TL Chess Match 4 - Page 8

That's how I always play, because I love Queen's Gambit. :p

you can go 2. g4!

I'm no chess god; I'm here to learn more than anything, but I've played at least enough to know that this is a sensible opening.

Yeah... what's the deal guys. F4 is super vulnerable and it's like "please attack my kingside...

Here's what I said previously:

Ok, so obviously our strength in this game is that we are many, and he is few; we have a lot of knowledge between the lot of us, but this is only valuable when working with a familiar opening, where we ALL have that knowledge. If we open with something weird, it might be the equivalent of a 1v1 since few of us will know what's going on. If we open with e4, which is very common, we have a good chance that many of us will understand what's going on in the early game, strengthening our advantage.

If we open with another, less common move, fewer of us will be experienced with that opening, as previously mentioned BUT there's also a small chance he'll be an expert in that opening. Also, it's easier for him, 1 man, to read up on an uncommon opening and come to a good consensus than for us, the many, to do the same.

Therefore, I recommend we play cautiously and wait for him to make a mistake. We are many and he is few, we will spot his errors more easily than he ours, and we will make errors less often than he will due to our discussions.

I prefer positional/closed games (1. d4, 1. c4), and I think they fair well in vote chess. You have more time to focus on ideas and themes. Open/tactical games (1. e4, 1. f4) tend to favor heavy brute-force analysis, which to me won't be as fun for this game.

c4 doesn't differentiate itself enough from the more popular moves to attract a voter base of its own.

Yes, f4 may beg "please attack my Kingside", but what about Black's own Kingside? It becomes vulnerable in a different way, as White stakes a strong claim to that half of the board. In particular, the dark-side bishop fianchetto, looking down the a1-h8 diagonal, can become an extremely powerful asset to White's position after 1.f4.

Of course Black doesn't have to castle Kingside--and neither does White.

The upshot, in my opinion, is that yes, f4 does give White vulnerabilities, but it gives him strengths as well. It gives Black the same mixed bag of vulnerabilities and strengths. The result is often a very dynamic game that can be a lot of fun to play. And White still has the advantage of being first to move--that isn't lost.

I shouldn't have to argue that f4 is solid enough to play: it's been played on the highest of levels. Bent Larsen was one of the strongest players ever--he beat World Champions multiple times and was a serious candidate for the World Championship himself. Nor has it been abandoned in modern times: Henrik Danielsen is a modern Danish grandmaster who plays Bird's opening regularly. Surely if it's solid enough for Grandmasters, it's solid enough for us, should we choose to play it.

I also disagree with your point that the more esoteric an opening is, the bigger Ng5's advantage becomes. On the contrary, it seems to me that if he's a good and experienced player, he'll have a wealth of experience with the more common openings--more than most of us. On the other hand, if it's an opening that he rarely faces, the playing field is much more even. We won't likely have much experience with it, but he likely won't either. Assuming that Ng5 has the experience advantage overall, taking a less trodden road is good for us, not bad.

It convinced me to go for something I'm less familiar with. At least at the beginning. :D

Because I have not played C4 in quite a while, and no one has voted for it yet! It would be a good learning experience for me .

Oh, f4 is certainly solid enough to play. I'm just not sure it's solid enough for US to play. It creates vulnerabilities for us, and many of the voters are not Bent Larsen. I'm certainly not; we want to create a situation where what experience we have can be best put to use. He's 1 dude, he can learn and come to a consensus pretty easily. We, on the other hand, are many; and when we deviate from e4 early, it makes it hard for the many to really get something done. f4 sounds good, but after that, our votes will become fractured and split. I'd like to stick to a book book play if that's at all doable.

The fact of the matter is, we are many sets of eyes and he is 1. If we can get some center control and just develop normally, he is bound to make a mistake, as long as we stick to stuff we know. And with so many people, we'll spot it. If we open f4, most of us are flying blind-- and it's a lot harder for 30 people to figure out what's going on individually and vote in a coherent fashion than for 1 person to do so; which is why I stand by e4.

Each person should vote for whatever opening they like/know best, and the opening that is best-known will be selected-- giving us the best chance of winning. I think this opening is e4-- it's the one I'm most familiar with. Those of us who are undecided by feel free to abstain from any round of voting, as well.

1. d4 is okay, but it's no 1. e4. Plus, there's a LOT of ways to go from 1. e4 if we REALLY want to make things interesting. We could respond to a 1. ... e5 with a 2. f4 and have a huge baller time going for king's gambit. I just think that e4 gives us the most options we're familiar with. It doesn't mean the game will be boring, there's a limitless number of openings you can do with 1. e4.

I would normally play 1.Nf3 myself but it seems the choice here is between 1.e4 and 1.d4 as that's what most people have experience with. I would advise against 1.f4, I used to play it almost exclusively about 5 years ago mostly to avoid my opponents opening theory, but in this situation it really isn't an issue.

Your thoughts about group dynamics do sound plausible. On the other hand, I'm not really sure what would happen in an actual game. Would it play out as you describe or would we be able to cohere as a team by exchanging ideas, even if we started out without knowing much about a position? It would be really neat if we could come to consensus as a team, not by sticking to book moves that everyone is comfortable with, but by discussing our possibilities until we're all on a similar page. I don't know if we would, but I'd like to find out. So I'll stick to f4 for now (not that it has much chance of winning, at this point), but I think you've made a strong case for e4.

Positional games are fun. Hopefully we can keep it closed and see if our collective play can beat him out of frustration