I beat you fair and square!

[Al B. Sure!]

so this guy is gay too? i was under the impression he wasn't...

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by monkspider
It's a closed, neo-classical style strategy, used by Chess greats such as Capablanca.

Who is way out of style. Personally, I prefer the "cut out their still beating heart and hold it up for all to see" style of Tal.

The problem with both the Ruy (which IMO is a very mediocre opening to pursue from the white side) and Sicilian (which IMO is nearly unsound, and has no real prospect for equalization except for burying white in a labrynth of fishy variations) is that they are simply done to death theoretically, so if you aren't prepared to outstudy your opponent in every stinkin' variation, you can get hammered. Even at the IM level, let alone Senior Master or below, there's no real possibility of doing good theoretical work or good analysis in those openings that hasn't already been worked and mined and most likely published somewhere.

There is one and only one goal in the opening, IMO, and that is to take your opponent out of his prepared plans, and into territory you, not he, understands.

It's really fun to have someone think they're going to take you for a ride with the Sicialian and look at their confuzzled widdle faces when you close it up with 2 Nc3. It's even more fun when you later cram those f and g pawns down his throat and he wonders what happened to that Q-side counterplay he heard you got with the Sissy.

But that's just me...

[Al B. Sure!]

i havent played chess in four years and i probably have completely forgotton all the moves but you're right, mtg... i dont know why i kept using the sicilian... it left me vulnerable for the first few turns (very frustrating watching you get checked like the third or fourth turn; especially before you castle) and all it really did if successful was make a little fortress that i was real cautious breaking up to go on the offensive. looking back i got no idea why i used it almost every game. it probably guarenteed me only having an occasional win and losing most of the time

[monkspider]

Tal huh? Interesting choice.
We all have our own styles of play, and I find that playing sound, classical-style chess will get you further than these hyper-modern strategies, fianchettos, and what have you. But to each his own. You sound like more of a Fisher style player Mikey.

[MichaeltheGreat]

I haven't played competitively since I was 22, and haven't played more than 20 "fun" games in the couple of decades and a bit since then, but I never understood the sheep-fashion A players and below had for the Ruy and Sicilian.

It's different if you're a GM and you have a staff of people to help prepare you, and an IM or two to test your theoretical research on - looking for a new move 21 in some line of the Sozin or the Opocensky variation of the Najdorf

The other amazing habit I noticed was how amateur tournament players would go learn 4-6 moves deep into every name variation of every opening they ever heard the name of, but never really get into why or how the opening worked in theory. That crap pretty much ended with A players, or at least strong A's, but it still amazed me that so many players would go to the useless and unproductive effort of memorizing those things, without ever going to the trouble of trying to understand a select few opening variations - something they could actually use.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by monkspider
Tal huh? Interesting choice.
We all have our own styles of play, and I find that playing sound, classical-style chess will get you further than these hyper-modern strategies, fianchettos, and what have you. But to each his own. You sound like more of a Fisher style player Mikey.

Hypermodern theory was crap, it just took a while for the refutation to demonstrate the lack of soundness in it.

I'm an opportunist. Or was, anyway. If someone wanted to play an open game, I'd close it, if they wanted to play a classical, positional game, I'd look to shatter things and attack. K-side fianchettos are for wimps, but God give me bishops on the A3 and E3 diagonals, and that beating heart will be mine.

As black, I kept a real simple repertoire of French against e4, and Queen's Indian against d4. I had somewhere around a 80% record as black with the French, including two draws with GM's (Grefe and Sarawan) and a 90% record as white against it, simply because I made sure I understood it inside and out. (Easy, when you had Uhlmann to sponge off of )

To me, the opening is never about objective advantage on the board - although that's a byproduct more often than not. It's about psychology, and breaking the opponent's confidence. The rest of it is just execution and organ harvesting.

[Drake Tungsten]

bump... in case MtG wants to give me some more ideas.

[Zkribbler]

Suggested dialogue:

Friend: "Oh, I made a couple of mistakes earlier."

MrFun: "And I didn't. What's your point?"

Oh, and BTW: Way to go, MrFun!!

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
Suggested dialogue:

Friend: "Oh, I made a couple of mistakes earlier."

MrFun: "And I didn't. What's your point?"

Oh, and BTW: Way to go, MrFun!!

Thanks for the hypothetical dialogue suggestion.

And thanks for the congratulations.

[Ted Striker]

I just try and move the pieces around to kick some azz.

Strategy doesn't work very well though.

[Drake Tungsten]

I beat my brother in four moves the other day, but that was only possible because he's a ******.

[loinburger]

Yeah, there's a good reason that they call it the Fool's Mate.

[Drake Tungsten]

It wasn't the Fool's Mate. I think that one only takes two moves.

edit: According to the internet, I beat him using the "Scholar's mate." That must make me a scholar!

[Cruddy]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat

(Capablanca) is way out of style. Personally, I prefer the "cut out their still beating heart and hold it up for all to see" style of Tal.

I would guess that Capablanca's popularity is down to the style of writing of his books - he's a pretty easy introduction to the strategy side of chess, even if he doesn't really go for depth on a lot of stuff.

Not that I'm any sort of expert on chess - my junior club playing was so bad that after 2 solid years I was still unrated.

The only reason I kept it up for 2 years was the local club was over a pub - ah, the joys of underage drinking.

[st_swithin]

If that's not the game where you say 'king me' when you get one of your pieces to the other side of the board, then I'm in the wrong forum.

Why isn't there a Texas Hold'em forum? Oh yeah, this is for turn-based or real-time strategy game discussion. WHAT was I THINKING?