It depends on your style I guess, E4, and D4-C4 tap into different qualities. Personally I play C4. I used to play D4, but the Slav and Nimzo-Indian were very annoying to play against. Some people are seriously booked up, but with C4 you're almost guaranteed to know more than your opponent. I avoided E4 to avoid having to learn Sicilian and Ruy Lopez theory, but I do think you have to play it at some point in your life; it gives some of the funnest games in chess and you do need to learn how to play open games to progress!
Originally posted by Maxacre42You have a point, I'll try c4 sometime.
It depends on your style I guess, E4, and D4-C4 tap into different qualities. Personally I play C4. I used to play D4, but the Slav and Nimzo-Indian were very annoying to play against. Some people are seriously booked up, but with C4 you're almost guaranteed to know more than your opponent. I avoided E4 to avoid having to learn Sicilian and Ruy Lopez theo ...[text shortened]... some of the funnest games in chess and you do need to learn how to play open games to progress!
Originally posted by kingkong2468Honestly though, you should focus more on learning opening principles than particular openings. More importantly, you'll get much more out of studying tactics than anything else. I don't think you should be choosing between e4,d4 or c4 yet.
You have a point, I'll try c4 sometime.
It's been long-established and statistically verified that left-handed players start 1. d4 and right-handed players, e4. Ambidextrous players choose either; and people with no hands nudge a pawn forward with their nose, a3 or h3 being popular. People on the far Right prefer f4; people on the far Left, c4 or even b4! A few start with Nf3 but that's mainly because they're undecided.
- Joined
- 21 Jun 06
- Moves
- 82236
Try g3! It fools all your enemies. (Like b4, another "good" move). If you specilize in either you will definately get your opponents thinking. Any other opening requires way much more time studying. And it will not pay of in results, I promise. As white I only rarely play mainstream openings, and the only ones I study are KG, Semi-slav and slaw. Also studying the french opening (Watsons book is exellent, really) will make you appriciate playing pawnmoves on the flank. By all means learn al the mainstream openings as you will see them over and over, that beeing said I dont think it will mean much in case of results achived. Dont be afraid to experiment.
Edit: Openings does not matter, really. Endgames and tacticts does!
People that play 1.g3 or 1.b4 give up any hope of keeping their first-move advantage. Why bother?
Yes, I realize you can play it in hopes of getting out of book, but in CC there isn't any point and OTB your opponent can just build up a strong center and be relatively safe as long as he doesn't do anything too stupid.