Hi,
Lately (a long time) I've been playing basically three openings: hyperaccelerated dragon against e4, king's gambit if I'm white, albin countergambit against qg (against other d4s I basically go 100% intuition).
These three just make the game so sexy. If I'm forced to play against french defense or other positional boreness I'm usually close to ragequit. (not intended to insult positional players!)
I don't know if 1500 is yet to "decide", but I seem to be attracted by tactical games, so since you guys have seen much more chess durning your lifes than me, please tell me about some of those openings than will make my blood pressure high enough. I'd be glad if you put some description or a political background, but a straight opening name outta nowhere will do it for me too, I'll check all of them anyway.
yoshee
Albin is interesting but you cannot play it on 1. d4 d5 2.Nf3. Search for openings that you can always play,else you must study both albin and prepare another defence against 1.d4 in case of 2.Nf3 or other similar moves.
In general, these sharp openings are played by club players because their opponents lack well-developed defensive techniques.
When the player reaches expert level (2000-2200) or even category A (1800-2000), he memorizes defenses against these openings and you will not be able to create more (not so easily).
But until then I think it important to play sharp openings to learn to play with mobile centers, to sacrifice pieces in dynamic positions.
The problem is: in sharp oppenings we learn play 'gambling chess' (I mean blitz here, or rapid). Gambling chess is the style of "coffee player".
For curious:
Kasparov once commented that Anand was just a coffee player because he played extremely fast (more than carlsen today!).
the openings i enjoy the most, are the Grunfeld and Tajmanov (French/paulsen) sicilian. As white i prefer the french exchange, ruy lopez or open sicilian.
For the first moves I have a pretty classical repertoire, (Spanish with black and white) but enjoy sharp lines too. Basically, once out of theory i don't bother protecting pawns, especially with white.
Black against 1e4: Two Knights Italian, Schliemann or Marshall Gambit Spanish, Falkbeer Counter to the King's Gambit. Against d4 i picked up the Dutch recently, but it required some study and practice not to get really bad positions all the time. Until I got that one down, i really struggled getting a sharp game with black against d4 c4 nf3
White: For some reason I always played the main line of the Spanish, which is supposed to be positional. Probably you don't want that. Against the Sicilian i religiously play different permutations of the Grand-Prix: once I got the basic plan down (there's really mostly only one) I got a lot of quick wins even against stronger players. That one I'd strongly recommend to every attacking player. It also fits in nicely with the dutch. And it's a nice system to know, I play the same way (e4, Nc3, f4) against all kinds of black's b6, d6, g6 and the like.
Against the french I also play: 1e4 e6 2 Nc3 d5 3 f4 which is total garbage. But at least i don't get rage-quitting ideas ;)
(this is my own repertoire, and I do consider myself pretty aggressive otb. Just to give you an idea of what I'd do)
Get a KID setup against any 1.d4 or 1.c4, even 1.Nf3. Against 1.e4, play 1.d6 and get a similar setup to the KID. That way you're never out of prep for black, against anything. Stick with your prep for the sicilian in your back pocket and go for the accelerated dragon.
As white, play 1.e4 and learn the most attacking variation against what you go up against. Like in the french, caro-kann etc.
I like your repertoire except the the Albin. As stated in #2, this fails if white doesn't play the strongest open sequence, just like the Grunfeld. The King's Indian Defense is a strong attacking line, but not a open as other line. The Dutch has some tactical line, but white has to cooperate.
The Center Game, with the intention of transposing into the Scotch Gambit/Max Lange Attack, is better than the King's Gambit, but it's not as tactical.
Just ideas. You have to examine the choices and make your own decision based on the resulting positions.
Thank you, your replies were helpful!
I've looked into all of those. Basically what I'm up to is do a solid research on KID and give Grand prix a go. The second one is what I have doubts about but it really hooks me for some reason.
Do not worry about openings. At your level it does not matter. The King's Indian Defence is very complicated. Kasparov gave up playing it because he did not have enough time for upkeep of knowledge. Openings are a bottomless pit. Even if you work 12 h/day, 7 days/week on these you will not master these and you will not play any better. Endgame study, tactics training and analysis of your losses are far more efficient ways to increase your playing strength.
@tpr I've been told this a few times already. I spend time on tactics every day, analyze some games, but what do I need that work for if I feel no urge to play? Being able to play another king's gambit (e.g.) game is why I jump in to the game anyway. I want to play some spectacular KID games, not become a KID master, which I won't whatsoever.
