So you used to play correspondence? If you feel like resuming that sometime, sign up at ChessWorld, 'cos there I can help you with any problem you might run into. :)

<I almost played the London System with d4 and Bf4, but the urge to fianchetto was too strong.>

Personally, I find the urge well-nigh irresistible, especially as White. In one game at the weekend I varied with b3 instead of g3, but soon found myself trying to get the LSB onto the long diagonal via e2 and f3. At which point I was offered a draw, and accepted.

Which, with apologies, and only to use a loosely translated Hungarianism, I want about as much as splinters in the backside. :p

OK, when playing against 1.d4 as Black (which usually means going into a Ragozin or similar variation, with Kside castling by both sides), I do like a Bishop on b7. But I play 1.e4 - and <against> 1.e4 - far more often.

I like the idea of playing something called the Sodium Attack: G Welling vs S Horvath, 1996

Emus get beamed down to a local 'post office', which provides government employment and pensions for 17,000 stamp-lickers, stamp-licker-managers, and so on. Its contents are transcribed onto vellum by specially trained monks, and sent on a scenic tour of the island by donkey cart.

BTW, I feel the same way about 1.d4, oddly enough. ;)

<... F Carame vs N Getz, 2010 ...>

Oy, that game is just misplayed. 7.b3 is awful. I useta play it that way - and lost most of my French games back then. Then I played it against Tryfon (kingscrusher) once, and he yelped 'what ya wanna play that *for*?', or something along those lines... and I said 'well, I need to activate the DSB, so I have to find another way to protect the b2 pawn, and it's in the OE', and he said 'nonono, don't DO that... play a3 and b4'. So I've started playing it that way, and since then, I've won most of my French games... including the ones against Tryfon. ;)

The b3 attempt at releasing the DSB from the defense of b2 is just bad - it does nothing to stop the pending Bb4+ attack, and the subsequent loss of the d4 pawn <at least> - at worst, castling rights, and the game. :s In this game, by the time White fixes that error, it's simply too late.

<Sodium Attack>

Thinking of moves as insults to one's dignity (or whatever) is a sure way to lose. Think of Karpov-Miles, Skara 1980, 1.e4 a6, laughter in crowd, world champ blushes and feels insulted, world champ goes on to lose.

I don't like 1.d4 either, btw, and certainly not in conjunction with c4 or e4. These are vital pawn levers and need to be held in reserve.

I get that your style seems to be simply to avoid book as much as possible, play as non-committally as possible, and rely on opponents running out of their comfort zones, feeling lost and confused, and cracking under the uncertainty of the position. Not bad, really, but when an opponent <doesn't> react that way - when they can make pretty good use of their time to develop, and can make plans not relying on known formations - then you've just given up both control of space and initiative.

Now, I tend to play in the same "patient" way myself - say, as White, I'll play games that go, for a typical example, 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 d6 4.c3 Nf6 5.d3 Be7 6.Bb3 Bg4 7.Nbd2 O-O 8.h3 Bh5 9.Nf1 a6 10.Ng3 - all development, and preparing for all sorts of potential opportunities later on, and Black generally tends to run out of "preparatory moves" by 9...a6 already. And I still haven't even committed to castling side. Black generally feels that as they're all done "developing", they need to attack already, and the following simplifications often end in my favor. But I think this sort of thing is at least solid, and I'm not giving up too much space for it.

Actually, White can be a handicap in these weekend tournaments, with 90 mins for the game, no time controls, no extensions, no increments. Many White players fall significantly behind on the clock -- either because they're desperately searching for a winning line that doesn't exist, or because the opponent knows the terrain better.

Innaresting psychological footnote: when looking over my scoresheets from the weekend, I saw that I'd transposed the names of the players in two games where I was White. Thinking of myself as Black, at some level, and entering that on my score - though I still made the first move.

My White openings aren't entirely ad hoc. I used to play the English before switching to 1.Nf3, and I know a fair amount of theory in lines such as the Neo-Grunfeld, Fianchetto King's Indian, and various forms of Reti/English. One reason for 1.Nf3 is to defer the decision whether to play d3 or d4 until I see Black's setup.

Then again ... I've seen people who didn't even know what opening they were in ("is that a French?") make very good moves. And I've seen masters blunder.

Collins, for example, has three chapters on 6.a3, two on 6.Be2, and one on everything else.

It's actually the 2nd most common move in that position, ie after 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3 Qb6 ... and now 6.a3 is most popular, with 6.Be2 next. I suspect their positions were reversed until the 1970s/80s - when I were a lad, 6.Be2 was the mainline and 6.a3 had an aura of novelty. Another plausible move for White is 6.Bd3!? - the Milner-Barry Gambit, where White gives away his pawn centre to play at chasing the black Queen. It's dangerous - I once lost to it despite bashing out 20 moves of theory. As a result, I tend to avoid mainlines in the Advance.

There are several ways of doing this. An early ...Nh6 - sometimes with an early ...f6, to attack the pawn chain from the front - is currently fashionable. I've played ...Nh6 a few times, but I have qualms about it. I'm not a DIRP fan, though followers of GM Dirp swear by the Doubled Isolated Rook's Pawns. There's a great collection of Dirp games in this very site. And nobody has actually played Bxh6 against me, yet.

