Talk:Chess opening
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Talk was getting pretty long and I hope it will get even longer, so I separated it into sections. I hope this is an improvement. Feel free to revert if it is worse. --Quale 02:14, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)
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Organization of the article
Separate page for each opening
I think it would be better to break up this page into each opening... a separate page for Queen's Gambit, etc.--Sonjaaa 07:33, Sep 7, 2004 (UTC)
Well, I think it's good to have an overview of openings here, but of course, there's no reason why individual openings (and eventually even specific variations) can't have a page of their own; some of them already do (Ruy Lopez is one example). --Camembert
Overhaul classification of chess openings section
I really think that the entire chess openings section could do with an overhaul. It contains articles of widely varying quality and correctness that are unevenly dispersed (e.g. there is no page for the Giuoco Piano, or the Reti, and in the main page I even saw somebody mark the Evans Gambit with a ?!. The King's Gambit page was full of lies; I gave it a quick once over but it is still very bad.) The job is too big for me to do alone; perhaps if there are enough chess players here we could divvy up the work, everybody writing the article about his favorite opening systems with some sort of standardization? (This post was added by 204.52.215.102)
I agree with 204.52.215.102. The list and descriptions of the opening should be consolidated. Right now it is a mess of descriptions and diagrams of different formats. Some have "main article:..." above the diagram, some have "see article ..." embedded in the description. Some important openings are missing entirely from this list (e.g. the Benoni Defense). This article served its purpose well when it was created, but now many of the openings have received individual articles and as this page has expanded we have lost uniformity. I would like to suggest that we do the following, but I think some input is in order before it is carried out:
Create an individual article on the Queen's Indian Defense, the last opening here missing an individual article.DONE!,but I see we are actually still missing one; the Modern Defense.DONE BY Neilc!Change all redirects of individual openings from this page to the proper opening article.DONE!Remove all diagrams and descriptions of the openings from this page, merge any information which might be lost into the appropriate individual opening article.DONE mostly by Neilc!Instead, on this page we put a list of openings with a link to each individual article, along with the moves which define it.PRETTY MUCH COMLETED BY Quale! well done!
Example: White opens with 1.e4
- Sicilian Defense 1.e4 c5
- King's Gambit 1.e4 e5 2.f4
- Petroff Defense 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6
- Philidor's Defense 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6
- Damiano Defense 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f6
- Ruy Lopez 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5
- Scotch Game 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4
- Giuoco Piano 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4
- Two Knights Defense 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6
- Evans Gambit 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.b4
- Ponziani Opening 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.c3
Sjakkalle 12:05, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Sounds like a sensible plan to me. I agree the existing page needs a lot of cleanup, and the right direction for the future is to move most of the information into individual pages for each opening. Neilc 23:46, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Modern Defense is now a separate page, and the redirect to Chess openings has been removed. I wasn't sure if we should just make Modern redirect to Pirc Defense, or if there's any point in having a separate page... Neilc 03:40, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- The Modern is a different opening and deserved an individual place. Thanks Neilc for your effort. Sjakkalle 08:14, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Okay, I've moved most of the descriptions of individual openings off this page, and merged any lost content into the appropriate articles for the individual openings themselves. A few openings still need doing (Pirc, Modern, some of the Indians). Other ideas for improvement:
- Divide responses to 1.e4 into symmetrical (1. ... e5) and asymmetrical
- Reorder openings based on some assessment of their popularity
- Link more openings from this page; I linked a few that were missing (Bird's, Reti, Philidor's), but there are probably more.
- Make the pages describing individual openings more consistent with eachother. For example, different articles use different styles for presenting diagrams of positions — we should decide on one style and use it consistently.
- Neilc 05:30, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I have continued the good work of Neilc, I have added the Benoni Defense, Benko Gambit, Grob's Attack and others. There are probably still more openings to be sorted and some are in need of an article. I will list some of them as red-links so that people can create articles if they wish. As for sorting I suggest sorting them like the Oxford Companion to Chess would, that is the moves are sorted alphabetically, first by arrival square then by piece name (pawns come frst though). Examples:
- c5 is before c6.
- f3 is before Bf3 is before Kf3 is before Nf3 is before Qf3 is before Rf3.
