Check out Grant Acedrex, our featured variant for April, 2024.

Enter Your Reply

The Comment You're Replying To
M Winther wrote on Wed, Apr 19, 2006 07:45 AM UTC:
Adrian, to unleash their creativity amateurs cannot go on studying openings using a chess database, because then creativity and fun is thwarted. I knew an ambitious amateur (around Elo 2170) who devoted years and years to perfecting his opening repertoire. But, unlike grandmasters, he lacked the capacity to creatively improve the variants, and, by this monotonous activity, he managed to deaden his natural passion for the game. And then it became obvious that he couldn't play those variants because his opponents would prepare against his variations using their own databases. An ambitious amateur cannot afford keeping alternative opening systems, it's too much work involved. On the other hand, amateurs can seldom play small openings systems like Réti, because they lack the capacity to make the most of those small positional advantages that can be utilized in the endgame.

In his upcoming series Kasparov will discuss the 'opening revolution', which had its beginnings in the seventies. For the ambitious amateur, the present development in chess, the advanced level of opening science, is injurious to creativity and phantasy. In Rubinstein's and Lasker's time grandmasters could still play the exchange variation in the French with a good deal of success. But what's the point in feeding 25 moves in the Sicilian Dragon, against another ambitious amateur, and then shake hands since a theoretical drawn position is reached? I see amateurs do this. In orthodox chess you are cooped up in opening lines which you don't really like. You are forced to play against your own nature because there are no good strategical alternatives. Everything else is drawish. This is due to the advancement of opening science. I don't think Fide-chess should vanish, it's just that it's high time that we think about alternatives.

That's why I think that such initiatives like the Circular Chess World Championship are praiseworthy, because it speaks to our phantasy and creativity.

Mats

Edit Form

Comment on the page Castling in Chess 960

Conduct Guidelines
This is a Chess variants website, not a general forum.
Please limit your comments to Chess variants or the operation of this site.
Keep this website a safe space for Chess variant hobbyists of all stripes.
Because we want people to feel comfortable here no matter what their political or religious beliefs might be, we ask you to avoid discussing politics, religion, or other controversial subjects here. No matter how passionately you feel about any of these subjects, just take it someplace else.
Quick Markdown Guide

By default, new comments may be entered as Markdown, simple markup syntax designed to be readable and not look like markup. Comments stored as Markdown will be converted to HTML by Parsedown before displaying them. This follows the Github Flavored Markdown Spec with support for Markdown Extra. For a good overview of Markdown in general, check out the Markdown Guide. Here is a quick comparison of some commonly used Markdown with the rendered result:

Top level header: <H1>

Block quote

Second paragraph in block quote

First Paragraph of response. Italics, bold, and bold italics.

Second Paragraph after blank line. Here is some HTML code mixed in with the Markdown, and here is the same <U>HTML code</U> enclosed by backticks.

Secondary Header: <H2>

  • Unordered list item
  • Second unordered list item
  • New unordered list
    • Nested list item

Third Level header <H3>

  1. An ordered list item.
  2. A second ordered list item with the same number.
  3. A third ordered list item.
Here is some preformatted text.
  This line begins with some indentation.
    This begins with even more indentation.
And this line has no indentation.

Alt text for a graphic image

A definition list
A list of terms, each with one or more definitions following it.
An HTML construct using the tags <DL>, <DT> and <DD>.
A term
Its definition after a colon.
A second definition.
A third definition.
Another term following a blank line
The definition of that term.