Re: Improving your Chess
Hello,
@19: Philidor once said, that pawns are the soul of chess.
Ján Markoš, Slovak top chess player also noted, that masters are typical for their work with pawns.
Similarly to real life, even in chess, there are many correct ways to play, preferred by various types of chess players. Some like an intensive, agressive and bloody battle, some prefer lot of space for their maneuvers and some rather like complex positions, where they can cumulate small positional advantages and eventually win the game.
Like a japanese proverb says: "Although there are many ways leading from bottom of a mountain, all those who come to the top, will see the same Moon."
Chess openings are about getting your pawns and strong figures to place, and the way in which you do this, will determine the soul of the game.
Of course, if you play just from time to time, mostly again weak opponents, going without any specific opening is also fine, as your opponent probably won'ŧ be able to counter it appropriately anyway.
I'm just suggesting it as an inspiration, even if you play just for fun, knowing some of the most common openings can give you a fight much closer to your taste than going on just randomly. Every opening is like a story, a frame of an epic battle, that you're going to fight.
Sicilian Dragon for example is a very bloody opening, one of the most agressive out there. White usually castles to the queen side, black to the king side, improving his position with a bishop in fianchetto (pawn approaches to g6 and bishop moves to g7). This bishop is called the Dragon bishop, constantly threatening white's castle in the opposite corner of the board. Black then heavily attacks white's castle on the queen side, while white launches a strong attack on king side, especially against h7 pawn to break in the black's castle.
It's a both-winged battle, with strong pieces concentrated on opposite sides of board and fully focused on their respective targets. Theone who breaks in first is the winner.
King's indian defence is another story. From the start, black ignores white's activities and focuses on building its own position in a secured castle, strong pawn structure in the middle of the board and strong pieces ready to leave the shell. These preparations take some time, which white uses to launch a quick attack, first by threatening the center and then approaching from sides. Black's position may seem as highly defensive at first, but when the preparations are done, black can start a really strong attack with his king secured, strong figures continually moving forward and a massive pawn support. Wings are a good way to go, but I also used to simply break through the center with a pawn wave, as pawns can be efficiently supported with rooks from behind and knights plus bishops from sides, plus when they were taken by my opponent, there was a direct way to attack his teritory.
King's indian attack is a version of Kings' indian defence for white. It builds on very similar principles, the only difference is, that after building your position, as a white, you're the one having initiative. A big advantage of this opening is, that it's very hard to crack. Various defences such as French defence, Sicilian defence or even Carokann defence are designed to give black an opportunity to apply special tactics against vulnerabilities of white, what's a problem, if you're playing against a skilled opponent who knows, how to use them. The good thing about KIA is, that there are no such vulnerabilities. If French defence was a shark (I saw games where it really seemed like one), then it will break his teeth on King's indian attack. On the other hand, you can approach like usual, pushing the position forward, cleaning it out and getting rid of dangerous figures before they can seriously threat you.
These are just few examples of openings I like to play, but there are many more of them, each with its own soul.
Remembering moves is another problem, which doesn't relate directly to chess openings, but rather to increased computer usage in last few decades. It's really sad, as one can really gain an advantage simply by memorizing good moves, what's completely against the natural beauty of these openings.
Bobby Fischer was also very critical of this, going as far as stating the whole chess an uncreative game. He said, that if such geniuses as Capablanca or Morphy were resurrected, they could be defeated even by a kid without any special talent, as he could gain an advantage from knowing a pre-computed opening.
Fischer thus created his well-known Fischerandom, or Chess 960 to address this issue. And while it's really interesting, one of the major counter-arguments is, that it lacks the art of chess openings, which the traditional game has.
So, it's really a difficult problem.
Best regards
Rastislav
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