- Nc5 is before Nc6.
- 0-0 and 0-0-0 come last.
Neilc is right that different articles use different formats, and it would be nice to get some uniformity there, but having different formats in different articles is less ugly than having different formats in the same article. Sjakkalle 08:14, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
This reorganization is good. I think it would be better to emphasize the moves rather than the names. If the reader already knows the name of the opening, she wouldn't need this list, so I am changing
- Sicilian Defense 1.e4 c5
- King's Gambit 1.e4 e5 2.f4
- Petroff Defense 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6
to
- 1.e4 c5 Sicilian Defense
- 1.e4 e5 2.f4 King's Gambit
- 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 Petroff Defense
I think it would also be a good idea to split up the openings into more than 3 categories. What do you think about using the 5 categories used by MCO?
- Double King Pawn Openings (Open Games)
- Single King Pawn Openings (Semi-Open Games)
- Double Queen Pawn Openings (Closed Games)
- Indian Openings
- Flank Openings
--Quale 02:30, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Other openings worth mentioning?
I've created this section so that we can keep a list of other openings we might want to mention in the article.
Unusual Queen's Pawn Openings
- 1.d4 d5 2.c4 Nf6 Marshall Defense (added)
- This is said to be unsound, but it might deserve a mention. Also, if we have the refutation, it should probably get its own short article. Marshall is said to have abandoned this opening after losing to Alekhine with it at Baden-Baden in 1925, although it looks like he got out of the opening OK and only lost later. Also, in that game used a different move order: 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 d5. I don't know if that's the way Marshall usually played it. --Quale 01:38, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c5 Symmetrical Defense (added)
- This is an unusual line in the QGD. --Quale 01:38, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Owen's Defense (added)
This opening has no name. 1. e4...b6
does anyone know this? Have you ever played an opening like this? 1. e4...b6 2. d4...Bb7 3. Bd3...e6 4. c4...f5 5. exf5...Bg2 6. Qh5...g6 7. fxg6...Bg7 8. gxh7+...Kf8 9. hxg8/Q+...Kxg8 Black is winning!!!!!!!!!!
- 1.e4 b6 is sometimes called the Owen Defence (or Owen's Defence) after John Owen, the 19th century English player, who did pretty well with it. --Camembert
Réti Opening (added)
A new section in 2.3 for the Reti Opening (1.Nf3) should be added.--Fermatprime 20:20, 5 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Feel free to write it, but it should probably be made clear that not every game starting 1.Nf3 ends up as a Réti. --Camembert
Colle System (added)
It's now in the list of variations, but it needs a short description in the prose and also someone to actually create Colle System. Quale 06:05, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
1.d4 Nc6
Does this deserve mention? I'm not certain what it's called. The Oxford Companion to Chess says Nimzowitsch Queen's Pawn Defence, which isn't a very attractive name. A widely distributed file of ECO codes calls it Lundin (Kevitz-Mikenas) Defense. MCO-14, NCO and BCO-2 all give some variations but don't name them. Quale 05:34, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Other stuff
Ponziani question
Hey, I could use some help. A recent addition made to the open games section was
- 1.e4 e5 2.c3 Ponziani's Opening
Is this really the Ponziani? I think it's just an unclassified King's Pawn Game. My references give 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.c3 as the Ponziani (this line is actually played occasionally even today), so this is what I had originally put in the article. Now we have two entries for Ponziani's Opening. After 1.e4 e5 2.c3 then both 2...d5 and 2...Nf6 are good for Black. --Quale 02:45, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
You are right, a google check said that 1.e4 e5 2.c3 is called the Lopez Opening, I will correct that now. Sjakkalle 08:06, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Just for the record, the Oxford Companion calls this the "Centre Pawn Opening" (they obviously weren't feeling very inspired that day). Lots of good work been done on these articles recently, by the way - congrats to all concerned. --Camembert
The Ponziani opening (http://www.gambitchess.com/ponz.htm) is 1. e4 e5 2. nf3 nc6 3. c3. I consider it worth mentioning. Falphin 18:47, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
It was already there, so you added a dupe :-). Camembert cleaned it up, so it's all good. Quale 07:33, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
Classification of the Catalan
How should we classify the Catalan?
