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By the way, any openings you guys recommend for a 1600-1700 rated player? I feel like my endgame tactics are above my skill level, but it's usually the openings where I get behind, partly due to not having good fundamentals in strategy, and partly due struggling analyzing positions with many pieces.
I'd like to have two-three solid openings as white that are suited to my level of play (or slightly higher), so probably 1-2 e4 openings, and 1-2 d4 openings. Currently I either open up (1) e4 -> Nf3 -> Ruy Lopez if possible, otherwise I just try to push my pawns up to control the center, or I do a Queen's Gambit, which has been working really well for me (it's declined 90% of the time), but it allows me to play really aggressive and allows lots of tactical opportunity.
And I'd like to have openings to play as black, which lead to interesting positions where I have opportunities to punish and play aggressive if need be. Ideally 2 to play against e4 (I'm still trying to play d5, but holy, that leads to some crazy complicated lines), and I don't really like playing e4, since then either I'm usually forced into a Ruy Lopez or going d6, which feels quite defensive and too passive and drawish. Hence my choosing of the Sicilian, but I don't play it well since there is so many variations to consider. Currently against d4 I tend to play the Indian defence, but I am often not able to break the center, I get my pieces stuck, and I slowly die.
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@FiWiFaKi - Queen's Gambit is a great opening to practice your strategical play because there are many non-forcing plans for both sides out of it. For 1. e4, Ruy Lopez usually requires tons of memorization, but there are so many answers for Black that you have to pretty much be prepared for French, Petroff, Sicilian, Caro-Kann, hell, even Scandinavian...
With Black, if you want a crazy fight against 1. e4, just play the Najdorf Sicilian or Modern Defense (1...d6 2...g6) and King's Indian against 1. d4. But you have to be prepared that White can always play more boring lines in all of these (or, in case of Najdorf, White can just refuse to go for it completely).
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United Kingdom36161 Posts
yeah White can always make games dull. Like Carlsen's g3 against Anand's Sicilian, for example.
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United Kingdom36161 Posts
ooh Grunfeld Russian system. My repertoire tells me to go 7...Nc6, and 7...a6 is pretty mainliney, I don't know 7...Na6 though.
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On November 21 2014 19:55 marvellosity wrote:
yeah White can always make games dull. Like Carlsen's g3 against Anand's Sicilian, for example.
The problem is that many "interesting" lines require a ton of preparation. Or are plain bad like many gambit lines in e4 e5. I guess there's some leeway with white, after all it doesn't really matter if your opponent equalizes in the Marshall, the Ng5 two knights or some kind of modern italian or anti-marshall. I still feel like the most boring options (that is the last two) are also the best though. You get to play a subjectively easier position with little to no preparation. And the game can still get interesting later on.
I use the same approach with black: the Sicilian might look more interesting but the cost is just too damn high. It turns out anything after e4 e5, except the main line Spanish, is easy to handle with relatively little preparation.
I no longer see the point in going for sharp play with black, directly out of the opening. It's not so much that I expect to be outprepared in a blitz game. It's that I'd rather spend the time solving tactics or playing another game than looking at openings.
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United Kingdom36161 Posts
yeah, when I was still playing 1.e4 I used to play some anti-marshall that i knew only a couple moves deep at most.
I enjoy the Sicilian though. I think people overestimate how well other people know openings a lot of the time.
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I used to play both the Sveshnikov and the Najdorf for a while when I played live and got more good positions than bad ones. I rarely even got to play critical lines. This was against opponents rated from 1800 to 2100. But I spent more time studying the opening than it was worth and if someone had decided to go for a main line english attack (or really any main line) I would have been in trouble very quick.
The Sveshnikov was more forgiving and I wouldn't mind playing it once in a while again. It can lead to really interesting positions if your opponent doesn't know what they're doing or if they are itching for a fight themselves. Unfortunately some of the modern approaches with Nd5 first are passive and quite difficult for black.
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United Kingdom36161 Posts
that's the thing though, hardly anyone knows the really sharp, long mainlines. I've played the Najdorf with ...e6 in many games, and never once faced one of the "critical" lines.
edit: i would add that i enjoy the positions that result from a strategic point of view.
edit 2: and yes, about 1800-2200 for me too. I guess it gets different as you get higher, but I aint there (yet)
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United Kingdom36161 Posts
Anand's positions looks quite promising...
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Watching analysis @http://www.twitch.tv/chessnetwork 
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United Kingdom10443 Posts
It is the kind of position Vishy needs
very sharp
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the frickin stream is freezing every 30 secs or so , is there any way to fix that?
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United Kingdom10443 Posts
magnus moving pretty fast again
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Anand has excellent chances in this position.
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On November 21 2014 22:04 Nyxisto wrote:
the frickin stream is freezing every 30 secs or so , is there any way to fix that?
I'm glad I'm not the only one. I can watch a short time but then it starts to "load" again.
maybe it's because livestream doesn't like germans? 
btw: vodafone here.
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which stream? the official livestream with svidler is not freezing at all for me (watching it via chess24.com)
and for computeranalysis there is always: http://analysis.sesse.net/
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On November 21 2014 22:47 mahrgell wrote:which stream? the official livestream with svidler is not freezing at all for me (watching it via chess24.com) and for computeranalysis there is always: http://analysis.sesse.net/
so it's not the country. what's your ISP?
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Seems to be some kind of local thing (Telekom here), some other people around here seem to have problems, too.
Also later today http://www.uschesschamps.com/ Nakamura will play Aronian in a set of four games and 16 blitz games over the course of 5 days for 100k (split 60/40), it's probably going to be pretty cool
edit: also fun blitz match between Seirawan and Aronian
+ Show Spoiler +
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EPT
