Aggressive openings?

@chess_enjoyer00 said in #1:

Hello, I am looking forward to play an amateur tournament. I am aiming for high places, but one of the favourites is higher rated and much more experienced than me. Fortunately, this person has a playing flaw: this person cannot stand attacking positions and sometimes misses my attacking plans. Therefore I want to prep some aggressive openings and asking the Lichess community for help.

1. For Black: Do you know some aggressive openings for Black against 1. e4 and d4? I would like to keep it not too hard, so Sicilian is unfortunately not an option for me :(
2. For White: I recently started playing Evans Gambit, but almost everyone plays 3... Nf6 (and not 3... Bc5). Are there any aggressive ideas there, except for Ng5?
   If you have some suggestions for another sharp openings, I will also be glad! Thanks!
   for black grunfeld, its difficult to learn but high risk high reward
   for white the scotch is great, almost no risk, always great position with the initiative

Aggressive Opening for White and Black
WHITE: Evans Gambit. ...
WHITE: Danish Gambit (Nordic Gambit) ...
WHITE: Smith-Morra Gambit! ...
BLACK: Marshall Attack (in Ruy Lopez) ...
BLACK: Albin Counter-Attack. ...
BLACK: Sicilian Defense: O'Kelly Variation...

@chess_enjoyer00 said in #1:

Hello, I am looking forward to play an amateur tournament. I am aiming for high places, but one of the favourites is higher rated and much more experienced than me. Fortunately, this person has a playing flaw: this person cannot stand attacking positions and sometimes misses my attacking plans. Therefore I want to prep some aggressive openings and asking the Lichess community for help.

1. For Black: Do you know some aggressive openings for Black against 1. e4 and d4? I would like to keep it not too hard, so Sicilian is unfortunately not an option for me :(
2. For White: I recently started playing Evans Gambit, but almost everyone plays 3... Nf6 (and not 3... Bc5). Are there any aggressive ideas there, except for Ng5?
   If you have some suggestions for another sharp openings, I will also be glad! Thanks!
   Against 3...Nf6 you can play 4. d4. If black takes the pawn you can choose between 5. e5 and 5. O-O. Study your preferred line.

@hotel_security said in #13:

Aggressive openings aren't really that good at higher levels

<snip>

agreed. Aggressive openings tend to be too direct, and are actually easier to defend against at a higher level. You have to be more subtle. Perfect case in point is the last game of the fourth Kasparov - Karpov match. Kasparov was down a game, in a must-win situation to keep his title. He chose a slow positional game instead of an aggressive tactical game and outplayed Karpov.

Even at a lower level, say 1600 players who are more or less evenly matched, I have my doubts. It's not clear to me why playing more aggressively should be better at a lower level. It may be a good way to bowl over a weaker player quickly, but I don't really see it shou;d give you more of an advantage than playing positionally, other things being equal.

@Sarg0n said in #19:

1...d6 is pretty troublesome. :)

Thanks for writing, didn't expect a CM answering my question :). Do you mean a KID setup with 1...d6 or something else?

@TaleOfTheNoob said in #23:

Against 3...Nf6 you can play 4. d4. If black takes the pawn you can choose between 5. e5 and 5. O-O. Study your preferred line.

That seems like a great and sharp idea, thanks!

@chessguy_2025 said in #24:

Even at a lower level, say 1600 players who are more or less evenly matched, I have my doubts. It's not clear to me why playing more aggressively should be better at a lower level. It may be a good way to bowl over a weaker player quickly, but I don't really see it should give you more of an advantage than playing positionally, other things being equal.

It is mainly good for beating stronger players. The main way to defeat stronger players is to create a more double-edged position where one mistake can lead to an overwhelming disadvantage. Otherwise in a drawn out game, the stronger player has more opportunities to outplay the weaker one. If you are stronger or equal to your opponent then there is no real advantage to doing this.

@chess_enjoyer00 said in #25:

Thanks for writing, didn't expect a CM answering my question :). Do you mean a KID setup with 1...d6 or something else?

Yeah, the KID, Pirc, Rat (Czech) which I prefer. Dark (squares) matter.

If you want to go ultra-aggressive as white

Against 1. d4 d5 2. e4 dxe4 3. Nc3 (Blackmar-Diemer Gambit). Of course they can "chicken out" and play 2. e4 e6 (French) or 2. e4 c6 (Caro Kann) if this is in their repertoire

Against 1. d4 Nf6 2. g4 Nxg4 3. e4 (Gibbins-Weidenhagen Gambit, also called Bronstein-Gambit). You get positions like against the Aljechin defense much a pawn down which gives you the open g-file.

You can check the Lichess opening tree for a quick check. If you like it you find more on Youtube :-)

Play the Duras Gambit. Your opponent just might have a newfound hate for aggressive and weird openings if nothing else :)