Suitable defence for average club player against 1. d4?

Technical questions regarding Openings, Middlegames, Endings etc.
Roger de Coverly
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Re: Suitable defence for average club player against 1. d4?

Post by Roger de Coverly » Fri Apr 25, 2014 3:22 pm

Jonathan Bryant wrote: Clearly it doesn’t hurt, but what relevance is knowledge of theory if you don’t get a chance to play it?
It's much easier with White, as if Black diverges in a well established position, the chances are that it's an error if it hasn't been played before, or even if it has with more results.

As a possible approach, as a practical minimisation, you only need to know "only moves" when they are the only reasonable route to survival or when they win on the spot. Twenty moves of theory to reach a level ending could be wasted knowledge.

As regards the Metger unpin line in the Four Knights, I had previously checked in databases to find ideas for both colours. Does that count as theory, even if I hadn't consulted Marin's book?

MartinCarpenter
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Re: Suitable defence for average club player against 1. d4?

Post by MartinCarpenter » Fri Apr 25, 2014 3:36 pm

Oh people do actively avoid theory at times but do also improvise. I've had plenty of games go for a few moves of theory and then thought at a surprisingly early point :)

Fairly sure that winning with calm openings is the best way to go when notably stronger. You do need the right mental set up to do it though as it'll make for lots of long games.

Arshad Ali
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Re: Suitable defence for average club player against 1. d4?

Post by Arshad Ali » Fri Apr 25, 2014 4:07 pm

Roger de Coverly wrote:It's much easier with White, as if Black diverges in a well established position, the chances are that it's an error if it hasn't been played before ...
Let's take a main line in the Slav: 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 dxc4 5.a4 Bf5 6.e3 e6 7.Bc4 Bb4 8.O-O Nbd7 -- natural moves so far. And let's plausibly suppose White's opening knowledge (as a middling club player) runs out here. It's unlikely he'll know how to proceed. He may see 9.Qe2 with the idea of e4 but dismiss it because of 9.Qe2 Bg6 10.e4 Bxc3 11.bxc3 Ne4, -- which lose a pawn. He may not know that 12.Ba3 gives him a lasting initiative, or he may not know how to use it (not having studied master games with this line). Even if he finds 12.Ba3 in calculation, he may dismiss it because 12. ... Nxc3 drops another pawn. Now if a player spends enough time on the board he can probably calculate his way through all this -- but why spend time this way? Just know it.

Alternatively, take the modern main line in the Benoni: 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 e6 4.Nc3 exd5 5.cxd5 d6 6.e4 g6 7.Nf3 Bg7 8.h3 0-0 9.Bd3 -- and hereabouts, the club player's opening knowledge tends to run out, with the game often continuing 9.... a6 10.a4 Nbd7 11.0-0 Re8 12.Bf4, where white has the winning chances. He may not know the moves 9. ...b5 or 9. ...Re8 (neither of which seemingly guarantee full equality), or the extensive analysis behind them. I wouldn't like to play either side without having studied master games and book and engine analysis.

Dewi Jones
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Re: Suitable defence for average club player against 1. d4?

Post by Dewi Jones » Fri Apr 25, 2014 5:00 pm

Jon Mahony wrote:
Arshad Ali wrote:
Barry Sandercock wrote:I agree, that for players below say 140, opening preparation is overrated. For a couple of years I played 1.a3 and 2.b4 with white and 1.. a6 and 2.. b5 with black and got virtually the same results as when I played normal openings. ( around 50%)
Agreed. And even at the top level I think Tony Miles once essayed this against Karpov and won.
The famous Birmingham defence, though a great deal of the advantage in the move was psychological, if you look at the game Karpov didn’t play at all well (by his standards anyway!) probably because he was fuming from the “insult”

As I've learnt how to do it, and to keep Geoff happy.


Jonathan Bryant
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Re: Suitable defence for average club player against 1. d4?

Post by Jonathan Bryant » Fri Apr 25, 2014 5:24 pm

Roger de Coverly wrote:... Metger unpin line in the Four Knights, I had previously checked in databases to find ideas for both colours. Does that count as theory, even if I hadn't consulted Marin's book?
Sure, but these are very different arguments being put forward now. Does a good background knowledge of opening play in general and specific openings help even if you don’t get particular lines on the board - of course.

