Most boring opening

[Amaurote]

And no punani-, window- or other aperture-related gags, thank you.

After much deliberation, I nominate the Colle, although the London System as a whole and the Four Knights come pretty close, maybe even the Alapin or the Closed Sicillian aren't far off, either, although there are solid strategic openings for choosing the last two. I don't understand why anyone would want to play such an uninspiring opening as White. I was waiting on a siege board to play someone recently and I noticed that my (White) opponent-to-be was a Colle player...thought "Right, sod this for a game of soldiers" and launched right into the Old Benoni as soon as he played 1.d4. I have no idea what I'm doing, but it is at least easy on the eye.

http://www.njscf.org/openings/colle_3.jpg

[Bassmama]

That's OK, Am- I don't understand about 75 % of what you just wrote.

WTF is a colle?

[warza bidul]

I learned to appreciate chess when watching a young individual learning the moves and hearing the discussion.

I tried playing and it's a good activity. I know nothing about the moves but it's incredibly complex.

I really should invest some time in learning how to play.

[Boozer]

Bass, your not alone. I've asked him for advice and so on, and when he gives it, I'm like, "Huh?!"

Am, I have no idea what you're talking about when you speak of openings and 1.d4, and so on. All I know is the direction the pieces can move, and make sure you cover your king. Other than that, I'm lost.

[Thaum1el]

Boozer, and still you're beating me senseless. :P

Basically, there is a so-called opening book. It is a database of the most common ways to open a game. "Most common" is rather academical though, since most databases has a couple of thousands of combinations.

In short, more or less all of the ways a chess game can start has been used before. When it has been used enough times, it usually gets a name, say, "King side opening", or something. Then there is a response from the black player, who will move his piece, and in most cases, that also has a name. After a while, you get to a point where your move no longer follow one of those opening books, and the game is said to be "out of the opening book" and having entered the middle game.

1. d4 is chess notation, it is a way to represent a move in letters. 1. d4 would mean that in the first move, the player moves a pawn to the square d4.

Hope that cleared something up anyway.

[Boozer]

Yeah, some. I got the gist of what he was saying, but had no idea what much of it meant; especially when he would call openings by name. I was like, "..........*blink*.....OK."

[Amaurote]

Yep, as Thaum says an opening is simply the series of moves played in the first few moves - White usually defines the opening by his first move (for example 1.c4 is always the English, no matter what Black's response), but sometimes Black's response defines the opening (so White may play 1.e4 hoping for 1...e5 so he can play into the Italian Game, but Black can reply 1...c5, which is the Sicilian Defence, or play 1...e6 and launch the French Defence). Most people learn just a few openings because there is a ridiculous amount of theory behind most of them, so much so that it's practically impossible to master it all. The key thing is to find your style and choose an opening that suits it, not to pick an opening for its trappiness or in the vain hope of beating someone with the opening alone: for example, if you're a good attacking player who thrives in open positions, the King's Gambit is an excellent choice as White; if you're defensive and like closed games as I do, the French Defence is a very good chocie as Black.

Even if you claim not to know much about openings, chances are you're using the same one all the time already anyway - Boozer is playing a kind of Four Knights/Italian Game in most of the games I've seen.

[warza bidul]

now i know two moves, sort of.

[Bassmama]

I taught my son how to play chess when he was 3. By the time he was 5, I couldn't beat him at the game. But I kicked his ass in Backgammon for years until he was in high school- by that time it was 50/50 as to who would win. Gammon is MY GAME!!!

And I can't find anyone to play with. :cry:

[Bones]

I play chess in an erratic way. It tends to confuse my opponent and I end up winning at a game I suck at. Figures.

[Boozer]

I tend to do the "move some pieces around until your opponent fucks up" strategy. Which is probably why I lose a lot. lol

[Sean]

Am, what's your IQ? Seriously!

[Unforgiven]

Am, what's your IQ? Seriously!

About 12. He just copies and pastes from various websites, and transcribes from history books. Honest.

[Amaurote]

Chess isn't really anything to do with IQ, though, Sean, it's essentially about pattern recognition and basic mathematics. The reason so many people are deterred for playing it is because they're over-awed, but the reality is that while endgame theory is very important, ultimately you can pick up most of the things you need from just playing and watching.

[trekbugging]

my great uncle was the new york state chess champ from 68-71-- he is 86 now and still can whip my butt-- he always said the trick is to figure what your oponent will be doing in 6-8-12 moves from now and counter and attack them before they can-- i normally can't think that far ahead-- and Bass like Gammon and acee-ducey (not sure i spelled that right) really like Pente but can't find people to play as when play wife i will 80-90 percent of time and she doesn't really like it--

[Amaurote]

"When Bob was still teaching at the Institute, he was car-pooling with another professor. One day after classes, the two of them were returning home and Bob was driving. When he drove past the exit which led to the other other professor's home, his passenger remarked, 'Bob, you missed my exit.' Bob replied: 'Oh, I thought you were driving.'"

Trekbugging's Great Uncle Erich (http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=10&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.optics.rochester.edu%2F~strou d%2FBookHTML%2FChapIII_pdf%2FIII_19.pdf&ei=-pbdRbHABqOAnQPYvMC_BA&usg=__gS0jQhqC4fzRmR7cNIjBPOwRbQ8=&sig2=9vQeJfdV4rIBjPSWy996zg)

[entipy]

Gammon is MY GAME!!!

And I can't find anyone to play with. :cry:

Hey Bass - have you looked for a site where you can play online against someone? I used to play backgammon, and I think I liked it, but I don't remember how anymore.


About 12. He just copies and pastes from various websites, and transcribes from history books. Honest.

:lolrotf:

[Boozer]

Never played backgammon. Don't even know how to play.

[thestarsfall]

I play chess in an erratic way. It tends to confuse my opponent and I end up winning at a game I suck at. Figures.

THAT'S MY STRATEGY!!!!!

Actually I just sing and hum random songs in my mead, get the opponent annoyed and distracted and then take their queen. Then I usually can win from there.

Backfires if they put on music to listen to because then I listen to the music rather than focus on the game...

[entipy]

Bass - http://www.backgammon.org/

[Sean]

I asked IQ because it's very related to mathematics and pattern recognition...so success at chess has very much to do with IQ...

so what's your IQ?

[Amaurote]

I have no idea, sir - my guess would be low-average, but I've never taken one, nor do I have any interest in taking one, they all seem very reductive to me...I think intelligence is a very fluid, intangible quality based on too many variables to be easily coded into one single test. What I would say is that education and career seems to act as a brake on it - I'm sure I'm less intelligent than I was when I was in my early twenties.

[thestarsfall]

On the test we took online my IQ was higher than Sean's :P

haha

[Unforgiven]

On the test we took online my IQ was higher than Sean's :P

haha

And according an online test, I'm more anti-authoritarian than Ghandi.

:wtf:

[Bassmama]

Thanks Enty! I'll check it out!

Sean- I have a pretty high IQ (as I imagine the majority of members on this site do!!!) but I suck at math- find it boring- & am so-so at pattern recognition- probably because I don't have the patience to even try to recognize patterns.

I also have always had memory problems, starting BEFORE I was a pothead in my 20s.

I always tell people that my sister was born with the blond hair & I was born with the blond brain cells.

[thestarsfall]

And according an online test, I'm more anti-authoritarian than Ghandi.

:wtf:

I'm anarchist according to online tests...