06 Nov 09
White: The english, the reti, the kings gambit, the vienna game, the grob
Black: the grunfeld, the dutch, the caro kann, alekhines defence, and the french
just wondering as these are generally what I use and I'm trying to narrow it down a bit, for white atm i'm pretty fond of the kings gambit of course, and the english isnt bad either. With black for D4 I really cant decide between the grunfeld and the dutch, I like them both, and for e4 im in love with the caro kann for now but thats subject to change 🙂
06 Nov 09
Originally posted by revan1Hello. What?
White: The english, the reti, the kings gambit, the vienna game, the grob
Black: the grunfeld, the dutch, the caro kann, alekhines defence, and the french
just wondering as these are generally what I use and I'm trying to narrow it down a bit, for white atm i'm pretty fond of the kings gambit of course, and the english isnt bad either. With black for D4 I ...[text shortened]... ike them both, and for e4 im in love with the caro kann for now but thats subject to change 🙂
06 Nov 09
I'm personally a big fan of the English and like the Caro-kann very much as well. The english is not hard to master at all, you just need to stay cool and the game is easy, I've never met one oponent with a clear ideia of how to beat it. for d4 I would go for the Grunfeld, I never played it, but I'm thinking about using it soon.
07 Nov 09
Originally posted by orion25Against good players with some preparation, you have to rely on knowledge of small nuances and amazing positional play to win. You don't have an opening advantage to play with in the opening against best play; the fight for an advantage comes in the middlegame. The main advantage of 1.C4 is that most people don't have a whole lot of experience against it and don't have anything special prepared to meet it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's not good or anything. It's my opening of choice against good players, but saying that it's an easy opening to play simply shows a lack of understanding.
I stay by my word. 1.c4 systems are easier to play for white than 1.d4 or 1.e4 systems in my opinion, but maybe that's just because I'm used to it. But really tell me what do you find so difficult about the english? Its all so logical and simple.
07 Nov 09
1 edit
Originally posted by orion25I'm just taking a wild stab in the dark here but I suspect it's not so much that people find the english difficult but perhaps more the concept of 1600 finding chess - any aspect of it - not "hard to master" that is raising eyebrows.
But really tell me what do you find so difficult about the english?.
07 Nov 09
Originally posted by Maxime FerlatteLet me just add that Black doesn't even necessarily HAVE to know anything in particular to play against the English. A King's Indian Defense player stays with his basic setup, a Dutch player gets his e5-f5 pawn duo without a fight, a persistent QGD or Slav player knows he can play e6 and d5 or c6 and d5 and practically force a transposition of some sort, a Queen's Indian, Benoni, or Nimzo player can practically stumble into a reasonable Hedgehog setup, and the Neo-Gruenfeld is pretty much what happens when a Gruenfeld player is persistent in his approach when facing 1. c4.
The main advantage of 1.C4 is that most people don't have a whole lot of experience against it and don't have anything special prepared to meet it.
And it gets worse. I played the English in an OTB tournament for the first time two weeks ago after studying the English on and off for twenty years (I'm a long time KIA player, and I study all white fianchetto openings for a better perspective). I was using IM Craig Pritchett's "Play the English" as my approach, and both black players I faced transposed to the Accelerated Dragon on move five. I looked the games up in Pritchett's book, and for the line in question he has in a note on p. 114 that "It is also very important to be aware that his [black's] main alternative, 5. ... g6, transposes after 6. e4 to the Maroczy Bind Variation of the Accelerated Dragon, which unfortunately must lie outside our coverage."
The English has so many lines and transpositional possibilities that it is almost impossible for an amateur to be "booked up". Fortunately, understanding themes and ideas can go a long way at our level in the English, but I think "mastery" only comes to the players who already have "master" as a title in some form.
This is probably a semantic issue, in that an amateur Sicilian player can practically play 1. c4 as their Sicilian variation reversed, treating all non-...d5 lines as forms of the Closed Sicilian reversed ( ...e5/...f5 lines as a Grand Prix reversed, lines with ...c6 as an Alapin reversed, black fianchetto lines as a pure Closed reversed, lines with ...Bb4 as a Moscow/Rossolimo reversed, etc).
It's just the "easy to master" part that some of us would consider inexact language.
Paul
07 Nov 09
Originally posted by revan1I don't play those white openings. I do play the caro-kann for black however. This solid, slower devloping opening fits my personality of using the "bunker mentality" as a basis for which I make all my lifes decisions...big and small!😀
White: The english, the reti, the kings gambit, the vienna game, the grob
Black: the grunfeld, the dutch, the caro kann, alekhines defence, and the french
just wondering as these are generally what I use and I'm trying to narrow it down a bit, for white atm i'm pretty fond of the kings gambit of course, and the english isnt bad either. With black for D4 I ...[text shortened]... ike them both, and for e4 im in love with the caro kann for now but thats subject to change 🙂