/csg/ Chess General

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I think Bent Larsen was singlehandedly responsible for that spike in the 50s-60s.

>>53734445
The problem of Bird's opening is that white voluntarily weaken e4, g4 and f5 squares for a strong control at e5 and g5 squares in the very early stage of the game.
For illustration: 1.f4 d5 2.g3 h5 shows that now black can put a knight at f5 via Ne7 or Nh6.
In theory, since white has the first move, he can have an initiative to change the pawn formation is to obtain a balance. But why settle for an equal position if you are a white player?

This opening was named after 19th century English master Henry Bird, who used it often with some spectacular wins and as many crushing losses. Overall it's pretty careless and invites an almost immediate attack on the White king via Qh4.

The most common Black reply is 1...d5 which creates essentially a reversed Dutch Defense, also possible is 1...Nf6 or 1...e5 (From's Gambit).

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From Sanguineti-Guimand, 1966. Black moved 33...Kf5 and avoided the automatic reflex of capturing the rook because...well, you can figure out why. White set another trap earlier in the game (on move 25) that Black also didn't fall for.

The smart player knows how to spot and avoid obvious traps like this, even though Black eventually lost the game after 64 moves.

I think you'd like to read de Firmian's view on the King's Gambit. From MCO: "Golden Ages have a tendency to evaporate upon scrutiny, and the romanticized heyday of the King's Gambit is no exception". And before that: "For more than a hundred years this opening has represented a lost golden age, a nobler past of swashbuckling sacrifice and gung-ho attack, when few players were unsporting enough to defend correctly."

Today such a romantic playing style is simply impractical even at club level because players today know how to defend correctly.

>>53743838
Romanticism was dying already in Steinitz's time, although his ideas of positional chess were condemned as cowardly, actually he wasn't the first person to demonstrate that pawn structures are important, that was Philidor 100 years earlier, but Steinitz was the first to prove it.

>>53743880
Not really, romanticism didn't die until the 1920s, many players from the opening years of the 20th century like Marshall, Mieses, and Spielmann were very much romantics.

It's interesting, but a lot of GMs like Steinitz, Marshall, Capablanca, Alekhine, Fischer, and others were dashing attackers in their youth who mostly relied on e4 openings, then as they got older, their style of play became increasingly conservative and positional, with a much higher use of d4 openings. Even a committed positional guy like Karpov played far more e4 openings in his early career than he did later. Nigel Short is one exception to the rule, he loves his e4 openings and won't use anything else.

Carlsen isn't yet 30, but if you look at the games from the beginning of his career, he did a lot more slashing attacks than he does now.

>>53743984
>be dumb, edgy kid
>play Bill Wall-style chess because lyl I totally pwned that guy's king Elephant Gambit ftw XD
>grow up
>play chess like an adult
...

ded gaem

>>53743984
Playing styles are an extension of your personality, computers can never replace the human element in the game.