
Aggressive Chess Openings (2012) - tosh
https://chess.stackexchange.com/questions/75/very-aggressive-openings
======
rectang
Blitz online chess is one of my vices. To encourage wild games, I play the
_Fried Fox_ as black and the _Wandering King_ as white, sacrificing soundness
for excitement. Both involve moving the King's bishop pawn ahead one, and then
moving the King into that spot.

It probably chops 100 points off of my rating, but who cares? It gets away
from book lines and thwarts boring drawskis.

Should enough people migrate to chess960 that opponents could be found
readily, I might not have to resort to such silliness.

~~~
mindgam3
Chess master and bullet addict here. It sounds like you're as into avoiding
book lines as I am. May I recommend my secret opening weapon: the
Hippopotamus. It is quite possibly one opening to rule them all:

\- play it with both sides

\- guaranteed to get people out of book

\- successfully deployed to defeat none other than super GM Etienne Bacrot (in
blitz, but still):
[http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1479768](http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1479768)

[edit] it's not a particularly sharp/aggressive opening. Tends to be more slow
positional grinds. But not always - there are lots of possibilities for
breaking things wide open with center pawn breaks.

~~~
dylanz
That opening is amazing! I’ve never seen it before. Super aggressive and very
aesthetic!

~~~
mindgam3
Yes on the aesthetics. More of a counterpuncher choice than overtly aggressive
IMO. Usually lines don’t open up until move 10-20.

As an aside, cool to meet the person behind ironworker. I used your service
many years ago to launch my first startup. Helped me with some cron job
shenanigans that otherwise would have caused me a lot of grief. Nice work!

------
JesseAldridge
I played chess at a low level for about a year. I very quickly learned to
despise the Fried Liver Attack. It's the cannon rush of the Chess world: very
easy to execute while relatively difficult to defend against. There's a huge,
complex world of chess strategy, but before you can get to that you have to
learn like every Fried Liver variation because beginners will use it over and
over.

~~~
rectang
The dominance of formulaic application of opening theory over improvisation is
a problem at all levels of chess. Bobby Fischer crafted chess960, a variant on
shuffle chess, to deal with it:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960#History)

> _Fischer 's goal was to eliminate what he considered the complete dominance
> of openings preparation in classical chess, replacing it with creativity and
> talent. His belief about Russians fixing international games also provided
> motivation. In a situation where the starting position was random it would
> be impossible to fix every move of the game. Since the "opening book" for
> 960 possible opening systems would be too difficult to devote to memory, the
> players must create every move originally. From the first move, both players
> must devise original strategies and cannot use well-established patterns.
> Fischer believed that eliminating memorized book moves would level the
> playing field. _

~~~
mlthoughts2018
I think this is not really true at all. Yasser Seirawan has written and
lectured extensively about playing variations of the English & 1\. Nf3
openings as white, and King’s Indian Defense and various Pirc / French / Caro-
Kann lines that allow either player to pretty much veer out of theory-heavy
variations and reach early positions in which there are no sharp tactical
edges to the game and your opponent could not generally have forced any
without entering a dramatically losing position.

------
cutler
When I played for my school, town and county back in the 70s in the UK the
Sicilian Dragon was very fashionable so the teams I played in learned to take
back the initiative with white via the then little-known Morra Gambit - 1.e4
c5 2.d4 cd 3. c3. We also had a line in the Ruy Lopez which took our opponents
out of the books early - 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.d4. My other,
more recognisable favourites were the Benko Gambit (Benoni) and Marshall
Attack (Ruy Lopez). All very effective at club level prior to the
computerisation of chess.

------
uabstraction
I'm quite partial to the Bongcloud opening myself.

[http://www.chessmastery.com/bongcloud.pdf](http://www.chessmastery.com/bongcloud.pdf)

~~~
opportune
This is hilarious. I lost it at "Again, Black harasses without development. He
has violated nearly every opening rule – frequent pawn moves, lack of
development, pointless checks, and moving the same piece repeatedly."

~~~
antaviana
Also, on page 14 Black has mate in one. It reads “In this arch-typical
Marijanezy Bind position, a clever Black player might be able to delay the
inevitable with some tactical wizardry, but positionally, he is lost.”

