@pn2206
No, I don't hate individual players for playing symmetrical openings. Everybody has to find their style. What I don't like is the wholesale migration in super-GM chess to symmetrical openings. In some ways I don't understand it because on the rare occasions when risky defenses are used they actually fare pretty well. Hikaru, for example, was kicking super-GM butt with the King's Indian as recently as 2018 when he beat Caruana with it. In the last couple of years he's switched to the Queen's Gambit Declined and he's dropped from world #3 to #18 and lost about 65 rating points.
Ray Robson told me that engines have proven that having more space matters a lot and the classical, symmetrical defenses are the only ones that don't give up space. While this might be theoretically true I think it's really only relevant to engines playing other engines. However, when humans play humans, I think players have to play to their strengths rather than to the dogma of engines. My favorite GM is Maxime Vachier-Lagrave because he plays the Najdorf, Grünfeld, and King's Indian. He never plays 1 ... e5 in response to 1 e4 and he never plays the black side of the QGD in response to 1 d4. His rating is actually up a bit over the last few years and he's now #5 in the FIDE Live Rating list.
I applaud GMs who are brave enough to go against conventional wisdom (which these days is the "wisdom" of engines). I think they're good for the game and they certainly produce extremely entertaining, unbalanced positions.
No, I don't hate individual players for playing symmetrical openings. Everybody has to find their style. What I don't like is the wholesale migration in super-GM chess to symmetrical openings. In some ways I don't understand it because on the rare occasions when risky defenses are used they actually fare pretty well. Hikaru, for example, was kicking super-GM butt with the King's Indian as recently as 2018 when he beat Caruana with it. In the last couple of years he's switched to the Queen's Gambit Declined and he's dropped from world #3 to #18 and lost about 65 rating points.
Ray Robson told me that engines have proven that having more space matters a lot and the classical, symmetrical defenses are the only ones that don't give up space. While this might be theoretically true I think it's really only relevant to engines playing other engines. However, when humans play humans, I think players have to play to their strengths rather than to the dogma of engines. My favorite GM is Maxime Vachier-Lagrave because he plays the Najdorf, Grünfeld, and King's Indian. He never plays 1 ... e5 in response to 1 e4 and he never plays the black side of the QGD in response to 1 d4. His rating is actually up a bit over the last few years and he's now #5 in the FIDE Live Rating list.
I applaud GMs who are brave enough to go against conventional wisdom (which these days is the "wisdom" of engines). I think they're good for the game and they certainly produce extremely entertaining, unbalanced positions.