What do you prefer to open up with as white?

Technical questions regarding Openings, Middlegames, Endings etc.
Barry Sandercock
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Re: What do you prefer to open up with as white?

Post by Barry Sandercock » Sat Jan 11, 2014 1:47 pm

Thanks Roger. But in that game, Hebden doesn't seem to follow his usual strategy in this opening as shown in the book " A Killer Chess opening repertoire " by Aaron Summerscale, so maybe that's why he lost.

Arshad Ali
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Joined: Mon Feb 22, 2010 12:27 pm

Re: What do you prefer to open up with as white?

Post by Arshad Ali » Sun Jan 12, 2014 4:41 pm

Andrew Bak wrote:1.e4 - Best by test!
Dunno about that. The statistical edge is so slight as to be almost not worth mentioning:

http://en.chessbase.com/post/1-e4-best-by-test-part-2
And the result from Part 1 is overturned: whether White played e4 or d4 is very much statistically significant (p-value = 0.0086) once these other factors are accounted for. However, the practical significance is not so great. The coefficient on the e4 variable is 0.002. What this means is that if you switch from d4 to e4 in your next 1000 games as White, you would score 2 more points – hardly worth the effort of rebuilding your repertoire. I experimented with several other models that accounted for the rating gap and the average rating, but tended to get the same results. Leaving out the rating gap multiplied by the average rating didn't change much. The only difference is that e4 might boost your score by 0.20% instead of 0.22%. I also explored whether the effect of e4 could differ depending on the rating gap or the average rating (e.g, is e4 only better when the rating gap is large?). It wasn't.

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Jon Mahony
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Location: Leeds

Re: What do you prefer to open up with as white?

Post by Jon Mahony » Mon Feb 24, 2014 4:12 pm

Barry Sandercock wrote:Thanks Roger. But in that game, Hebden doesn't seem to follow his usual strategy in this opening as shown in the book " A Killer Chess opening repertoire " by Aaron Summerscale, so maybe that's why he lost.
I switched from 1.e4 to d4 and played Summerscale’s ideas as white, almost exclusively for the last 2 years, as a result my grade has shot up 20odd points.

Obviously what you ideally want black to play is 1. d5 and allow you into the Colle-Zukertort (sadly they don’t have to, and there is a bunch of annoying side lines to contend with, even after 1...d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.e3).

However I’ve found in practice 1…Nf6 going into a Kings or Queen’s Indian is a much more common response and so I’ve put the majority of my opening preparation into studying these lines.

Since I started playing Sumerscale’s repertoire I’ve only played the Barry attack 7 times in graded OTB - I’ve found the majority of Kings Indian players at the 125-145 level go 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 g6 and then after 3.Nc3 go 3…Bg7 without a second thought - this allows white into the more favourable “150 Attack” against the Pirc defence with 4.e4.

I must say on the rare occasions my opponents’ find blacks best move of 3…d5 I always let out a little internal groan at the prospect of a Barry attack game - unless black makes quite a few imprecise moves and allows an early mating attack on his king, you are in for a slow positional grind, with a slightly cramped game as white.

I think objectively the Barry attack is good enough as white, at least at my level, but I do believe that if all black wants is a draw, he doesn’t have to work too hard to get it.

2 out of the 7 games I lost as white in the Barry, were played in the Caveman line which has been favoured by Hebdan in recent years, where white omits the move 5.e3 and instead plays 5.Qd2 looking for a quick mate on the black king - I think loosing these games was more to do with my dodgy play than the opening, I made the rookie mistake of castling Queenside too early, and ending up under heavy attack myself.

I’ve never lost a game in the 5.e3 line though; I’ve had 3 draws and 2 wins. The main problem with 5.e3 is that black can either play an early c6 and b5, or just go c5 straight away - in both cases I think white must just bite his lip and follow Summerscale’s analysis of castling short and attempting to maneuver the now very suspicious looking Knight on c3 into an outpost square on the Queenside - I’ve found this is seldom enough for the win though, indeed all my games in this type of position have been drawn, my 2 wins came from black starting two slowly in the opening and allowing a safe long castle, the h4-h5-h6 push to open the h file, followed by a possible exchange sac for mate :)
"When you see a good move, look for a better one!" - Lasker

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