Suitable defence for average club player against 1. d4?

[MartinCarpenter]

Well, U180's really aren't what they were 5 years ago at least The recent grade revaluation substantially shifted what an U180 is vs before it.

A lot of people do certainly end up improvising a lot of the time. Absolutely inevitable even for stronger players when you've got no idea who you'll be playing, or often even what colour you'll have!, in advance. Let alone luxuries like database data.....

[Jon Mahony]

Heres a nice tournament game I played recently, I won’t embarrass the poor bloke by naming names:

1.d4, d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.cxd5 exd5 5.Bg5 Be7 6.e3 Bf5? 7.Qb3 Nbd7 8.Nxd5 Nxd5 9.Qxd5 Bb4+ 10. Ke2 Qxg5 11.Nf3 Bd3+ was a nice finish

Of course my 6…Bf5 was inaccurate, you’ve really got to go c6 there, I think he’d have had better luck taking the b-pawn

Er, I've put pgn tags round that, and the last two half-moves make no sense.

EDIT: Ah, I see. Corrected to 11.Nf3 Bd3+.

Thanks Christopher, yeah apologies for the mistake I was doing it without sight of a board.

[Roger de Coverly]

then I do think acquaintance with "theory" is tremendously helpful. Or at least, I've found it so. Granted, it's not so essential in less sharp openings.

I should think it fairly obvious that if you have two players of otherwise equal abilities, that the one with the more theoretical knowledge should get the better results. What has changed is that knowledge can be acquired through sources other than books by FM/IM authors.

Sharp positions where you know the likely outcomes never seem quite as frightening as those where you don't. But for "average" players, at 140, applying the fundamentals of playing moves to improve the position or seek the initiative and active play have to be important. These ought to push in the direction of adopting mainstream ideas and it's a practical short cut in games where time is limited to "know" rather than "work out".

I had this old theory that for a 140-160 player to progress to 160-180, abandoning the QGD was necessary, simply because you wouldn't win enough games and that the Kings Indian, Grunfeld or Modern Benoni were necessary in order to put away players of a similar grade rather than draw with them. If once you reach 180 and start to face players in the 190 to 210 range, should you continue to play sharply? An open question, since going back to the QGD can just give them a very easy time as they can just play by technique. But gaining play in Kings Indian isn't always so easy.

[Paolo Casaschi]

I had this old theory that for a 140-160 player to progress to 160-180, abandoning the QGD was necessary, simply because you wouldn't win enough games and that the Kings Indian, Grunfeld or Modern Benoni were necessary in order to put away players of a similar grade rather than draw with them. If once you reach 180 and start to face players in the 190 to 210 range, should you continue to play sharply? An open question, since going back to the QGD can just give them a very easy time as they can just play by technique. But gaining play in Kings Indian isn't always so easy.

I disagree: I believe that a 180 player would perform as such playing the QGD against a 140 player. There's enough complexity in some of the variations to give you enough chances. If you tell me that a 180 player should better avoid the French Exchange against much weaker players, then I'd agree but those are very few exceptions.
In general, for patzers below 200, I'm convinced openings preparation is highly overrated; my personal proof: for about 20 years I played with White only 1. d4, 1. c4 or 1. Nf3 (essentially playing the same schemes with either of those). Sometimes in 2012 I realized that if I like chess so much then it was very silly of me to leave out half of the openings from my games. So I started playing 1. e4 in probably more than half of the games with White. Also widened significantly my openings with Black. Without much preparation, essentially relying on many years of following top tournaments on magazines and then online. Surprise surprise, my grading/rating did not collapse...

[Jon Mahony]

I think that theory is probably right Rodger, as a 140 playing the QGD I do draw 75% of my games, sometimes with people 10 points below me, which isn't great for grading improvement. On the other hand I do think playing 1...d5 is worth it, for instance I got a draw with a 161 playing a London System, in the Bolton Major at the weekend.

The advantage of the QGD there is a limit to the types of position which can occur - I find I'm playing more or less the same game every time the QGD comes up, and I feel I understand it very well. If White makes a slight inaccuracy I am always ready to pounce on them for an advantage.

If I want to significantly improve I will probably have to learn something more dynamic against 1.d4 at some stage, but right now I've got problems enough with finding my holy grail defence to 1.e4 I've tried several things lately and not found anything im 100% happy with.

[Barry Sandercock]

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%)

[Jon Mahony]

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%)

I had reasonable results with 1.g4 for a time, but my g5 or h6 g5 Borg systems were given up pretty quickly after a good few crushings

[MartinCarpenter]

That opening is going a bit far

You can get strong playing just the QGD. Just needs a lot of patience vs weaker players. The worse problem is probably that playing nothing else at all is somewhat liable to lead to a somewhat limited style.

[Jon Mahony]

That opening is going a bit far

You can get strong playing just the QGD. Just needs a lot of patience vs weaker players. The worse problem is probably that playing nothing else at all is somewhat liable to lead to a somewhat limited style.

Just a tad, its not bad from the white side in rapid, you have to play it like a man and gambit the g pawn though

Yes that’s the problem with the QGD, you have to play for the win against much weaker players, and it’s not always easy - if anybody sort of 110 and below plays 1.d4 I tend to start with e6 and see if they fancy a French before going into the QGD.

