QGA and Philidor's

Originally posted by anthias
I will probably change my choice of Philidor, but my question remains the same. Let's say I have the book Staring out: The Colle with me. Must I memorize the whole book? Is that the point of opening books?

Sharp variations with lots of tactics will require some memory work, but instead of memorizing the exact moves I suggest a different approach.
For example, instead of memorizing that "after white plays Bb5, I have to reply with Bd7", try to remember the idea behind the move: "White played his bishop to b5, pinning my knight. I need to quickly unpin the knight or else I'll get into trouble. So I play the bishop to d7, unpinning my knight".
Try to remember the ideas and themes behind the moves, not the exact move orders.
I hate memorizing move orders. Move orders are great for computer opening books, but not for humans IMO.

Originally posted by yofidawg
Is the QGA actually good? Everything I've read seems to say it's better to decline...what are some advantages of accepting the QG?

In the QGDeclined, Black maintains his pawn on d5 (preventing White from playing a quick e2-e4 setting up a central pawn duo on e4 and d4) but at the cost of less activity for his light-squared bishop which finds itself behind its own pawns. The QGAccepted gives up the central d5-pawn in exchange for freedom of his light-squared bishop which almost always finds good activity from the g4 or b7 squares. White has the option of getting a nice central pawn duo on e4 and d4, but Black has several ways of combatting this, striking back with ...c5 or ...e5, for example.

Viswanathan Anand is a high profile GM who has used the QGA with fair regularity, and (please correct me if my memory is wrong here) Nigel Short used the QGA three times against Karpov in 1992, scoring 2 draws and 1 win(!) to advance to meet Kasparov in the world championship.

So, if you don't mind letting White have an e4-d4 pawn duo (which you will then subject to attack), and you like activity for you light-squared bishop, then the QGA is for you. If preventing White's central pawn duo is more important to you, and you would rather have a slower closed game, not minding that you will delay the activation of your light-squared bishop for a while, then you will probably feel more comfortable in the Queen's Gambit Declined.

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You could also play a hybrid of the QGD and QGA - the Slav or the Semi-Slav. 😀
A couple of openings that were hotly debated during the recent Kramnik-Topalov match.

Originally posted by anthias
I will probably change my choice of Philidor, but my question remains the same. Let's say I have the book Staring out: The Colle with me. Must I memorize the whole book? Is that the point of opening books?

Some opening books are more like reference books, very detailed analysis and multi-variations, but not much in the way of explanations. And just as you wouldn't sit down and start memorizing the dictionary in order to learn how speak/write, you shouldn't try to memorize these types of chess books in order to learn how to play that particular opening. These theory-dense books are great reference material, great for correspondence chess, and great for looking up a line you might be curious about. But for starting out and learning a new opening, you want to hunt for chess books that try to give a lot of explanation, such as "Starting Out: XXX" books (with titles like "Starting Out: Sicilian Najdorf" or "Starting Out: The Colle" etc) or the "Chess Explained" books (with titles like "Chess Explained: The Taimanov Siclian" or the soon to be released "Chess Explained: The Queen's Gambit Declined" etc).

Play over the main games in the book, without getting bogged down in the sub-variations. Get a feel for the opening, where the pieces go, what the pawn structures look like. Then play and play and play! Nothing is quite as good as actually playing games for real and then analyzing the games afterwards. Refer back to your books or other materials to see where you went wrong and where you went right and getting better from there. But remember to actually go over your games afterwards! You can start going back to your books and sub-variations when you have a feel for what's going on in your chosen opening.

I certainly don't want to lead anyone down a blind alley with bad suggestions, so if any one has healthy criticism or improvements over what I said for Anthias, please post!

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Originally posted by anthias
I want to learn those two openings and create an opening repertoire for black for tournament play. Can you suggest any books?

I have catalogued my games on RHP. Taking ALL games as W, I win just over 50% of the time. Against Philidor's, however, I win 82% of the time. It seems Philidor's defence is not a good idea.

Originally posted by znsho
I have catalogued my games on RHP. Taking ALL games as W, I win just over 50% of the time. Against Philidor's, however, I win 82% of the time. It seems Philidor's defence is not a good idea.

I advice you to read discussion in Thread 70577 about statistic and quality of opening/opening line