Hello, everyone. I made this thread so that everyone may post their own novelties (or what they think is a novelty) that they would like to share.

Recently, I tried the following as white:

1. e4 e6
2. d4 d5
3. Nd2 c5
4. Ngf3 a6
5. Ne5!?

That was the novelty. The idea is after 5... cxd5, 6. Nb3

I also considered trying out the following novelty as black:

1. b4 d5
2. Bb2 f5!?

But instead I decided to play Qd6, not knowing where f5 would take me.

Feel free to comment on the novelties of others and my novelty above.

With your novelty in the French, the normal third move for black in that line is Nf6, not c5, so I don't think you'll get to play this often. Assuming you meant 5. ... cxd4 (not d5) 6. Nb3, I'm thinking 6. ... dxe4, and white's going to be a pawn down after recapturing on d4. Your well developed knights look good, though, so call it a gambit. I don't know how it'll go overall, though.

I'm not sure I see the point of the second one. After 1. b4, 1. ... e5 is more common than d5, because you're fighting his bishop for control of the dark squares. with your moves to d5 and f5, you're dominating the light squares while letting him have the dark squares. I don't think I'd want to let white have the dark squares that easily.

--Fromper

According to the database on shredderchess.com the move 3...c5 is played more often than 3...Nf6 (44.7 % vs 41.2 %). So the novelty can be usefull.
But what´s the point of looking for novelties? Chess is about ideas, planning, tactics etc. and not about novelties.
I usually play openings without knowing the details, but I try to understand the structures and plans. But I have to admit that I don´t play aggresive openings because I like long-term plans.

I've for some time been trying to invent my own opening, but it's hard to find something that is new. I don't want to find a 'novelty' on move 26 in the sicilian najdorf or something like that. Eventually I came up with an opening variation:

1. e4 d5 2. e5 Amazingly enough, this move is almost never played. Of course most people will think that it's just a bad move: "Can't black play Bf5 and after 3. d4 e6 it is a French with black's white-squared bishop already developed. That can't be good!" That why I came up with this variation: 1. e4 d5 2. e5 Bf5 3. g4! Bg6 4. e6. My main line runs: fxe6 5. Nf3 Qd6 6. d4 and white has got pretty good compensation for the pawn. I've been able to beat a 2000+ player with this opening in a 20 min. game. I really got crazy positions in which my opponent was 2 pawns ahead, but he had an isolated pawn, double pawn and triple pawn and his black-squared bishop was still not well developed.

The only problem was, that there were a few variations which completely refuted my opening idea After 1. e4 d5 2. e5 Bf5 3. g4 Bd7, black is threatening h5 and can obtain a nice version of the French. Also, 1. e4 d5 2. e5 Bf5 3. g4 Bg6 4. e6 Qd6 was a very bad position for me. After 5. exf7+ Bxf7 Black's position in far superior. But luckily, almost no-one finds those moves when he is for the first time confronted with this move.

After that, I started to look for the same idea in other openings, and I found it! In the caro-kann, after the moves 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 I yet again tried: 4 g4! Bg6 5. e6. Compared to the same thing in the scandinavian, I made the move d4 and he made the move c6, I thought that couldn't be too bad for me. Fritz doesn't agree with me that White is clearly better (I'm a bit of an optimist) but still the opening is very fun to play and the surprise value is high.

The last thing I tried was again in the Caro-Kann, with somewhat the same idea: 1. e4 c6 2. Ne2 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. Nd4 Bg6 5. e6. My main line continues: fxe6 6. Nxe6 Qd6 7. Nxf8 Kxf8. Black his an extra central pawn, but White has the bishops pair, and he can still castle.

What do you guys thing of these openings?

3. ... Be4 4. Nf3 (anything else loses material) and then I'm not sure where this will go, but 4. ... e6 seems to be the most obvious for black, with a pretty good looking French-like position.

Edited to add: I overlooked 4. f3 as another possibility (was just doing this real quick at work, not thinking everything through), but I don't think that's positionally very good for white, although it forces the bishop to move again as compensation for blocking the knight's obvious square.

--Fromper

Not 4. Nf3, but 4. f3 Bg6 5. d4

1 e4 c6 2 d4 d5 3 e5 Bf5 4 g4 ?! Be4! (creates a bad weakness) 5 f3 Bg6

Then of course when white plays e6, black just doesn't play fxe6. One of my friends actually plays this variation on the black side:

6 h4 h6 7 h5 Bh7 8 e6 Qd6 9 exf7 Kxf7 and 'castles by hand'.

As long as black doesn't take that e6 pawn w/ the f-pawn almost all lines favor black.

Aren't all openings novelties?

I used to play the Advance Caro Kann so these tricks are known to me vaguely. In the Scandinavian, you really are giving up almost a full tempo, since Black doesn't really need to play ...c6 after e4-e5 and you really do need d2-d4, although there are ways to try to avoid it. The way to prevent h7-h5 is to get a knight to f4. Then the Bg6 needs the h-pawn, or has to move.

What about 1. b4 a5!?. I have always had a dreadful hate against the Sokolsky's opening (that's it's name, right?), so this is an interesting way to take them out of book. If 2. bxa5, then ... Rxa5 and if 2. b5, then I guess you could try 2. ... Nf6 (with the idea of some sort of pseudo-Indian defence) or 2. ... f5 (with the idea of a Dutchish position).

I have also played 1. c4!? (probably a bad move) 1. ... b5!? 2. cxb5 a6 3. bxa6 Bxa6, with a pseudo-Benko Gambit.