Check out Symmetric Chess, our featured variant for March, 2024.

Enter Your Reply

The Comment You're Replying To
Gary Gifford wrote on Fri, Apr 21, 2006 08:39 PM UTC:
Mats: You wrote: 'An average player can study the Berlin defense and
become practically invincible.'

If there was such a thing as stand-up comedy for chess, that would be a
great line.  It certainly is not even the least bit true.  Such a premise
is non-sense.  If it were true we'd be seeing plenty of Berlin Chess
Defenses being played.  But we are not seeing that.  And, even if it was
true White could play a first move of one of these: f4, c4, d4, Nf3, or Nc3.... and then
the Berlin cannot even be played.  So, what keeps black 'practically
invincible' in these instances?

You seem to overlook that there is more to chess than understanding an
opening.  Tactics and Strategy are crucial.  Can you solve mate-in-3 and
mate-in-4 problems rapidly in your mind?  I doubt it.  And knowing the
Berlin Opening (or another opening) well will not help you to these ends.

I look forward to seeing your games published in Chess Life where you can
demonstrate that you are nearly invincible with the black pieces.

Edit Form

Comment on the page Castling in Chess 960

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.