Forums

The Opening Compass

Sort:
Mugiwara

I was very bored, and the below post is what I made in my free time. Taking inspiration from a political compass, I made this compass which maps chess openings by their style. I'm trying to improve it, and I'm hoping knowledgeable opening players could share their feedback about it. Also, please let me know if I missed any openings, I probably did meh

Below is the Opening Compass, I hope I can start a discussion about it:

Edit: Above is version 2 of the compass

sleepyzenith

this looks goofy

sleepyzenith

in an interesting way tho

2000Knights

As a 800 rated player who does not really know that well on openings, I know what I should do in the openings like pawns in the center, connect roockhs. but I don't know what the best move is to play against the Queen's Gambit, Semi Slav Variation. But how is Italian Game aggressive and tactical? Most beginner players play the Gucci Piano, and then do some dumb trades and then pawn structure is messed around, like this is a typical opening for me in this opening.

PotatoesAndChess

Benoni is very tactical and aggressive

PotatoesAndChess
TheChessKnight2000 wrote:

As a 800 rated player who does not really know that well on openings, I know what I should do in the openings like pawns in the center, connect roockhs. but I don't know what the best move is to play against the Queen's Gambit, Semi Slav Variation. But how is Italian Game aggressive and tactical? Most beginner players play the Gucci Piano, and then do some dumb trades and then pawn structure is messed around, like this is a typical opening for me in this opening.

Because that's the four knights Italian, which is really boring. There are more fun variations in the Italian though.

anikolay

French is in the green corner probably.

PotatoesAndChess

One of my personal favorites is the deutz

Mugiwara
TheChessKnight2000 wrote:

But how is Italian Game aggressive and tactical? Most beginner players play the Gucci Piano, and then do some dumb trades and then pawn structure is messed around, like this is a typical opening for me in this opening.

Hmmm, you're right, although there are more aggressive ways to play the Italian with stuff like an early c3. I think I'll shift it over to the Tactical/Solid Quadrant.

Brooksvillechess

I like how there are barely any solid and tactical openings lol

Nimzowitsch

Can you put the Danish on there?

ThrillerFan
Eternal_Zen wrote:

this looks goofy

Goody is an understatement.

The Dutch is both more aggressive and more tactical than the Grunfeld? PA-LEEZ!

1.d4 f5 2.g3 Nf6 3.Bg2 e6 4.Nf3 d5 5.c4 Bd6 6.O-O c6 7.b3 Qe7. How is this more tactical than the Grunfeld?

GYG

Mugiwara

I took the above four comments and (hopefully) improved the compass. I finally added the Sicilians on there. Since I don't know the first thing about the Sicilian, I had to pull all my data from this blog post. I also added a bunch of new openings to it, like the Petroff, Ragozin, Danish, Traxler, etc. Here's version two:

If anyone wants to try making their own version of this, here's a blank compass:

Anyways, please let me know your thoughts on it now happy

Ilampozhil25

ALL MY OPINION

italian should be inbetween purple and red given that there are lines of both types which are as common as each other

and its weird that scotch gambit is less tactical than scotch so slightly tweak those two up and down

given vienna gambit isnt separate, vienna should go a bit right

nimzo a bit up, maybe 

petroff isnt the corner of green, move it a bit up

and the english should go righter, atleast below the slav

catalan belongs in orange

qg DEFINITELY belongs in orange

alekhine the lower left of red

thoughts? (from all)

then op can update again

badger_song

The Grob is both more aggressive and more tactical than the Danish Gambit...ok. The subway map is great.

Mugiwara
Ilampozhil25 wrote:

ALL MY OPINION

and the english should go righter, atleast below the slav

catalan belongs in orange

qg DEFINITELY belongs in orange

alekhine the lower left of red

Is the English really that aggressive? I always thought of it as a slow quiet opening. The same about the QG, I always thought it was a very solid opening. I will move it right so that it's horizontally between the Catalan and Nimzo. And mainline Alekhines are mostly positionally aggressive rather than tactical. Everything else I agree with, I'll make some changes to the compass, thanks for the help happy

Ilampozhil25

aggressive as in it tries to make black uncomfortable

that is a form of aggression

aggression isnt just attacking the king (thats why orange has any openings at all)

true slow quietness is a mainline london

and for alekhines, ask puffer

Cold_W1nter

Great idea! My only suggestion is not having the Grob on the top right corner, it should be much closer to the center.

Ilampozhil25

its VERY tactical and VERY aggro

it isnt sound however