Thursday, April 28, 2005

the best chess repertoire

Although controversial (all normal chess opening variants are
considered to be equallystrong), with the program Bookbuilder
i found a 'best' repertoire: with white 1.e4!
No i'm not going to give all the subvariants, but some
important decisions have to be made also in later
moves to keep the white opening advantage; yes,
especially against the Sicilian; urgh, quite complicated indeed.

So can white also win against the Ruy Lopez Berlin defence ?
Well i don't know, probably yes, with proper play.
Computers are not so good in endgame strategy, some
books by eg. Shereshevsky demonstrate his obviously.

Against d4 Nf6 and if 2.c4 e6, and then:

Nimzo-Queens Indian hybrid system (after Nf3 b6! and after Nc3 Bb4!),
yes there are lots of variants in this complex.
No fancy Benoni, Benko, Kings Indian, though.

Against other white moves: ah well, not so important,
currently there's c5 against the English (symmetrical variant),
..d5 agains Reti, etc. (often transposing to the d4 variants).

Resultant improvement in playing strength:
well i don't know, i estimate its only about 50 points or so.
Comps are not afraid of gambits and unorthodox openings,
so such a repertoire would cost about 50 points on average.
But for humans, up to master level, with proper knowledge
an preparation, it could be an advantage. But then tactics
and middlegame planning are more important of course..

Back to FICS now again..
c.u. later.. :)

1 comment:

jef said...

Some comments from myself,
not coicidentally these Indian defences are also openings which are not discussed in Hans Berliner's book 'The System'. (H.Berliner is former world champion correspondence chess, and seems to believe that 1.d4 is the winning opening move).
Well besides Queens_ en Nimzo Indian, also
the Bogo-Indian offers good opportunities for the black side and is a solid defence.
So i'll stick with 1.e4 !

But what about the Sicilian then ? Well, indeed, the Najdorf and the Sveshnikov are solid openings. How to beat them ?

Well, after ..Nc6, Bb5!, the Rossolimo.
And in case of the Najdorf, maybe the Sozin attack, Bc4, offers the best opportunities for white. Now i have to work this out in more detail, and play more games with Shredder, but i believe white can keep the edge. Yes, also against e5, namely with the Ruy Lopez.

Although the closed RL requires a lot of slow strategic manoeuvring, such as moving a knight from d2 via f1 to g3, it might be possible to keep the opening advantage in the middle game. Whether such a slight advantage can lead to winning endgames in *all* cases, i don't know, but it can't be excluded that with perfect play this would be the case.

Yes, in such a case chess could theoretically be solved.. Maybe it will
take some hundred years of more research, or maybe some brilliant guy will show chess is a draw, we simply don't know yet. Yet i believe 1.e4 is the best..

Update on Amazon

 now (the new edition of) my book (as on Lulu) also is available on Amazon again: Better Chess Openings (paperback) as found with latest Nnu...