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A Beginner's Garden of Chess Openings (2002)

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Re: A Beginner's Garden of Chess Openings (2002)

#41

Post by bluGill »

sour-taste wrote: post #16

I find it amazing that a game that's so old doesn't have a dominating opening. I see no reason for that to be the case. Maybe it's just a matter of us not having the computational power to find such an opening and analyze it's continuations to completion. I know that there's a huge number of reachable chess states, but it still seems like there could be an opening that always wins.

Chess is not solved, unlike some other games. There may well be a best opening for each player which ensures some result no matter what your opponent plays. However nobody knows it (including all the wrong variations your opponent can play), so it doesn't matter.

Re: A Beginner's Garden of Chess Openings (2002)

#43

Post by whimsicalism »

cactus2093 wrote: post #26
kwertyops wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tactics trainers: https://lichess.org/training/ https://chesstempo.com/chess-tactics/ https://www.chess.com/puzzles

I'm curious if anyone has advice on how to interpret the ratings in the tactics trainers. Should they map roughly to your in-game rating? I'm pretty new to chess and still pretty bad (just under 1000 online, I make a lot of blunders and/or fall for opponents' tactics) but my rating is 1750 on the tactics trainer. I would imagine at some point the tactics are not the bottleneck and I should be working on something els…

> Should they map roughly to your in-game rating?

For lichess at least, they don't. I'm a 2100 tactics and nowhere near that in actual rating (around 1500).

Re: A Beginner's Garden of Chess Openings (2002)

#44

Post by Judgmentality »

jedberg wrote: post #35
pmoriarty wrote: post #13

After a lifetime of chess, I've more recently become a fan of Fischer random chess (aka Chess960)[1], where the back rows of pieces are shuffled before the game begins. It puts puts people on a more equal footing in terms of their actual chess playing skills instead of their opening memorization abilities. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer_random_chess

I was coming here to say the same thing. I'm in no way a good chess player by any means, but the equalization of Fischer chess appeals to me. I'm not going to lose because I didn't memorize as many openings, I'm going to lose because I suck.

> I'm going to lose because I suck.

I find this strangely motivational. I guess I'm a sucker for fairness.

Re: A Beginner's Garden of Chess Openings (2002)

#45

Post by EarthIsHome »

SoSoRoCoCo wrote: post #32
metroholografix wrote: post #5

Below 1700 or so, openings are mostly a waste of time and tactics rule the day. Learning the basic opening principles and two basic opening moves that you keep playing (one for white, one for black) and focusing on tactics [1][2] is in my experience the fastest way to advance. After 1700 or so, specific openings can be studied. I suggest playing d4 instead of e4 as white (avoids dealing with the Sicilian) and as blac…

The problem with tactics training is that there is always a "best answer" because they have been picked to have a best answer. What got me playing over 1700 (lichess rating grin ) were two things: 1) deepening my mental checklist: 1) am i being attacked, 2) are there unprotected pieces, 3) am I about to be forked/pinned, 4) can I fork/pin my opponent ... and increase how far down you can BFS this without getting a he…

As an unrated player who plays occasionally, I've also found the mental checklist you've listed in 1) to be more helpful than memorizing chess openings. I've had a pretty high "win rate" when playing non-chess enthusiasts around my workplace or friend group.

The issue I've encountered with memorizing openings is that it assumes both sides are playing perfect openings that complement each other. In reality, in my "lower rated" games, my opponent is likely to make suboptimal moves against the opening I memorized. There are ways to punish their moves, but I would've needed to memorized that. So, I have to come up with changes to the memorized opening on the spot.

Going through the checklist allows me to play without memorizing movesets even though the moves I make are not the "best".

Re: A Beginner's Garden of Chess Openings (2002)

#47

Post by Nemerie »

hengri wrote: post #29
opportune wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Specifically for endgames you pretty much only need to know two patterns that are rather algorithmic: How to close a game where you’re up a rook or a queen (without stalemating). How to close a game where you’re up one pawn, if it’s not a forced stalemate. Two bishops is maybe something you want to learn. Theoretically knight + bishop as well. I play a lot of bullet chess and pretty much never see these though. The r…

I have ~3000 blitz games in Lichess and I have never once had to play 2 bishops or bishop knight end games.

I think bishop+knight endgame could be much more common if players actually tried to get them when defending after exchanges of queens and rooks. So, exchange as many pawns as possible and maybe sacrifice a piece for a couple of last pawns and here your opponent goes.

Also, if memory servers me I've seen two grandmaster games only during this week, where this endgame could happen, but the players didn't want their opponents to show the technique. One of these games was yesterday: https://www.chessbomb.com/arena/2020-russian-championship-su...

But indeed, rook endgames are way much more important from a practical point of view.

Re: A Beginner's Garden of Chess Openings (2002)

#48

Post by yodsanklai »

metroholografix wrote: post #5

Below 1700 or so, openings are mostly a waste of time and tactics rule the day. Learning the basic opening principles and two basic opening moves that you keep playing (one for white, one for black) and focusing on tactics [1][2] is in my experience the fastest way to advance. After 1700 or so, specific openings can be studied. I suggest playing d4 instead of e4 as white (avoids dealing with the Sicilian) and as blac…

> Below 1700 or so, openings are mostly a waste of time

Why? I'm not at that level but I'm sure it can't hurt. I'm not talking about spending hours studying openings, but simply being able to name things is helpful. That way you can pick new ideas along the way, memorize past mistakes more easily, communicate with other players. And it doesn't take much time to know the first few moves of the most common openings.

Re: A Beginner's Garden of Chess Openings (2002)

#49

Post by pacomerh »

metroholografix wrote: post #5

Below 1700 or so, openings are mostly a waste of time and tactics rule the day. Learning the basic opening principles and two basic opening moves that you keep playing (one for white, one for black) and focusing on tactics [1][2] is in my experience the fastest way to advance. After 1700 or so, specific openings can be studied. I suggest playing d4 instead of e4 as white (avoids dealing with the Sicilian) and as blac…

I'm not experienced with Chess, how do you know when you reach a certain level?. Is there an "official" way of knowing when you hit 1700?

Re: A Beginner's Garden of Chess Openings (2002)

#50

Post by iamcreasy »

bluGill wrote: post #39
iamcreasy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Below 1700 or so, openings are mostly a waste of time Here is a counter argument - below 1700, someone who knows the strength of an opening would outperform those who do not.

I disagree. If there are two 1700 players, the opening player is only better if the game goes according to the prepared moves. A good tactical player who realizes you are going via prep will make a stupid move and pull you out of book. From this point on the tactical player has the advantage because he has experience defending random stuff, while the opening player has to figure out why the move so stupid it isn't ev…

> pull you out of book.

Openings do not necessary break here. They are meant to take advantage of a situation by a series of branched off movement. If you are not making good enough guess about why a particular opening is played - making one move to pull somebody out of the book won't do much good.

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