I temporarily put it in the Closed Games, but I should have payed closer attention because it's already in Indian Openings so I removed it from Closed. I'll add some text discussing it in the Indian Openings section. Quale 05:08, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
good job!
Thanks for all who have written this article. This is a job well-done. I encourage you all to add some multimedia and you'll be well on the way toward featuring it. DanKeshet 19:07, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)
"Counter-Gambit" vs "Counter Gambit" vs "Countergambit"
Which spelling do we prefer? I've seen all three in print.
- Counter-Gambit Perhaps the most common, but I hate to needlessly hyphenate. As words are used more often we tend to drop the hyphens. The simple word "today" was once "to-day". Used by The Oxford Companion to Chess.
- Counter Gambit Used by Reuben Fine. I like this better than Counter-Gambit.
- Countergambit Seems to be a newer spelling, MCO 14 uses it. It follows the pattern found in "Counterattack", which I believe is always a single unhyphenated word. I think I like this best.
We can create redirects as needed if we use the term in a title. Quale 06:34, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
Other responses to D4
I will edit those(unless someone else does) when I have time to. I plan to do them all. Watch out for my spelling. Falphin 21:51, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
I see that User:12.220.47.145 has created this section. I agree that putting the Dutch Defense and the Old Benoni under closed games is awkward (the Leningrad Dutch with ...g6 doesn't remotely resemble a Queen's Gambit), even though MCO uses this classification. I have cleaned up and trimmed the section somewhat, for instance, I felt that devoting so many words to the Englund in this article was not really needed, it's better reserved for the Englund Gambit article. "Kangaroo Defense" was certainly an "exotic" name I've never heard before, but there are google hits on it. I would have preferred "Keres Defense", but unless there are serious objections we can let the article stay at that name. I thought it was a rather common way to play, even if most games opening 1.d4 e6 2.c4 Bb4+ quickly transpose to the Bogo-Indian or Nimzo-Indian. Sjakkalle 08:51, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
- Falphin are you the same one as 12.220.47.145? Sjakkalle 08:58, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
- Depends, if I forget to log in it is, but itsn't only used by me. The Kangaroo Defense is rare but I've never heard anyone call it the Keres Defense. Falphin 15:49, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
I have removed the assertion from this section that Kasparov has occasionally played the Polish defence (1.d4 b5); there are no such games in the Chessbase Mega Database 2004. If anybody has another source with games where Kasparov played this, then perhaps it can go back in. --Camembert 13:40, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
- I can prove that, but I don't think it is that importantFalphin 15:49, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
I've made articles on the Wade defense and Franco-Sicilian defense but I'm having trouble finding info on the Polish defense and what is considered the Polish defense. I've seen three different variations. I always assumed it was just 1. d4 b5. Anyone know? Falphin 19:34, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
- Wade Defense actually had an article already, the Rat Defense, but since your article is better, I will convert the Rat Defense to a redirect to your new article. Sjakkalle 06:27, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
New article
I plan to write an article on the Halloween Gambit. But I'm not for sure if that is what it's called. 1.e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Nxe5?! Anyone know, other wise I will just write it under the above name.(I won't write it until Monday). Falphin 19:00, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
Apparently this is also called the Müller-Schulze Gambit. Acccording to The Halloween-Attack in the Four Knight Game (http://www.jakob.at/steffen/halloween/index.html), the Halloween name comes from the German magazine, Randspringer. The Halloween Gambit currently is mentioned in the Four Knights Game and Halloween Gambit is just a redirect. If there's a more material than would comfortably fit in the Four Knights article you can replace the redirect with an article. We should then put a link in the Four Knights Game to the new article. Quale 21:46, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
At present the Halloween Gambit is a mentioned in the Four Knights Game, so you may find a little information in that article. Otherwise you may want to check out Tim Krabbé's article [1] (http://www.xs4all.nl/~timkr/tour/breeze.htm). Sjakkalle 06:25, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
Removed Halloween Attack from Open Games
I removed the Halloween Attack listing from Open Games section. It's just a variation of the Four Knights Game which is already on the list. I think this main article should be a survey, and we shouldn't try to list every variation of every opening here. Articles on individual openings can go into greater depth. Quale 01:02, 10 May 2005 (UTC)