Hypermodern Theory

Just read an article which said, "You should aim to get your pawns to the center as quickly as possible . . ." and "It is very important to develop as quickly as possible to the center . . ." Is this principle rebutted by hypermodern theory, which, if I understand it rightly, tells black to go ahead and let white take control of the center, but then proceeds to attack white's center?

Originally posted by basso
Just read an article which said, "You should aim to get your pawns to the center as quickly as possible . . ." and "It is very important to develop as quickly as possible to the center . . ." Is this principle rebutted by hypermodern theory, which, if I understand it rightly, tells black to go ahead and let white take control of the center, but then proceeds to attack white's center?

Beginners must learn classic theory first and only then they can start play like hypermodernists.

Originally posted by basso
Is this principle rebutted by hypermodern theory, which, if I understand it rightly, tells black to go ahead and let white take control of the center, but then proceeds to attack white's center?

yes. hypermodern set-up is just fine, but so is classical too.

The consensus now seems to be that neither was correct and both were correct.

Originally posted by basso
Just read an article which said, "You should aim to get your pawns to the center as quickly as possible . . ." and "It is very important to develop as quickly as possible to the center . . ." Is this principle rebutted by hypermodern theory, which, if I understand it rightly, tells black to go ahead and let white take control of the center, but then proceeds to attack white's center?

There are very few *extremely* hypermodern openings, where black (typically black) just ignores the centre. Perhaps there is only one - The Hippopotamaus - and it's not really seen much at the highest level.

Most hypermodern openings involve *controlling* the centre, or at least some of it, rather than *occupying*. So both hypermodernism and classicism typically *stress* the importance of the centre - one its control, the other its occupation. They are two sides of the same coin.

But there is quite a lot more to say about them than that. It's interesting that the two most classical openings - the Queen's Gambit Declined & the Closed Spanish, where black attempts to hold white in the centre - are both rare visitors to the very top tier. The consensus seems to be, and I think it's right, that they are not quite good enough for equality - or at least if they are, then they're not quite good enough for dynamic counter chances. Compare with, say, the Sicilian or the King's Indian Defence.

On the other hand, a lot of openings that we term hypermodern might perhaps be better called 'classical delayed'. For instance, in the main line of the Queen's Indian Defence (w g3, ..Ba6, ..Bb4+-e7 etc) black typically avoids the centre until he's castles and has developed quite a bit of stuff - and then just goes right a head and occupies it with pawns to liquidate it. A lot of GM draws recently have come this route. Black gets comfy, then starts play d5 and c5 and swapping pawns and heh presto, it's an endgame with nothing to play for. At move 12 you think black's being all hypermodern - at move 20, you couldn't even guess the opening, so much stuff has gone.

Hope this helps you think about this stuff a bit.

Originally posted by TommyC
There are very few *extremely* hypermodern openings, where black (typically black) just ignores the centre. Perhaps there is only one - The Hippopotamaus - and it's not really seen much at the highest level.

Most hypermodern openings involve *controlling* the centre, or at least some of it, rather than *occupying*. So both hypermodernism and classicism typ ...[text shortened]... ening, so much stuff has gone.

Hope this helps you think about this stuff a bit.

" .... It's interesting that the two most classical openings - the Queen's Gambit Declined & the Closed Spanish, where black attempts to hold white in the centre - are both rare visitors to the very top tier....."

Can you elaborate on that please? I must surely be misreading this.

Well, I'm not sure what games you are looking at, but I see a lot of slavs and ruy lopezs being played at the top level. It's the king's indian and grunfeld that are being looked down upon at this moment.
Both are pure hypermoderns. Nimzo and Queen's indian are in the middle.

Originally posted by Mephisto2
" .... It's interesting that the two most classical openings - the Queen's Gambit Declined & the Closed Spanish, where black attempts to hold white in the centre - are both rare visitors to the very top tier....."

Can you elaborate on that please? I must surely be misreading this.

Well I don't keep a database so I may be wrong. I'm just judging from the games I see from the top tier. Where:

The Spanishes either seem to become anti-Marshall or Marshalls, bar one or two Closeds. Which mostly in turn seem to be the Breyer. It seems way off the pace of the heyday of the Zaitzev. Zaitzev theory used to be 20 moves deep and hair-raising.

As for the QGD - I can't recall seeing one in an age. The other poster who pointed out the Slav was right though, that's often more classical than hypermodern and still going strong. I just forgot about it.

More people play the semi-Slav than the Slav don't they?

Originally posted by Zander 88
Well, I'm not sure what games you are looking at, but I see a lot of slavs and ruy lopezs being played at the top level. It's the king's indian and grunfeld that are being looked down upon at this moment.
Both are pure hypermoderns. Nimzo and Queen's indian are in the middle.

True, but with the recent successes made by black in the KID (a.o. by Radjabov) we can expect a revival of that too.

Originally posted by Mephisto2
True, but with the recent successes made by black in the KID (a.o. by Radjabov) we can expect a revival of that too.

Yep, and I feel like the Grunfeld is one of the most played openings against 1.d4 at GM level right now.

Originally posted by cmsMaster
Yep, and I feel like the Grunfeld is one of the most played openings against 1.d4 at GM level right now.

On top GM level Grunfeld is played quite often, but not too successfully.

If someone with a good database could filter for opening %s in the last two years between 2700+ rated players only, at normal time limits etc etc, it'd be interesting to see how our similar but different hunches hold up . . . (I would, but I'm not good at using chessbase; more importantly, my database stops at 2005 I think.)

i still don't see what's wrong with the kings pawn game, the italian game, the four knights, that stuff.