At my level (high school scholastic) I have found from my limited experience that most (execpt the top players) have a very limited opening repetoir. From my own experience, and talking with fellow chess team members (We all started at about October) I have come to the conclusion that most people dabble in the various e4 openings, but never learn lines until they reach about 1100-1200 USCF. Most of this is because before this they only play e4, and there are so many different defenses that black gets the advantage by choosing something like the french that lets them monopolize the opening knowledge, I've only been playing since about october but I think I've found a good stratagy that has helped me a lot.
I focused on learning odd openings that are flexable, that rely less on lines but more about how to develop in response to what the opponent does. So for white I focusd on The Colle System and The Reversed Stonewall, and they are unflexable enough for me to learn it all, and flexable enough that they can work pretty well against all the common defenses. As black against e4 I have been using the Pirc, which has been doing wonders otb at tournaments. To an unexperienced player 1.e4 d6 looks weird and flawed, against this some people turtle up and give me free reign to attack, and some think that my move is weak and try to attack without knowing about things like the austrian attack. Against d4, I've been using the KID, but the more I play the more I realize that, though black's position is similar to the Pirc, it is very different on the white side and I have trouble with it, so I've now begun to learn the Leningrad Dutch with some sucess. Also against c4, I've decided to use the hedgehog defense, but I don't see c4 enough and might decide on a differnet defense.
Anyways, I think that this is a way to develop a useful group of openings that give you an advantage with minimal effort. Any thoughts or suggestions on improvments would be appreciated.
Originally posted by Lord Of PieLooks like you've got plenty to go on and it might be more productive now to work on tactics and endgames and how to deal with off beat play against your preffered openings.
At my level (high school scholastic) I have found from my limited experience that most (execpt the top players) have a very limited opening repetoir. From my own experience, and talking with fellow chess team members (We all started at about October) I have come to the conclusion that most people dabble in the various e4 openings, but never learn lines u age with minimal effort. Any thoughts or suggestions on improvments would be appreciated.
I too play the pirc and I was once thrown off balance with this: 1.e4...d6, 2.f4 and also this: 1.e4...d6, 2.d4...Nf6, 3.Nc3...g6, 4.f3 ...which transposes to a KID and Kasparov as White beat Topolov with it. Once we're away from the more easily perplexed new player I find that reasonable club players can get something OK against the Pirc even if they don't know it. From here the advantage comes from being familiar with the set ups. I like the Pirc because it can lead to both open tactical games and closed positional struggles.
I'm convinced that so long as you have enough basic understanding of the openings to enter the middle game with a playable position you'll find that a lot of training on tactics - http://chess.emrald.net/ - http://www.chesstactics.org/ and getting to know the endgame basics of opposition and working with rooks and passed pawns will provide the best results.
There are some good tutorials and endgame videos on this site: http://www.chessvideos.tv/
This should take you straight to a king and pawn ending video: http://www.chessvideos.tv/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=2443
Well the Kings Indian Attack works against most things e4 related...I used to think the opposition thought I didn't know what I was doing when playing it. Bobby Fisscher used it a couple of times and Yasser Seirawan recommends it in his openings book. Sort of works a bit like a reversed Pirc. When I played this for a few games back in my 1.e4 days I did find the games got quite cramped and positional...sometimes 15 to 20 moves with no exchanges...but this was all with me playing against quite a bit stronger opposition.
What it does have is the "easy to learn the early moves" aspect that you were looking for along with flexible move order. Below are a couple of tasters:
1.e4...e6
2.d3...d5
3.Nd2...Nf6
4.Ngf3...c5
5.g3...Nc6
6.Bg2...Be7
7. 0-0...0-0
8. Re1
1.e4...c5
2.Nf3...e6
3.d3...Nc6
4.g3...g6
5.Bg2...Bg7
6.0-0...Nge7
7.c3...0-0
8.Re1...e5
9.a3...d6
10.b4
Originally posted by nmdavidb1 c4 f5 is surely an excellent way to answer the English Opening. The only drawback that I can see is that since White hasn't committed to playing d2-d4 yet, he might move the d-pawn up only one square, thereby depriving Black of the counterplay that he often gets in a "normal" Dutch when he can occupy and over-protect the e4 square.
1.c4 f5
Simple as that
Dave