December 2024 - Chess Openings to Counter a Pet Peeve

I like Chess. I've always liked Chess. At the same time, anybody who's ever played against me can probably tell that I don't really know what I'm doing. I'm what you would call a "dabbler". I like to engage with the topic, but beyond just playing, I've never done much more to improve. That, I think, should change. It's become an issue the moment when my opponent knows a thing or two about the game, or when I'm playing computers. There is, coincidentally an opening I do know, because I hate it, and I will do a lot to make sure it becomes unplayable in any games I'm a part of. In German it's referred to as "Stierkopf" and it builds a giant blob of defense around the middle of the board, and results in a formation that neither player can move without defeating the point of the opening, which I find tedious and generally not fun.

Still, this results in my opening games being usually erratic and brief, which might play out in my favour, or might not. As such, it's probably good to learn a little about openings, and how to play or counter them, so that I'm not constantly down material after five or six turns. Chess.com offers a large amount of lessons on chess in general, so I thought I might as well try that. In the meantime, I'm keeping up with my daily chess games against a computer, and perhaps even take a look into some of the books that are readily available if you know where to look. I want to focus on my early game for now, as I suspect it's my weakest part, but if I notice something else that's good to know and that I wasn't previously aware of, I might as well note that down.

I might as well try to get used to correct notation while I do this. If I'm playing white, then I can usually make sure the early game looks about the way I want it, at least on my side of the board. If I don't, then that's a different matter, since I do still need to block. Most commonly, white would open with e4 (King's Pawn Opening), which I would usually counter with e5, so the pawn stays sitting there. If I'm feeling spicy, I might gamble on d5, __, d4, hoping to avoid d5, xd5, Qxd5, since I tend not to do too well with the queen out in the open that early. Apparently though, the most common answer to e4 is c5, the so-called "Sicilian Defence". I've never tried it, so my approach for a few games would be to play it whenever I can.

Even if my opponent doesn't close the Sicilian, which I don't really know what to do about yet, I don't find it makes playing the early game any easier. Honestly, most improvements in positioning I see is heavily contingent on the opponent refusing to capture pieces, which at this stage is probably not a bet you'd want to make, seeing as you'll need these pieces for a decent pawn structure later on. After some more research, I found that actually the most common response does seem to be e5, meaning that what I learned in my short foray into the Sicilian Defence is actually how to close it. This isn't a problem I tend to have often, and normally I would probably like to use my turns for stronger positioning than closing a defence, that, after some more reading isn't actually very easy to follow through on. Part of it is probably how I respond to pressure on the board, which is with an attempt to be equally aggressive. It makes it difficult to build structure on top of the Sicilian, which I feel leaves a lot of pieces kind of exposed anyways. I'll probably try around a bit still, hoping to figure out a few tricks with computers at around 1200 ELO (the ones that I'm slightly worse than evenly matched with), and see where I get. In my mind, I should see tangible improvement, when I reliably start beating it more than once in a while. While I check out some of the Sicilian Defence's Variations, I think I'll look into a play that can branch out from e4, if I'm playing white, just so things don't go stale. Perhaps I might try to go for a Scotch Game, which is e4, e5, d4, xd4, Nf3, Nc6.

I discovered the option to start from a predetermined board position on the chess app that I use on my phone, so I've had a few chances to play the Sicilian again. I've noticed that it's not a counter to the Bull's Head in the way I would have done usually. Usually, I'd just take as many pieces I can that would be required to make the formation feasible. Most often, that should include a knight and a bishop, after which I get to revel in the chaos that makes the game fun for me, but since I used to go directly for the pieces, while trying to be up material, it would put me behind in turns (and not necessarily up material). The Sicilian also doesn't put me up material most of the time, but when we're done disassembling whatever's in the center of the board, I have the queen-side of my board open or expended, usually without even having moved my queen, which is a much better position than having the center of my board opened up, where the king lives.

This has been a fun exercise that kind of tickles the same part of my brain that enjoys playing roguelikes, but perhaps a little bit better even. There's less of the build-up that comes with putting together ones loadout in a roguelike, and somehow I feel like I get to learn more consistently when what I'm doing isn't as contingent on RNG. I've gotten into the habit of playing two games a day against a computer that I beat around 30-40% of the time, playing the Sicilian for at least one of them. I've surprisingly not gotten too bored of it so far, but if I want to use the tools I found to improve, then perhaps I should cap things by weeks. Let's see whether this will develop into a new routine, or whether it will remain something I stick to on my own.