Would you suggest I just play kings pawn over and over until I understand the game better?
Yes. Stick to one opening until youāre comfortable with it. Youāve got enough to learn with 1.e4.
The Sicilian is popular but very tricky and thereās no way around learning a lot of the branches to move 10 or so just to avoid well-known traps because itās so sharp. Play the Caro Kann or something instead while youāre learning.
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I play London as white and Caro-Kann as black against 1.e4. Against 1.d4 I kind of just make it up but hardly anyone plays d4 for some reason.
Currently on a hot streak. 14-4-1 for my last 19 15+10 games in the dumpster ranks (~1100).
Hereās my mindset once the board gets congested. Usually at that point Iāve achieved my opening objectives - developed pieces, king is safe and hopefully castled. Iām curious if some of the stronger players here can comment on this.
When the board gets ālocked upā a bit so that there doesnāt seem to be a really obvious tactical move (for myself or to defend against) or serious problem in my own position to resolve, here is what I look for:
Is there an opportunity to coordinate pieces into a battery? The two I always look for are a rook battery (put them both on the same file or rank) or a queen-bishop battery (aligned on the same diagonal). These arrangements make the pieces way more powerful because they are defending each other and supporting attacks. Itās much easier to jump your rook or bishop into the opponents side of the board if itās got back up.
Apart from batteries I also look for knight outposts - get your knight on a square defended by your own pawn and where there are no opponent pawns on either side of the knight that can attack it. This makes it really hard to dislodge and gives you a focal point of where to aim your attack (make note of the squares covered by the knight in an outpost - can an attacking piece by moved there?
Check out the colors of the squares that the opponentās pawns are on. In a lot of ālockedā positions your opponent will have most of their pawns on the same color - consider a trade where you kill his bishop of the opposite color that the pawns are on. If he is left with just a bishop that occupies the same color as pawns then that bishop will be really constrained.
Finally, a locked up position will often require a sacrifice to bust it open. But as long as the sac is compensated thatās ok. A really common one is when your opponent is castled, take one of the pawns in front of it with a knight or bishop if the opponent can only recapture with the king. This will drag the king out in the open, if you can do that and then just keep throwing punches at the king then you only need one slip up from the opponent to get the material back, or even checkmate him.
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I think the Qa5 Scandinavian is a good beginner/intermediate opening against e4, I play that and the Caro-Kann. The problem with e5 is that White calls the shots and you have to know what to do against the Kingās Gambit, Vienna, Bishopās Opening and if youāre going to play Nc6 vs Nf3 then the Ruy, Italian, Scotch, Danish etc etc. The Scandi can suffer from the same problem of a planless middle game, but I think thatās hard to avoid with Black. Itās impossible to be really active with Black without handing your opponent an advantage, so if White opts to play passively you can end up with a lifeless position out of any opening, not a lot can be done about it. Even in the Sicilian White can just opt to play it closed.
Next time youāre like āman I donāt know what to do hereā go get the position after the game and post it here.
I hate playing against scandi as white, after e4 d5 xd5 it feels like the next 8 or so moves are basically transpositions with very limited potential for creativity.
another common one is setting up bishop-queen battery and sacking the bishop on H6 in front of castled king. so BxH6. GxBishop and QxH6 and now the king is exposed. but I never know when to actually go for these or not, any advice on knowing when to pull the trigger? Lately ive just been saying fuck it who cares if my rating on chess.com goes down and just going for it with mixed results but it would be cool to do something thatās not just button clicking.
A good rule of thumb is to count the pieces that you have that are coordinated to launch an attack and the number of opposing pieces available to defend the king. If you have +2 then you should be able to go in swinging and still trap the king even if you lose material.
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thank you, thatās a very helpful video
Funny enough, my strategy while black was always a boring e6 strat. If I was relearning shit I would learn Sicilian. Obviously a lot more fun to play than an e6 strat.
But as white I was crazy. For a while my opening rep was d4 d5 e4. But I ultimately retired that for b4.
Unless you are playing at an expert level, and even if you are looking to be expert, there is some fun and value in messing around with less than optimal openings
The Polgar vid Levy released a couple of days ago has lots of attacking
Same. I donāt particularly like it as Black either but I donāt have any better ideas. I donāt really like playing e5, and if you play the Caro or the Sicilian then itās White who tends to switch to a sideline so they donāt have to know your theory. You get endless exchange Caros and Alapins and closed Sicilians and Smith-Morras and whatnot. I had the same trouble playing d5 to d4, Iāve switched back to Nf6 now because my efforts to play the Albin Counter Gambit were met with like 80% of White players not playing the main move (dxe5). They would play one of the other responses which is immediately equal for Black but also goes into the dullest positions imaginable. Iām intending to play d5 still as I prefer that if they play the London but I need to learn a QGD line to play.
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Probably about half e4ās I face are main lines against the Najdorf, so itās not that bad. If I found myself facing mainly closed Sicilians Iād play something other than c5.
The Smith-Morra that I used to struggle against I now relish facing after seeing the light with Perelshteynās clever Nc6/e6/Bb4/Nge7/d5 response
https://www.chess.com/lessons/every-gambit-refuted/every-gambit-refuted-smith-morra-gambit.
Just played a game as black against someone I imagine is about 100-150 points better than me. I tried that sacrifice a bishop for a pawn to open up the king but afterwards I didnāt feel like I had enough pieces to really threaten but he allowed me to advance a pawn to the c rank and then completely missed my queen to the b for a checkmate as his queen was gallivanting around the board picking off my pawns.
Is there an easy way to post a game from the chess.com app here?
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So I definitely think he had way too many pieces defending the king at first for me to bring my queen up. Thankfully he blundered worse than me
Play with time increments, 5 min plus 10 sec per move or something.
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First comment - donāt move your pawns like that to start, youāre black bishop is penned in. I would try to get your knights and bishops out faster.
Ermmm, Iām black. I feel like I got those guys out pretty quickly. White moved his pawns out early and his black bishop was stuck for a bit.
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I actually play e3 a lot, thereās like one main way to punish it that few people at my level know, other than that it transposes to a bunch of c4ish d4ish things. I still like e4 though, I play exclusively c5 against it so Iām happy to play against c5, and I donāt mind the Spanish either.