That’s not what I meant. There are many sound opening lines with N-KB3 as the first move for either White or Black, though the novice might as well begin as White with 1. P-K4 and just get on with developing pieces and learning how to use them, rather than concentrate over-much on strategy he doesn’t yet understand the game well enough to grasp. For this reason even openings considered draw-ish by experts are quite good enough for the beginner - by the time he understands why they’re considered dull he will have learned much about the game.
No, what I was blinking over was glee’s apparent conflating of the two forms of notation, since N-KB6 isn’t a possible opening move for either side. I’m probably quite wrong, but you can’t blame me for trying to take what might be my one-in-a-lifetime chance of tripping an IM on his subject of competence.
Usually a knight and bishop are roughly equal.
The pawn structure is the most important factor in deciding whether one is better, so it’s best not to have sayings like the above.
Well this (sadly) shows your chess teacher didn’t know much about chess. :eek: :smack:
(Sorry to be agrressive, but this is a board devoted to stamping out ignorance!)
It is not agreed by professional players that any opening move is better.
As I said, the four best moves are e4, d4, Nf3 and c4. The only difference between them is the type of opening they lead to.
Ooops. :o
It’s over 30 years since I last used descriptive notation, but even so…:smack:
(Also when I said that ‘King’s Knight to KB3’ went out of use a century ago, I didn’t mean the actual move did - it’s still played. I meant the cumbersome use of ‘King’s Knight’.)
I used to get books of famous games and go over them move by move. If you start understanding why they do what they do, you will help yourself. You put up a chessboard and do the moves in order .
This is good in principle, though some grandmaster games are difficult to follow, unless you’re an experienced player. :eek:
Many top tournaments put the games on the Internet live and you can play them through on your computer. Here’s a world-class one in progress this week.
And even in Descriptive notation “KN-KB3” is never needed. If both Knights can move to KB3, neither can move to QB3 and so “KN-B3” would be enough. (There is a famous line in the Max Lange Attack where either White Knight could move to K4, and the move is given as “QN-K4”.) If both Knights can move to a different B3 - as in the array (fancy term for “starting position”) - then either “KN-B3” or “N-KB3” is enough, and the latter is generally preferred although the former is not wrong.
Incidentally, P-QN3, P-QN4, P-KB4 and P-KN3 are all playable as opening moves and have been used by experts with success. Even so, the moves listed by glee are more to the point for the beginner, as well as being the preferred options in serious chess. Preferences vary widely. Fischer used to use practically nothing but 1. P-K4 until his world championship match with Spassky when he suddenly uncorked 1. P-Q4 in one of his games (and duly won). A German master called Carl Carls, on the other hand, used 1. P-QB4 as White (the English Opening) so invariably that a prankster once glued his QB pawn to the board before the game.
I don’t see any notation on Chess Titans either.
You could download Natwarlal and see the moves there (it even analyses ahead on the screen.
Mind you, it’s bl**dy strong! :eek:
True, but at lower levels, even Masters have enjoyed success with them - 1. f4 may be risky, but it was good enough for Emanuel Lasker[sup]*[/sup], no less, on at least one famous occasion, and I have a score somewhere featuring Sokolsky playing 1. b4 to tremendous effect. Of course, it helps to have some idea what you’re doing, not just thinking “I’ll pick an expendable pawn at random and push it to see what happens”.
I am, nonetheless, of the school that opines that beginners should stick with a nice simple open game (1. e4, e5) as it gets the pieces moving and the action under way. They can always opt for more strategic openings later.
Who, I trust, meets your demanding standards for “expert”
The fact that something was played by Lasker “on at least one famous occasion” is hardly an endorsement of current opening success. In the modern era, with games thoroughly catalogued and organized, it’s much less likely that a Master or GM can get away with playing something “odd” and be successful. I think that, since the time Sokolsky wrote about the eponymous 1. b4, some further understanding has occurred.
Yes, and that would be very much to the point if this thread were titled “My World Championship Opening Repertoire? (Need answer fast!)”, but it isn’t. The point is that a number of opening moves are perfectly playable even up to, say, strong club player standard. By the time you’re playing in the sort of circles where the Bird’s gets ripped to shreds, you probably know all you need to know about choosing a sounder opening, and for lesser players, it even has its merits in that you can follow a rote strategy known to you. There are, on the other hand, a bugger of a lot of lines you can end up in after 1. e4.
I shudder to think how long the first post in a ‘World Championship Opening Repertoire?’ thread would be!
Given that world-class GM’s have repeated 30 moves of opening theory :eek::smack: before unleashing an innovation and that the ‘Anti Moscow’ Gambit (a popular opening at present) requires computer analysis to decide if White gets enough for his sacrifices, we really don’t want to go there.
I wouldn’t call moves such as 1. b4 ‘perfectly playable’ at any level. Even club players can prepare one line against such weak openings* and get a better position.
Also by the time you give up a weak opening, you’ve wasted a lot of time playing it which you could have spent learning an opening that will last you a lifetime.
Nobody should play ‘rote strategy’ - you must try to understand what’s going on in case your opponent plays an unexpected move.
There are a indeed lot of lines you can end in after 1. e4. They all favour White. This is why beginners should play such moves.
I appreciate your point that one beginner can trick another beginner by playing almost anything. (N.B. They can also win by playing good moves.)
But it’s going to lead to unpleasant experiences when you meet club players.
*1. b4? c6! and now:
Bb2 a5 3. a3 axb4 4. axb4 Qb6 5. c3 :smack: d5 and Black is already slightly better
e3 Qb6 3. a3 a5 and White has nothing better than to dubiously sacrifice a pawn by b5
Forget openings - that should be the last thing you study.
Learn the endgame and tactics. You learn how pieces REALLY work by studying the endgame. Learn how to mate with all the possible mating combinations.
My recommendation on tactics is to read this book (it’s free and online):
Best book on chess ever written. You can do drill after drill of “find the fork” but never find yourself in those positions in a real chess game. This “book” shows you how to get into those positions in the first place, and does so in plain english.