~~~
cannam
> Also, on page 14 Black has mate in one

I think that's true of all the examples (isn't it?) - they all end at the move
where Black has mate, but they admit nothing in the commentary. It's
beautifully done.

------
ianremsen
There's a variamt of chess created by GM Yasser Seirawan wherein he seeks to
stoke the heady flames of tactical attacking chess where he introduces two new
pieces: the hawk (which moves like a bishop + a knight) and the elephant
(which moves like a rook + a knight). The problem is, there's absolutely
nowhere to play it online! I wish I had the skills to build a site/mod lichess
to make it work, but lichess isn't interested in adding new variants. If
anyone's looking for a project...

~~~
dzjkb
I've been thinking about contributing a certain chess variant to lichess, but
I haven't reached out to them or done any research yet - what makes you think
they aren't interested in adding new variants? Have they made any statements
about that in the past?

~~~
ianremsen
I hung around #lichess on freenode (where the wonderful dev team exists,
including the founder Thibaut) a lot at the time (and I still do) and I was
more or less definitively told about concerns of further splitting the
userbase. The most recently added variant (Racing Kings) is not terribly
popular, and they've made a commitment not to remove variants once they're
added, so I appreciate the caution, but something in my bones told me then
(which was about two years ago now) and still does that S-chess would be SUPER
popular.

------
dplgk
Anyone else recently get into the timeless game of chess? I find it meditative
and a great way to distract my mind that doesn't involve a device (although I
play a lot on my phone :)

Can anyone recommend a good chess book for a 1000 rating player who's
plateaued?

~~~
dhkxh
1\. Review your mistakes after each game - lichess.org (which is the best
online chess platform by far) has an option to look at your sub-optimal moves
at the end of a game and find a better move than the one you made originally.

2\. Obligatory shoutout to ChessNetwork who has a great youtube channel - the
guy is just a pleasure to listen to and his beginner series, which teach
important general concepts, will be really useful if you've plateaued around
1000.

~~~
djtriptych
+1 for chessnetwork. Somehow this guy can provide live commentary on GM vs GM
bullet games. It feels like you’re watching a tennis match and he’s providing
comments on every stroke.

------
beyondCritics
If you enjoy tough games, i encourage you to take a look into crazyhouse
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazyhouse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazyhouse)).
It is the analogue to shogi, captured pieces can be redeployed as a single
move. You can play crazyhouse on lichess.org for free, just a email is
required. GM Yasser Seirawan is the most prominent crazyhouse fan playing on
crazyhouse([https://lichess.org/@/yasser-
seirawan](https://lichess.org/@/yasser-seirawan)). As is internationally
common, pieces _can_ be dropped with check, this makes the game extremely
violent. Considering that your opponent can use captured pieces against you, a
material loss feel twice as hard as in normal chess, in the long run.
Nevertheless the game of crazyhouse is completely dominated by dynamic
factors. E.g a queen is barely worth two pieces and (in high class games)
often it is sacced for a single piece and a tempo. If you have black you will
have a hard time to survive the opening against a good player, some even
believe that the game is winning for white and i think this is not way off. If
your oppononent is 200 Elo points stronger, expect to get mated until move 30
or even move 20. A single slip and you can get mated in move 15 or earlier. I
hope i have wet your appetite :-)

------
cyberferret
Fascinating. I am just starting to study chess seriously this year, and
devoured that thread with interest.

