Hey all. I'm returning to chess after a long hiatus. I'd reached C-class when I abandoned tournaments. I'm getting back again and changing my repetoire.

Long-story/short I used to play a lot of e4 openings and liked sharp positions, now I'm older and prefer things a little quieter.

I know what I'll do as white. Always d4 .... Also, I know what I'll do as Black in resoponse to d4 .... Old Indian systems and variants based on 1. d6, but I'm having difficulty choosing what to use as Black against e4. I like Kalishnakov (Sicilian) positions and seem to handle them well, but these days there are so many people playing c3 Sicilians, Closed, and the Moscow and Rossiliomo attacks as white that it seems rather pointless to delve much further into Sicilian unless one wants to cover an awful lot of ground.

Also, I'm not going to play e5 and get sucked into gambits or Scotch game and such. Any French and or Caro-kahn practitioners (or for that matter other openings I may not have considered) Alekhine? want to weigh in. If there's someone who already has similar opening repetoire choices to what I listed for the Queen's pawn openings, I'd especially be interested in your choice as a response to e4.

Oops. Spelled repertoire wrong in title!


Thanks ahead of time.
B.

For myself, I'll play 1....e5 or 1.....c5 I've also played the Modern/Pirc on occasion. 1.... e5 has been my work horse though. I took an 11 year break from chess so I am still working out the cobwebs on my game.

I made the transition from 1.e4 to 1.d4 some time ago.

I'm not even sure what the Moscow variation is.
I used to play the Rossolimo variation as white in the early 1970s on occasion. I also played the Smith-Morra which often led to transpositions to the 2.c3 Sicilian but I gave it up about 30 years ago.

If you are willing to play 1.... d6 against 1.d4 why not the same move against 1.e4?

Crash

At the risk of being taunted, I haven't considered the Pirc/Modern because its statistical success at high levels (in the databases) seems rather abyssmal. Now, I know I'll never be playing at that level, but why engineer stridently inferior positions when there may be better alternatives?

And just in case it comes up, black fairs much better against d4 with d6 than it does e4 generally.

And if I ever do improve, I'm guessing higher level players will know how to exploit such things well.

Then again, I could be recalling the wrong tables, I don't think so, but it's possible.

B.

I'm with Phobetor on this one. Up to the master level or so, just about anything's sound. And the fact that high level masters even play the Pirc or Modern is proof that it's not that terrible, even if it is theoretically slightly worse than the Sicilian.

For now, stick to positions you're comfortable with. If you do improve to the master level, chances are that you'll end up changing your repertoire somewhere along the way, anyway.

--Fromper

I have played that same line of the Scandinavian on numerous occasions and it is perfectly sound. One of my mentors used to play it against masters all the time (when he wasn't playing the Paulsen or Taimanov Sicilian) and would usually win with it.

Crash

Who was it that suggested that there were three types of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics? Nunn points out the flaw of basing your opening choice on statistical measures by saying that you have to look at each individual game before you can draw any conclusion because a line which has been recently totally refuted might have only one or two games with the refutation and a mass of older games without it. If you look at the statistics you might conclude that the refuted line is playable for the opposite side but it is not. It has been refuted.

I only suggested the Pirc/Modern because you ruled out the Sicilian and the Open games with 1....e5. Personally, if I knew I could count on anti-Sicilian lines every time I would play the Sicilian more often. There is nothing in those lines to fear unduly.

Crash

Okay, perhaps that's the best alternative (I do love my Kalishnakov!). Maybe I just need to get a book on the anti-Sicilians. I understand several of them do cover the Rossimilo and Moscow. Oh, and Crash, as I understand the Moscow basically is the Rossimilo except black doesn't commit his knight to c6 and plays d6 instead, with the next move being Bb5+.

So any anti-sicilian book recommendations?

Here is what I get from my twicmill database which is a combination of the available games from The Week In Chess and Schroeder's million game database. This report is generated by SCID based on the information in the database. The way I would read those stats is that all of the major openings are fairly equivalent.

The more I use SCID the more I like it. The theory report generates ECO tables of the openings in your database. Very cool.

4.2 Moves from the report position 1.e4
Move ECO Frequency Score AvElo Perf AvYear %Draws
1: c5 B20 339089: 42.8% 51.9% 2359 2331 1994 30%
2: e5 C20 177536: 22.4% 55.9% 2362 2320 1985 30%
3: e6 C00a 107906: 13.6% 55.4% 2339 2309 1992 30%
4: c6 B10a 54931: 6.9% 55.3% 2351 2316 1993 33%
5: d6 B07a 33948: 4.2% 55.9% 2327 2284 1994 28%
6: g6 B06a 25600: 3.2% 52.6% 2354 2305 1994 28%
7: d5 B01a 21557: 2.7% 56.1% 2277 2255 1995 28%
8: Nf6 B02a 21249: 2.6% 53.9% 2326 2292 1991 28%
9: Nc6 B00l 5949: 0.7% 53.9% 2300 2274 1992 24%
10: b6 B00d 1831: 0.2% 59.9% 2312 2216 1991 22%
11: a6 B00c 436: 0.0% 58.9% 2244 2205 1994 17%
12: [end] B00a 427: 0.0% 95.1% 2259 1787 2003 7%
13: g5 B00b 125: 0.0% 57.6% 2256 2195 1991 16%
14: f5 B00a 32: 0.0% 60.9% 1982 16%
15: h6 31: 0.0% 43.5% 2344 2333 1988 16%
16: Nh6 22: 0.0% 52.2% 1988 14%
17: f6 17: 0.0% 64.7% 1974 12%
18: a5 17: 0.0% 58.8% 1928 0%
19: Na6 13: 0.0% 46.1% 1996 0%
20: h5 8: 0.0% 56.2% 1993 13%
21: b5 8: 0.0% 50.0% 1995 0%
__________________________________________________ _____________
TOTAL: 790732:100.0% 54.0% 2351 2316 1991 30%


Crash

Just checked for Anti-Sicilian books. Three main ones it appears, Gallagher's, Palliser's and Rogozenko's.

I use Palliser's book Play D4...as my main reference for Queen's pawn positions, and then look to Chris Ward when I'm feeling friskier.

Anyone have any experience with any of these anti-sicilian books?

And Crash, point taken. I'll knuckle down on the anti-sicilians, then look at some Pirc stuff as an alternaltive and see how I like the positions. Then I'll just stick with those.

I like Joe Gallagher as an author. Also the Rogozenko book is a Gambit book and I have yet to be disappointed by one of their offerings.

Gambit Publications Limited - Anti-Sicilians: A Guide for Black

A downloadable sample:
http://www.gambitbooks.com/pdfs/846Samp.pdf

Here's a review by Gary Lane on the Rogozenko book:
ChessPublishing.com ::

Crash