood and appreciated Karpov's style much better -all the 'beneath -the-surface' variations which allowed Karpov to keep control were the ones which actually appeared on Tal's board!
Originally posted by greenpawn34There is no perfect opening all have good and bad points.
I'm ahead of you.
I tried that against Streetfighter and another 2200 player.
I had a lot of fun saccing my Rook on b2 and against an under
1800 I can see it working. (Weak players cannot defend themselves).
However SF & partner are attackers at heart so they let me have my
fun whilst they got their attack in first. Exciting games but I was
a ...[text shortened]... .
It really is the best way to learn - playing. Nothing is better than playing.
Your job is to find the opening that suits you.
Very well said!!!
Originally posted by !~TONY~!I am neither a strong player nor a Philidor expert, but here is my response for what it's worth:
I haven't read most of this thread, but I thought I'd cast my thoughts upon you guys, just to continue this discussion.
1. Why is 8...Re8 the best move? It seems to move as those 8...Nc6 might be more precise. Sure, ...Re8 makes a threat, but White's response is a move he's almost surely going to play anyway to allow g4 as well as not having to worry ab The Phillidor Files [/i]? I would be interested to see what an expert GM has to say.
1. I assume that part of the reason for 8...Re8 is to get it off the f8 square so that White cannot force an exhange of bishops via 9.Bh6 (since if Black's bishop is not pinned it can move to h8).
2. I'll get back to you on this.
4. At chessbase.com, using the most recent sequence I gave:
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 g6 5.Nc3 Bg7 6.Be3 Nf6 7.Qd2 0-0 8.0-0-0 Re8 9.f3 Nc6 10.g4 Nxd4 11.Bxd4 Be6
if I recall correctly I got 16 games: of these, White won 5, Black won 5, and 6 were drawn. When I used a filter requiring each player to have a rating of 2000 or more, I got 5 games, of which White and Black each won 1 and drew the rest.
The most popular line is by no means the right way to use databases, since there may be many more older games played before a better line was discovered. Also, not all players keep up with openings, especially those they seldom play (or play against).
On the other hand, the stats I show above are scarcely conclusive since I have not attempted to analyze these games to see if, among them, White has a forcing line not used in the others.
Originally posted by greenpawn34The database stats *seem* to suggest that the line in question is equalizing (see my reply to TONY above). On the other hand, there are relatively few games and it may be that the players never got around to the devastating attack lines demonstrated at your club -- though White seems hellbound to conduct a kingside attack in most of them and in nearly every case I notice, equalizing or not, that Black's king-safety is woeful compared to White's, and it seems to take very accurate play on Black's part to draw or win such games against master level opposition.
I'm ahead of you.
I tried that against Streetfighter and another 2200 player.
I had a lot of fun saccing my Rook on b2 and against an under
1800 I can see it working. (Weak players cannot defend themselves).
However SF & partner are attackers at heart so they let me have my
fun whilst they got their attack in first. Exciting games but I was
a .
It really is the best way to learn - playing. Nothing is better than playing.
However, more generally I think most if not all openings are difficult to play against aggressive, master level players (or even those rated significantly higher than one, whether master level or not).
I'm actually not obsessed with openings. Most of my non-cc play is unstudied and unstructured (and it shows, for good and ill). But I do consider them important. Against a strong player who "knows" an opening, obtaining a good middlegame can be difficult. Once in a weak position in the middlegame, a good end result is also difficult.
Basically, my attraction to the Philidor is that it seems to allow me to avoid so much theory. I might actually be able to master something which allows me to reply to 1.e4 with 1.e5 without having to master the Ruy Lopez, the Italian, and the Scotch; and of course, not playing the Sicilian allows a large amount of (ever changing) theory to be avoided also.
But -- and here is why I am giving the appearance of obsessing over opening theory -- in order to commit myself to something as passive as the Philidor (commonly described as "solid" ) I must be convinced that it really IS solid: because an opening which is passive without being solid is just a stinker. Just playing it in practice is useful, but won't answer that question, inasmuch as most of my games will be against those near my own playing level (sometimes weaker).
So far I am convinced that Black can be forced into inferior and unpromising lines after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 Nf6 and so I would rather play 3...exd4 4.Nxd4 and then either transpose into the main line with 4...Nf6 or play 4...g6.
I was led to consideration of the latter because it seemed to allow Black to avoid a bishop pin at g5 which requires ...h6 and ...g5 (with Black then trying to castle on the queenside). But on the other hand, I understand that in that line (1.e4 e5 2.Nf6 d6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Bg5 g6) White also castles queenside, which avoids the pawnstorm race (something that is NOT to my taste); it does give White the better pawn structure, though Black has the bishop pair. So I may come back to that idea.
As Black, after 1.e5 I've tried the Pirc, the Robatch, and the Sicilian (accelerated Dragons, the O'Kelly, and the Kan). The first two of these Sicilians I came to view as weak when faced by a White player who knew how to handle them, as fun as they were against players who didn't; while the Kan bored me and became an exercise in chess-by-numbers as I attempted to navigate theoretical lines using databases. The Najdorf is supposed to be good for Black but typically leads to the kind of opposite side castling and lottery-like pawnstorm races which I abhor (how ironic!).