Does knowing theory in the Slav or the Benoni help you play 'better' or even 'correct' chess in the opening? Of course.


Does any of this actually determine the result of a game or even have a significant impact on how things turn out? Clearly not.


Ultimately this is a black swan question. I say there are none. Or at least very very few in amateur play. To back up the claim that theory is indeed a minefield and a single move forgotten or unknown can cause catastrophe, you can just show me the games where this has happened.

How many would support your claim? 10% of all games? A small figure, given the claims made, but that would still be 500+ games in the e2e4 database so it shouldn’t take long to find them. 1%? that would still be 50 games.

Frankly, I’d be surprised if you even found 5.

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Christopher Kreuzer
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Re: Suitable defence for average club player against 1. d4?

Post by Christopher Kreuzer » Fri Apr 25, 2014 5:28 pm

Jonathan Bryant wrote:Frankly, I’d be surprised if you even found 5.
There are people out there with pet opening lines that score highly, but they are unlikely to start advertising the fact...

Jonathan Bryant
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Re: Suitable defence for average club player against 1. d4?

Post by Jonathan Bryant » Fri Apr 25, 2014 5:41 pm

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:
Jonathan Bryant wrote:Frankly, I’d be surprised if you even found 5.
There are people out there with pet opening lines that score highly, but they are unlikely to start advertising the fact...
Sure, but that’s a very different thing to the 'one wrong move and your dead' school of thought. Still, whether the entrants to e2e4 would like to advertise their lines or not, their games are still in the database.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Suitable defence for average club player against 1. d4?

Post by Roger de Coverly » Fri Apr 25, 2014 6:28 pm

Jonathan Bryant wrote: Frankly, I’d be surprised if you even found 5.
Take a look at my games in the recent English Seniors.

Round 1, it was an over the board inspiration for me, but Qe1 check needed to be known by my opponent because it busts his line of play with Nc6 and Bg4.
Round 3 , playing the Nxc6, e5 line against the Accelerated Dragon. I've known that one for forty five years.
Round 4, playing c4-c3 against Ken Norman in a g3 Gruenfeld after d5xc4. I recalled suffering against Andrew Ledger when I didn't play it.
Round 5, playing Na5 in the sequence 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Be7 4. d4 exd4 5. c3 Na5 . If that isn't possible, then my move order goes out the window and I have to risk a Two Knights. The problem is that if 5. .. dxc3 then 6 Qd5. Whilst you have 6. .. Nh6 7. Bxh6 0-0 avoiding immediate loss, they have 8. Bxg7, now considered favourable for White by some if not all authors.

Jonathan Bryant
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Re: Suitable defence for average club player against 1. d4?

Post by Jonathan Bryant » Fri Apr 25, 2014 7:22 pm

Roger, are you saying that the results of these games were decided by the moves that you describe? If not we are again talking about something different.

If the argument is that openings are important and that it’s easier to come out of the opening with an advantage if you play the opening well that I’d agree with you. But that’s a rather different thing.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Suitable defence for average club player against 1. d4?

Post by Roger de Coverly » Fri Apr 25, 2014 7:51 pm

Jonathan Bryant wrote:Roger, are you saying that the results of these games were decided by the moves that you describe? If not we are again talking about something different.
In the first game, yes. In the games where I was Black, the equalisers were necessary to stay in the game with equal chances.

The snares are all there, just waiting for people to fall into them. A league game from this week.



I was expecting 6. .. Nc6 which would have transposed into a game I played against Keith Arkell, which in turn had followed a game between Gawain Jones and the former Mrs Arkell at Sheffield 2011. I had played 4. dxc5 against Keith, to which he had responded 4. .. Nc6, so the trap never arose. Alternatively in the game Black can take on d4 at move 5.

Jonathan Bryant
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Re: Suitable defence for average club player against 1. d4?

Post by Jonathan Bryant » Fri Apr 25, 2014 7:55 pm

So we are now talking about different things. I’m not disputing that it’s possible to come out of the opening worse and that there are opening traps.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Suitable defence for average club player against 1. d4?