Still, you can usually bank on some mistake at some point - a common one is playing e3 too early because they are frightened of loosing the pawn, or at the very least you will get c5 in quickly without too many problems

[Roger de Coverly]

Yes that’s the problem with the QGD, you have to play for the win against much weaker players, and it’s not always easy

It's probably that bit easier if you aren't in an adjudication or adjournment league were the game is liable to be terminated or paused for analysis at or before move 40.

You have to be able to play as quickly as the other guy, but noticing before a league game that one of my regular opponents would meet the Cambridge Springs with Bxf6, I decided to take him on in the passive but solid position you can get with the longer term compensation of a Bishop pair. As Black eventually I won at around move 60. In previous games, when I had Black, we had mostly trundled down various main lines of the Kings Indian.

[Arshad Ali]

You can get strong playing just the QGD. Just needs a lot of patience vs weaker players. The worse problem is probably that playing nothing else at all is somewhat liable to lead to a somewhat limited style.

You have to play it in the style of Rubinstein and Capablanca: patient and unrelenting. You have to be aware of subtle positional nuances. You have to know the usual stock of strategic motifs (e.g., the minority attack, and how to counter it). You have to know what kind of endgames it leads to a la Shereshevsky and Slutsky. And you have to be able to outplay your opponent even in level and dry late middlegames and endgames -- which is not too difficult at the club level as players tend to lack patience, stamina, and technique. It's not exciting chess, I concede.

[Arshad Ali]

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.

[Jon Mahony]

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”

[Arshad Ali]

Sharp positions where you know the likely outcomes never seem quite as frightening as those where you don't. But for "average" players, at 140, applying the fundamentals of playing moves to improve the position or seek the initiative and active play have to be important. These ought to push in the direction of adopting mainstream ideas and it's a practical short cut in games where time is limited to "know" rather than "work out".

Again speaking personally, what I've found is that in complex positions I can often (not always) find Ariadne's thread to playable positions -- but it gobbles up time and more importantly, I get knackered. Less energy for the later phases of the game where fatigue takes its toll. Just knowing something (and not having to reinvent the wheel) saves time and effort.

I had this old theory that for a 140-160 player to progress to 160-180, abandoning the QGD was necessary, simply because you wouldn't win enough games and that the Kings Indian, Grunfeld or Modern Benoni were necessary in order to put away players of a similar grade rather than draw with them. If once you reach 180 and start to face players in the 190 to 210 range, should you continue to play sharply? An open question, since going back to the QGD can just give them a very easy time as they can just play by technique. But gaining play in Kings Indian isn't always so easy.

I agree. But going for a win with black against strong opposition always entails risks. You have to play sharp openings (as you point out) -- and there's a tradeoff between opportunities to win and risk. To mitigate the risk, opening preparation comes in. And this arms race of opening preparation continues all the way up to GM level. In this respect Carlsen is a bit of an anomaly as he shies away from critical positions (i.e., those positions currently in vogue where white is fighting to establish a superiority and black is fighting for dynamic equality) and aims merely for a playable game.

On a side note, I recall some years back a USCF 2250 player playing a USCF 1600 player. The 2250 was aware that the 1600 had been studying the Latvian Gambit and wanted to humiliate him by demonstrating that he could beat him even there. He walked unwittingly into a forcing line and got demolished (by the 1600).

Jack Yoos' rough estimation is that playing an opening not part of your repertoire makes you roughly 200 points (~25 ECF points) weaker than your regular strength. Don't know if it's exactly true but it chimes with my experience.

[Jonathan Bryant]

then I do think acquaintance with "theory" is tremendously helpful. Or at least, I've found it so. Granted, it's not so essential in less sharp openings.

I should think it fairly obvious that if you have two players of otherwise equal abilities, that the one with the more theoretical knowledge should get the better results.

Clearly it doesn’t hurt, but what relevance is knowledge of theory if you don’t get a chance to play it?

I’m not sure Martin’s right to say people 'improvise' - it’s more a conscious avoiding of the mainlines. It’s not just the KID, you don’t see many Marhsalls, or Dragon Yugoslavs or Exchange Grunfelds in the e2e4/Hampstead databases either. Nor Berlin Endings come to that.

When I took up the Berlin I estimated I’d get the ending about 1 game in 10 when I faced 1e4. In fact it’s a bit more frequent than that - about 1 in 7 or so.

I’d venture to suggest that my knowledge of The Wall is superior to yours Roger, but a lot of good that did me when you played 4 Nc3. Even there I managed to get a move in that was recommended by Marin - one that you weren't aware of ... and I still lost, of course.



The idea that very strong players universally play sharp systems in order to get winning chances is also demonstrably false. Somebody like Simon Williams does, obviously, but you also see Keith Arkell racking up a huge plus score on the Black side of the Caro-Kann and playing the Fort Knox to win against relatively low-rated opponents (in the 2100-2200 range). Then you get somebody like Mark Hebden who’ll play the KID as Black but also take the Black side of the closed Spanish. Sometimes the Marshall sometimes not.