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My preference when playing White generally tends toward a fairly straightforward Réti opening (a variation on the classical Zukertort opening), developing, as game progress warrants, into a fianchetto along the Barcza system. While this frequently results in the almost immediate loss of White's QBP, the center is well protected, and White is able quickly to Castle on the King side, leading to a Middle Game in which White's Cardinal Pieces have numerous multiply-reinforced attack options throughout the center, particularly along diagonals. The Knights are critical to this gambit, and should not be left vulnerable untill well into the Middle Game, at which point an intentional sacrifice of a Knight typically allows a deep thrust into Black's inner defence by a Rook supported by both White Bishops, the White Queen, the remaining White Knight, and one or two White Pawns.



And I'm gonna hazard a guess this thread does not develop much of a "Life of its own" ... could be wrong. We'll see.

You're both leagues ahead of me, who followed Fischer Spasky and never tuned in again, but I wish you luck on a nice long thread.

Reti's a hypermodern opening, right? I don't really know that opening - as white when it comes to flank openings, I'm partial to English - which seems like Reti a bit, what with the c-pawn push. I'm still experimenting with how to use the opening, but the two have a pretty good shot at transposing into one another, given black's fianchetto and castling short, which seems to happen all the time in games where I open with English. If they happen to castle long, which is also an opportunity, it turns into a pawnstorm game pretty readily, where white rams the b-pawn down his opponent's throat. The downside to English, I've found, is that players unfamiliar with the lines tend to simply copy moves, down to the kingside fianchetto and castle. This leads to uncomfortable situations where white has a tempo over black, but there's no real positional weakness that can be readily exploited - and an extremely tight closed game usually ensues. I'm not a fan of closed games, personally.

I'll have to check out Reti's Opening in more detail.

That's only when I feel like being a pain. Usually I'm more traditionalist, opting for basic Ruy Lopez lines. I won't go into detail there unless someone asks me to, because I bet you know 'em already if you know serious Reti lines.

No, this thread is doomed to die. Probably soon.

I'm an avid chess player. Having said that, I know little about opening theory (or other), and, sorry, but quite frankly, find such discussions quite boring. I play just for fun, relax to take my mind off other things, and muddle my way through.

What you're proposing is a fine idea, but it'll never fly on a forum like this. I'm betting you won't find enough sustaining interest.

The site on which I play (Stan's Netchess) hosts graphical correspondence style chess, and, as such, you think that there would be oodles of discussion on various aspects of the game. Yes, there is some, but generally the mood is fairly apathetic. Most just come to play the games.

I wish you well.......

Réti indeed is classed a "hypermodern" opening, though at root it perhaps can be seen to be something of a variant of the traditional English opening. I don't mind a "closed" game a bit ... many opponents will blunder, allowing a feint to draw them out and essentially leave them vulnerable to multi-pronged attack, albeit typically at the expense of an intentional sacrifice or two of one's own pieces, exchanging them for position and access to attack avenues. I'm not a fan of the Ruy-Lopez at all, as you mention, it can result in a game degenerating into a pawnstorm, but that aside, it is not particulary effective against adroit deployment of Knights and to a lesser extent Bishops - vulnerability to simultaneous oblique and diagonal attacks are the weakpoint of Ruy-Lopez, IMO.


And, truth be told, I'm no chess theorician, nor am I really all that strong a player - but I do enjoy the game. I've done some reading, and a little study, but nowhere near as much as have the folks who regularly humble me at the board.

Being humbled OTB is half the fun.

I play on an online correspondance chess website called www.gameknot.com - I'd recommend signing up, it's really a good venue. If you sign up, tell me your account name, we'll play at some point. my name's ApocalypseKnight.

Yah, well, the point of this would be to give others pointers. I know the jargon gets ridiculous at a certain point.