I've also played a little Italian, and a little (even less) with the Ruy. Again, the problem is that after 1.e4 the best choices seem to be 1...e5 (which lets White choose the opening, thus requiring Black to master at least four major openings, including the Ruy where theory is vast and White has a strong natural advantage; or else 1...c5 which leads to the theoretically even vaster Sicilian and lines that are either boring and unnatural or else a crazy crap-shoot of opposite side-castling and pawnstorm attacks.
Now I'm looking at the Philidor, which as I say might allow me to master a comparatively small amount of theory while offering a "solid" position. Or does it?
P.S. One Ruy line which I have not tried (mostly I fiddled with the Schliemann, the 3.Nge7 variant, and the Improved Steinitz -- though White can always force the Exchange Variation there) but which I may consider (after I've taken a good look at the Philidor) is the Bird's Defense variant:
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nd4 4.Nxd4 exd4
I wonder if this is just another eccentric dead-end?
If anything, my problem is insufficient study of openings, by the way. All I have available to me are online opening databases and an extremely sketchy 192 page book giving what purports to be a comprehensive overview of responses to 1.e4. As you can imagine, this doesn't provide much insight into ANY opening.
In Opening for White According to Anand 1, Khalifman gives 8...Re8 9. f3 Nc6 10. g4 a6 11. Be2 Ne5 12. g5!? Nh5 13. f4 Ng4 14. Bg1 c5 15. Nb3 Bxc3 16. bxc3 Rxe4 17. h3 Ng3 18. Bf3 Ra4 19. Bxc5 Nxh1 20. Bxh1 Rxa2 21. Kb1 Ra4 22. Qxd6 Qxd6 23. Rxd6 Be6 24. Bxb7 Rb8 25. hxg4 Rxf4 26. Bxa6 with a large advantage to White.
Originally posted by !~TONY~!Maybe so, but the line I gave has 10...Nxd4, not 10...a6.
In Opening for White According to Anand 1, Khalifman gives 8...Re8 9. f3 Nc6 10. g4 a6 11. Be2 Ne5 12. g5!? Nh5 13. f4 Ng4 14. Bg1 c5 15. Nb3 Bxc3 16. bxc3 Rxe4 17. h3 Ng3 18. Bf3 Ra4 19. Bxc5 Nxh1 20. Bxh1 Rxa2 21. Kb1 Ra4 22. Qxd6 Qxd6 23. Rxd6 Be6 24. Bxb7 Rb8 25. hxg4 Rxf4 26. Bxa6 with a large advantage to White.
Originally posted by Mark AdkinsDammit. This was inaccurate:
So far I am convinced that Black can be forced into inferior and unpromising lines after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 Nf6 and so I would rather play 3...exd4 4.Nxd4 and then either transpose into the main line with 4...Nf6 or play 4...g6.
I was led to consideration of the latter because it seemed to allow Black to avoid a bishop pin at g5 which requires .. ...[text shortened]... the better pawn structure, though Black has the bishop pair. So I may come back to that idea.
"But on the other hand, I understand that in that line (1.e4 e5 2.Nf6 d6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Bg5 g6)"
I MEANT to write:
1.e4 e5 2.Nf6 d6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6 6.Bg5 Bg7
Originally posted by Mark AdkinsKhalifman also gives 11. Bxd4 Be6 12. g5 Nh5 13. Bxg7 Nxg7 14. h4 and says:
Maybe so, but the line I gave has 10...Nxd4, not 10...a6.
"It not clear what Black can oppose to White's play on the kingside." He then quotes Rodin-Meister, Podolsk 1992 14...Qe7 15. f4 c6 16. Be2 Rad8 17. Bf3 f6 18. h5 fxg5 19. hxg6 hxg6 20. Rdg1 Rf8 21. Rxg5 Qxg5 22. fxg5 Rxf3 23. b3 with a material advantage.
Originally posted by !~TONY~!Bauer recommends 11...Nxd4 (instead of 11...Ne5) and gives main line line 12.Bxd4 Be6 13.g5 Nh5 14.Bxg7 Nxg7 15.h4 b5 16.f4 b4 17.Nd5 Bxd5 18.exd5 Qe7 19.Rde1 Qe3 20.Bg4 Qe3
In Opening for White According to Anand 1, Khalifman gives 8...Re8 9. f3 Nc6 10. g4 a6 11. Be2 Ne5 12. g5!? Nh5 13. f4 Ng4 14. Bg1 c5 15. Nb3 Bxc3 16. bxc3 Rxe4 17. h3 Ng3 18. Bf3 Ra4 19. Bxc5 Nxh1 20. Bxh1 Rxa2 21. Kb1 Ra4 22. Qxd6 Qxd6 23. Rxd6 Be6 24. Bxb7 Rb8 25. hxg4 Rxf4 26. Bxa6 with a large advantage to White.
"Or 20...Qc5 when white might be a little bit better but probably no more".
Thanks for all the feedback. I have decided that after:
1.e4 e5
2.Nf3 d6
3.d4 exd4
4.Nxd4
that 4...Nf6 is superior to 4...g6. My concern was avoiding the bishop pin line (4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6 6.Bg5) but I now feel that such fears are unwarranted in light of 6...Bg7 7.Qd2 h6! 8.Bf4 g5! 9.Bg3 Nh5 when Black can either castle queenside or else remain uncastled depending on White's subsequent play.
Does anyone have any objections to Black's final position here?