You guys give me the motivation to keep playing the French.

The French is like a beautiful and mysterious woman. I fell in love the first time I saw it (her? ), yet I continuously discover new things about it, new plans, new move orders. I like that it is so different. One day it is all about a long strategic battle, the next day there is a fierce tactical skirmish. There is always this intriguing moment after 2..d5: Will it be a complex struggle in the advance variation? Will I get to play a seemingly equal position after White chickens out with the exchange variation? Or do I get to sacrifice g7 in the Winawer?

My relationship with the French has been quite a ride. When I first got to know it, it welcomed me with a string of seemingly easy victories. But it hasn't always been this smooth: the French has a dark and cruel side. I can't count the times I have been mated by a quick kingside attack. When I lose with the French, I always have this nagging feeling that I let it down. But how sweet it is to win with the French. To undermine White's center with c5 and f6 and watch his position come apart.

Sure, there have been other openings. But none of them has captured me like the French did. Playing 1..e5 feels like dating a grandmother, whereas the Sicilian is like an ugly, scarred brute from the streets. After some time, these other openings become boring. The French however is sophisticated, varied and fun.

On revient toujours à ses premières amours.

i've always thought playing the sicilian is a lot of the same reason why i like playing as the pyro in TF2. it's fun to just pound your way to the front lines, light **** on fire and see what happens while giggling the whole time.

of course, toddler with a chainsaw sounds fun too!

great post

I think Korchnoi once described playing the Sicilian as a bit like the wrestler who starts the fight before he enters the ring.

I often played the closed defence. I found that far less troublesome for white. Has this been busted yet ?

i think the sharpness of the average sicilian game is way overrated. I play it because it gives me some long-term plusses to work with. But imo it's not up to black to sharpen the game, it depends much more on white's reaction.

as part of my new years goals (while also breaking them too, since I've been meaning to play more and not just study), I've been studying a lot and trying to rebuild my understanding and approach to the game. I'm focusing only on 1. e4 as white, as a junior I always played that to mild results (honestly I think as a junior I was much better with the black pieces, being white and facing kids who wanted to get into the najdorf/dragon/whatever just scared me, and I'd often blunder to the simple tricks) but it still feels natural to me.

going back and studying and understanding simple concepts like having space advantages, early development leads, bishop/pawn structures, creating open lines, controlling the center, etc. I believe is helping to make my game more fluid and sensible. part of my studying is to not focus so much on complicated and common lines (that is not to say I'm playing obscure stuff) but rather implement sound fundamentals and things will work out. don't exchange just to simplify -- if I feel I have an advantage, keep pieces on the board, identify and exploit weaknesses, etc.

anyways this was a bit of a ramble and not really e4-related but here's an e4 game I thought easily illustrated what I'm trying to accomplish. I think I played pretty simply and soundly, and the natural space advantage I had resulted in black eventually making mistakes and weakening his kingside. I played the ending silly, 32. Qg4 or Rf1 or h5 are the obvious and direct wins, but I got to that position convincingly I feel.

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=77076

Yep.

If your opponent is determined to make a game boring there's really not much you can do about it other than cramp their position and wait for a mistake.

lately i've been basically using the setup with e4, Nf3, Bc4 Nc3, d4, h3, Be3, Qd2/Qe2, Rfd1, a4, a5 and then playing dxe5 and trying to hone in on the b6 square with Nd5, f3 and Qf2. it's seemed to be giving me pretty good results so far until i inevitably hang a rook for no reason other than just because. black is pretty much never developed well because he's been doing stupid **** and not moving his Bc8 and not getting his rooks connected and has zero space so he's basically a worthless ****ing ******* and completely ****ed.

i also recommend telling these people to **** off and kill themselves after you destroy them for attempting to take every ****ing bit of fun out of the game.

Well, if one or both players don't challenge the centre, then naturally things will develop similarly (e.g. 1. d4 d6, and 1.e4 d6, are almost the same).

However, QGD, QID, KID, those sort of positions are completely different to a Spanish, Petrov, or Sicilian; that's usually what people are talking about.

It sounds like you have a mental game leak.. You're giving up an advantage to these players by becoming mentally turned off by their style.

Here's an example. The players are around 2400 strength, but Black blunders on move 5 and is basically lost already. What might have happened is that he saw White's boring opening and thought "Oh no, not this rubbish again" and mentally switched off to some extent.