A question for the chess experts on here - is it possible to take your rating
from around 500 as a rank beginner to around 1000 within a 12 month span? I
kind of set that for myself as an ambitious goal once I've finished the study
phase but have no idea how difficult a task that would be.

~~~
formalsystem
I wouldn't worry too much about your elo, if you're enjoying it you're gonna
get a lot better. For the longest time people didn't even have the internet to
get better and had to spend big $$ to get coaching.

To get better you need to first master the endgame so you don't throw won
games, then learn what kinds of midgame positions (tactical vs positional) you
enjoy best so you can then pick a few openings you like.

------
vfc1
For black, I play the Black Lion system, which can be used against e4 and d4
which is the reason why it appealed to me, besides not being so well known.

In many lines black goes for a crazy attack on the king side (called the Lion
claw) where Black does not castle, but also black just castles and it becomes
the Philidor Hanham, with equal chances for black.

Anyway, you get a lot out of it without severe downsides: similar game against
e4 and d4, equality for black in many lines and the possibility for going for
the win with black with a king-side attack.

------
buzzy_hacker
I love gambits. I play the King’s Gambit, Smith Morra, and Benko. I also like
the Wing Gambit in the Sicilian, but haven’t looked too closely at it. But
perhaps my favorite, in response an attempted Fried Liver Attack, is the
Traxler Counter Gambit as black. Here’s one of Traxler’s games:
[http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1224609](http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1224609)

------
petepete
Unrelated, but perhaps someone here can point me in the right direction.

Which chess services or apps would people recommend for iPad? I bought one for
my dad to replace his old Android tablet and struggled to find an app that
fits his needs.

He basically wants ranked matches that are fairly quick paced; a simple UI
would help too (he's in his mid 70s). Would rather pay than have ads. Thanks.

~~~
raptorraver
Lichess, it’s free and should be very easy to learn even for seniors. It got
awesome feature such as free computer analysis for played games etc.

Edit: and no ads! You can support the developer and get a cool icon, but all
the features are free for all the users.

~~~
petepete
Excellent, I'll set him up and see how he gets on. Thank you.

Edit: I just installed and signed up myself, this looks perfect. Thanks again

------
opportune
I think certain lines of the Scandinavian defense can be considered
aggressive, though the way you're supposed to play it involves moving your
queen back to the back rank eventually (this loses tempo, however). Good
opening as black to get into an opening sequence you probably know better than
your opponent

------
rpz
I got into playing more aggressive openings after watching analyses of Paul
Morphy and Tal and never stopped!

~~~
ianremsen
People particularly love attacking chess (possibly because expert,
constricting, prophylactic chess is a slower burn and takes more skill in a
lot of cases to appreciate), and with that being said, it's interesting
because chess is sort of the opposite of that Sun Tzu quote: "Strategy without
tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise
before defeat."

If you're a strategic chess master but you can't see tactics, that mastery
doesn't matter and your opponents take all your pieces. If you're likely to
get ground down in an eighty move game but you can sniff out an attack on your
enemy's king, you can usually at least get a shot at doing that and crush your
opponent.

~~~
HNLurker2
>Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.

Tal wants a word with you on that one.

------
andy_ppp
I will take this opportunity to recommend agadmator’s chess channel on
YouTube, I’m thoroughly hooked and have learned so much already from it!

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/user/AGADMATOR](https://www.youtube.com/user/AGADMATOR)

------
S4M
I am surprised nobody mentioned theax Lange attack 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4
Nf6 4. d4 exd 5. 00

It leads to pretty wild position but unfortunately it was studied a lot and
with perfect play Black gets a drawing position.

~~~
S4M
Too late to edit! I meant to write "the Max Lange attack".

------
dontbenebby
Reminds me of a "DuoLingo for Chess" someone posted a while back:
[https://www.chesscademy.com](https://www.chesscademy.com)

~~~
occamschainsaw
Is it still online somewhere? The heroku app in the link os broken.

~~~
dontbenebby
Oh crap, not that I know of :/

Thanks for pointing that out.

------
chess93
My current favorite is

1.e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. Nc3 e6 5. g4 :)

~~~
S4M
Oh I play that line too! It was used in the 80s by GM John Nunn to score many
victories (yes, I know, it's old).

------
cy6erlion
I play a deadly london system.

------
nicodemus6
great post