Post by Roger de Coverly » Fri Apr 25, 2014 8:14 pm

Jonathan Bryant wrote:So we are now talking about different things. I’m not disputing that it’s possible to come out of the opening worse and that there are opening traps.
Depends what you think the question is. It's wandered well on from a suitable defence to 1 d4. When opponents will research the openings of their potential opponents, I don't think it's possible to maintain or even reach a 180 grade without a reasonable working knowledge of the openings and potential positions that you will reach. So having to acquire the necessary theoretical knowledge is not of itself a barrier to playing the Kings Indian, since you need some background in almost every opening. If the sequence 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Nf3 0-0 6. Be2 e5 7. 0-0 Nc6 8. d5 and the subsequent knife edge play is not to taste, there are other quieter if marginally less promising alternatives. For many years I played 6. .. Nbd7 and 7. .. e5 to avoid both the main line and exchange variations with the queens off.

For some club players, the first step is being aware that the above sequence is the main line

Arshad Ali
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Re: Suitable defence for average club player against 1. d4?

Post by Arshad Ali » Fri Apr 25, 2014 9:48 pm

Jonathan Bryant wrote:Roger, are you saying that the results of these games were decided by the moves that you describe? If not we are again talking about something different.

If the argument is that openings are important and that it’s easier to come out of the opening with an advantage if you play the opening well that I’d agree with you. But that’s a rather different thing.
Not to rub it in but of course the result of a high-ranking game tends to correlate highly with whether one side or another comes out of the opening with an advantage. That's why high-level players want that advantage. In high level chess the non-trivial plans and counter-intuitive moves are meshed together. The plans often won't work without knowing the exact lines. Without knowing exact lines and rebuttals, you can't implement the plans that go with those positions; you're adrift and don't know what to do as natural moves won't work. You won't even find the plans and manoeuvres.

Again, an anecdotal example. About fifteen years back my boy got trounced twice in a row in the Four Pawn Benoni against an expert who only played that against 1.d4. At that time Vaisser's book -- Beating the KID and Benoni with the Four Pawn Attack -- had just come out. I trained my boy on the complex jungle of variations that come out of the 4-Pawn Benoni -- and which no player can reconstruct at the board. The next time the expert got demolished -- he actually thought he was a piece ahead out of the opening (he didn't know the lines).

The natural moves and the improvised openings will work up to a certain level. After that, it will be a case of sharply diminishing returns.

Peter Webber
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Re: Suitable defence for average club player against 1. d4?

Post by Peter Webber » Tue Nov 11, 2014 12:40 pm

In "Chess Openings for Black, Explained," Lev Alburt recommends 7. ...Nbd7 as a way of saving "80% or more of the time needed for preparation" in playing the Kings Indian Defence - just a shame my level of chess is not yet quite up to playing openings of this calibre!

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Suitable defence for average club player against 1. d4?

Post by Roger de Coverly » Tue Nov 11, 2014 1:03 pm

Peter Webber wrote: - just a shame my level of chess is not yet quite up to playing openings of this calibre!
I could well believe that lower level club players would not follow mainstream approaches against the Kings Indian, but is it really that difficult to get the position at move 8? Essentially the players go their own way with no immediate action.

So 1. d4 Nf6 (no tactics) 2. c4 g6 (no tactics) 3. Nc3 Bg7 (no tactics) 4. e4 d6 ( you have to decide to prevent or discourage e5 ) 5. Nf3 0-0 (no tactics) 6. Be2 e5 (This is where you have to know or calculate that you aren't leaving a pawn en prise. 7. dxe5 dxe5 8. Qxd8 Rxd8 9. Nxe5 and you have to be aware that .. Nxe4 is possible because of the discovered attack on the e5 Knight) 7. 0-0 Nbd7 reaching Alburt's position.

You can avoid the possibility of exchange variations with a queen trade by playing 6. .. Nbd7 and 7. ..e5 .

Admittedly you are then in a typical Kings Indian, but it's rather less dull than some lines of the Queens Gambit Declined.

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