I prefer the Wade variation, pioneered by Bob Wade in the 1960s, discovered languishing in obscure footnotes by me in the 70s, and played sporadically ever since. Black omits ...Nc6 and plays ...Qb6, ...Bd7 and ...Bb5 to exchange LSBs. The only really challenging line is where White replies c4. I've been having a theoretical duel with a certain IM in this line. He's been winning, though I don't blame the opening.

Another anti-Advance system involves omitting or deferring ...c5: eg 3.e5 b6 or 3...Qd7. An old Petrosian line also used by Vaganian.

There's always Bird's Drawing Variation: 1.e4 e6 2.Bb5 Qg5 3.Bf1 Qd8 4.Bb5 Qg5, and repeat as necessary. Though 2...c6 might be troublesome.

<Innaresting psychological footnote: when looking over my scoresheets from the weekend, I saw that I'd transposed the names of the players in two games where I was White. Thinking of myself as Black, at some level, and entering that on my score - though I still made the first move.>

Heh. I've done something similar repeatedly - writing my moves in the Black column. But this gets really confusing here, because of the bloody scoresheets being in Hebrew, and therefore going from right to left, so White's move should go into the right column, and Black's in the left one. Although I still write in English notation (as in "Nf3" etc., not as in English as opposed to Algebraic), as do many others, I notice - and then there's the large group who write theirs in Russian... but, at least once, I realized I was writing my move in the wrong column because of the color mixup you describe, rather than the language-direction mixup. :s

<I have actually played 1.c3 (the Saragossa). Once only. >

Well, if you're going to transpose into d4-style openings later, then it may not be so good, but if I were to start 1.c3, it would be with e4-style transpositions in mind. ;) It's a move I will almost always play, anyway - both in the Italian/Spanish, and in the Sicilian setups. And in the French too, now I think about it. So why not - if I didn't mind handing over the central initiative, that is. :p

<6.Be2 a blunder? Only in the sense that I consider 1.e4 e5 an abomination. It may not be to your *taste*, but it's a regular move.>

Well ok, "inferior" then. Srsly, if you play a3 first, you can start breathing much sooner. ;) Later you may still play Be2 if you really want to, but by then you may have better squares for that B. To move it to a <temporary> square, just so you can castle faster out of the danger that you could *prevent* with a3...? Hmmph.

<Black omits ...Nc6 and plays ...Qb6, ...Bd7 and ...Bb5 to exchange LSBs. The only really challenging line is where White replies c4. I've been having a theoretical duel with a certain IM in this line. He's been winning, though I don't blame the opening.>

[Event "FICS rated blitz game"]
[Date "2011.01.20"]
[White "AnnieK"]
[Black "NN"]
[WhiteElo "1476"]
[BlackElo "1390"]
[TimeControl "600+0"]
[Mode "ICS"]
[Result "1-0"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. c3 d5 4. e5 Nc6 5. d4 cxd4 6. cxd4 Qb6 7. a3 Nge7 8. b4 a5 9. b5 Na7 10. a4 Nf5 11. Qd3 Bd7 12. Be2 Bb4+ 13. Nbd2 O-O 14. O-O Rac8 15. Nb3 Rc3 16. Qd1 Rfc8 17. Bb2 Rc2 18. Rb1 f6 19. exf6 gxf6 20. Nc5 Rxb2 21. Rxb2 Bxc5 22. dxc5 Qxc5 23. Bd3 e5 24. Rc2 Qd6 25. Rxc8+ Nxc8 26. Bxf5 Bxf5 27. Nh4 Be6 28. Qh5 Bf7 29. Qg4+ (Black resigns) 1-0

At the age of 16 or so, a few months after taking up chess, I suddenly found myself the best player in my school. This didn't actually mean much. One game that survives from the period began 1.e4 e6 2.f4 and Black (need you ask) won in about 14 moves. I think the loser is now a Supreme Court Judge.

I didn't actually 'get good' until a coupla years later, when I went to university and played zillions of blitz games against players rated over 2000, scored 6.5/7 in my first rated event, and bounded up to 1980 or so in 3 fast hops ...

Before that, though, I played in a tournament for schoolboys. Some of my opponents were quite good, but I didn't know that. I may have accidentally caused a life change, though -- there were three chessplaying brothers, and both #1 and #3 later got over 2300 and played olympiads. #2, reputed to be just as good, lost a game to me and walked out in disgust. He didn't play much after that ...

My ignorance of openings was total. I'd begun to try the French, but that was it. As white, I played 1.e4 and winged it in the Scotch. But two of my opponents played the Sicilian and I knew nothing at all. Not even that 3.d4 was routine.

I somehow 'worked out', after 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6, that a 'scotch sicilian' with 3.d4 would be 'premature', so I came up with 3.c3. And in the other game, after 2.Nf3 Nc6, I played the logical 3.Bb5. I think I won one and drew the other: I certainly gave up 1.e4 soon after.

Funny thing is, I've never played him or even met him, but I knew his father - a film producer - in the 1980s. It's vaguely dispiriting to buy books by people whose parents you used to know ...

Not to mention schoolboy opponents who become Supreme Court judges. Sigh.