7 ms·
A slight nitpick with the article - `p/q2-q4` (more commonly written as "1. d4" in modern times) is not the Closed Game, it's just the first move of it. There a
by apetresc 7y ago
A slight nitpick with the article - `p/q2-q4` (more commonly written as "1. d4" in modern times) is not the Closed Game, it's just the first move of it. There are many, many other lines after 1. d4 besides just 1. ..d5, most of them quite open!
- CrazyStat 7y agoIt is the beginning of the closed game, which is what the article says. Seems like a vacuous nitpick.
- throw7 7y agoIs it? I mean, I'm not a chess expert, but can we actually call a chess game open or closed from only the first move?
- CrazyStat 7y ago1.d4 d5 is called the Closed Game. It's the name of the opening, just like the Ruy Lopez or the Benko Gambit.
- throw7 7y agooh, today i learned there are opening moves called the "Open Game" and the "Closed Game" and there are also "open" and "closed" games in chess.
- umanwizard 7y agoI am not a strong player, so I could be wrong, but my understanding is that 1. d4 d5 games tend to be more closed than 1. e4 e5 games, because it's less easy for the center pawns to get taken (because they are defended by the queens). If any stronger player wants to comment, I'd be interested to know whether this is indeed the main reason 1. d4 d5 games tend to lead to more closed positions.
- apetresc 7y agoUh, okay, technically true, touché. But it's "the beginning" of roughly 50% of all chess games ever played. It seems very strange to call out one particular line it _might_ end up being the beginning of. It's also "the beginning" of game 2 of the 1929 Bogoljubov-Alekhine world championship match, among millions of others, after all.
- floatingatoll 7y agoUsing one potential endpoint as the point of reference to anchor to is a classically human thing to do. It doesn’t particularly matter that they chose Closed or Bogol-Alek. It just matters that they conveyed their thought to others with enough accuracy to get the point across. Asking the question “why did they think of Closed first and not, for example, Bogol-Alek?” is to ask why someone sees a porcupine in a Rorschach blot. Everyone’s mind has different memory anchors, and they are not produced reliably or with regard for logic and reason. It still worked, though :)
- EForEndeavour 7y agoPedantry might as well be correct: calling q2-q4 "the beginning of a closed game" hides the fact that it's also the beginning of many other validated openings: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chess_Opening_Theory/1._d4 https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Chess_Opening_Theory/1._d4 Advancing the queen's pawn 2 squares is a very common first move in chess at all levels. It's disingenuous to call this the beginning of any one of the specific possible openings in the above list.
- CrazyStat 7y agoAnd calling "It was the best of times" the beginning of a famous Dickens quote hides the fact that it's also the beginning of many other valid English sentences, I suppose. There is nothing incorrect about the article's statement.
- EForEndeavour 7y agoContext is everything, and I think your example only highlights how unhelpful it is to specify that q2-q4 is the beginning of the closed game. I think most English speakers would agree that Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities is a notable outlier of what is expected after "It was the best of times." That's the exact work of literature that popularized the phrase. By contrast, mention q2-q4 to any "chess speaker" and they won't be specifically prompted to think of the closed game at all.
- CrazyStat 7y agoYeah that's bullshit. If you tell a chess player 1.d4 then d5 is going to be one of the first things that comes to mind. Even if they prefer a different response, like Nf6, d5 is certainly going to be prompted.
- newen 7y agoNot if you play chess. 1. d4 is played probably more than half the time in professional games. It can lead to lots of different openings, closed and open (but not at the same time).
- umanwizard 7y agoReally? I though 1. e4 was more common. TIL!
- CrazyStat 7y agoe4 is more common. d4 is second.
- bionsystem 7y ago> (but not at the same time) Nice reference.
- MadWombat 7y agoClosed game is 1. d4 d5. There are quite a few opening lines that start with 1. d4, but do not continue into the closed game.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]