A Beginner's Garden of Chess Openings (2002) • Hacker News Board

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

#121

Post by Oreb » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 10:35 AM UTC

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…

> A good tactical player who realizes you are going via prep will make a stupid move and pull you out of book.

That only works against a badly prepared player. Learning an opening isn't just about memorising moves, it is also about understanding why the moves -- both your own and your opponent's -- are good. If you have studied an opening well, you will understand why a stupid move is stupid and be able to punish it. Of course you may still end up messing things up and lose the game later on, but you should be able to emerge from the opening with an advantage.

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

#122

Post by Scarblac » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 11:36 AM UTC

k_sze wrote: post #108

nwallin wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have different player populations. A pool of Elo ratings only rates players relative to the other players in the population. If you take everyone whose FIDE rating is between 2400-2600, and you create a new pool of Elo ratings for them, their new Elo ratings will range from 1400-1600. If you take everyone whose FIDE rating is between 1400-1600, and you create a new pool of ratings for them, their new Elo ratings…

So what does that say about the relative strengths of the players between chess.com and lichess.com? That chess.com has the more elite players from lichess.com and so the lichess.com players are weaker on average than the chess.com players?

You can't say that based on the ratings. The parameters of the Elo system can be freely chosen, so you can't compare two implementations at all.

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

#123

Post by iamcreasy » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 11:45 AM UTC

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #110

iamcreasy wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The opening strength will only work when you know how to exploit something small in opponent's opening like a miss of tempo or wrong reply That's exactly what I am saying. If one person knows the strength of an opening and the other person don't then the person who knows the opening has a clear advantage. I agree with @skulk's argument though - the time is better spent on learning tactics and analyzing games over l…

> the opening has a clear advantage not exactly if the person can't use the slight advantage for their benefit. They only have window of 2-3 moves at max to exploit less developed pieces else the advantage fades away(assuming non point positional advantage). It is hard for 1700s to exploit very minor advantage and most of the time the win is due to a blunder by opponent.

What I said was conditioned on player sticking to few opening that s/he knows very well. It not hard to convert the advantage to a win, and it's also not obvious that some move is a blunder until after it becomes obvious.

1700 rating is not very clearly defined since different Chess websites uses different ranking system and the rating can vary dramatically. For example, on average there are 400 points difference between chess.com and lichess.com ranking.

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

#124

Post by mpol » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 12:32 PM UTC

Oreb wrote: post #120

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 King's Indian as a way to avoid theoretical preparation? Seriously? That's one of the most difficult and theory heavy openings in all of chess. I abandoned it because it was just too much work.

At the higher level you are right. At my level, 1500 FIDE, it is considered an opening where you can develop slowly and quietly and it gives black a lot of options.

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

#125

Post by bluGill » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 1:05 PM UTC

toolslive wrote: post #71

bluGill wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you only need to get a bit better to see through the common traps even the first time. The very first time I saw a scholars mate attempted against me I thought the moves were weird and made the obvious tactical response, only end up down a pawn. I was annoyed at being down a pawn afterwards and looked it up the opening, and only then did I discover the so called trap that I unknowingly didn't fall into because th…

Hold on... you're 2500?

I don't have a rating, but somewhere in the 1000-1300 range is a reasonable guess. I have beat a USCF 1500, but that was 1 game out of hundreds.

I don't need a 2500 rating to know something about how they play.

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

#126

Post by unkulunkulu » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 1:37 PM UTC

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…

I find modern tactics training with positions taken from real games quite useful. I finally made progress past ~2100 level in them when I stopped looking at the problems as puzzles with a hidden beautiful answer or tactical idea and just started thinking in terms “what I would play in a real game”

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

#127

Post by unkulunkulu » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 1:46 PM UTC

dandersh wrote: post #4

"White can start by moving his King's pawn 2 spaces, i.e. playing "e4". This move has many strengths - it immediately works on controlling the center, and it frees two pieces (the Queen and a Bishop). This is a popular first move, leaving Black with two options" I don't remember much from my chess obsessed youth, but going e4 and moving the bishop/queen into position for a 4 move checkmate will always remain. When I…

If you can get your hands on Chessmaster X for windows with Josh Waitzkin, I highly recommend it, a strong all around introduction to chess with interesting interactive stories of real games by him as well as chess greats

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

#128

Post by sleepysysadmin » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 2:38 PM UTC

millstone wrote: post #7

sleepysysadmin wrote: post #2

I'm finding openings matter less and less. If I'm white, I'm going E4 but otherwise I'm reacting to my opponent's move until I can gain the initiative.

Would you mind sharing your rating and what time controls you play? I am 1930 on lichess blitz (so probably ~1700 FIDE). If I guide the game into lines I know well, I can get both a positional and time advantage since my opponent has to think longer.

>Would you mind sharing your rating and what time controls you play?

I have never held a rating, recently played against an NM and got completely crushed. Rapid most of the time. Though I prefer increment and something like 5+5 is fun.

>I am 1930 on lichess blitz (so probably ~1700 FIDE). If I guide the game into lines I know well, I can get both a positional and time advantage since my opponent has to think longer.

Early on with chess I memorized a couple openings. I knew all sidelines of Ruy Lopez, queens gambit, and sicilian. My problem was that when my memory fails me or right about the time I land outside this memorization. That's when I fell apart.

I switched it up and I played only fischer random for quite some time, the goal was to have to figure it out. I became much more principled. So I obey opening principles 90% of the time but the goal is to be constantly adding pressure as opposed to 'if he plays X I have to play Y'

This way I don't have to remember anything. It's ideal.

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

#129

Post by ArneVogel » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 4:48 PM UTC

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 disagree with you. I think learning openings will help you just as much as tactics even at a level way below 1700. I posted about this on my site [1] but the tl:dr is that opening principles are not always enough to get to a good position and learning openings the right way will help you develop at later stages.

[1] https://listudy.org/en/blog/when-to-learn-chess-openings

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

#130

Post by blub » Thu, Dec 17, 2020, 8:37 PM UTC

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 only players I've seen in online blitz that didn't know openings were the 1200s (i.e. complete noob). Anyone rated over 1700 will know openings and middlegame and endgame and tactics and strategy.

For blitz openings are essential and the difference between playing into a solid middlegame position in 10 seconds versus wasting one minute reaching an almost equal position.