The problems with the london system and caro kann + why they are so hated.

Hello. I've come to discuss and make criticism on why both The London System and Caro Kann defense are poor openings for chess players that aspire to enjoy the game. By examining both openings and how they play we will see that both openings make a bad choice for players who actually want to improve their chess.

Let's start off by looking at how these openings function.The London first started off as a reverse slav, where white would set up his pyramid, take on c5 once blacks bishop had moved, followed by white placing his kings knight either on d4 or e5, going Qh5, then going for a mate. However, when Mason (the founder of the London System) played people who were prepared and knew how to deal with his game. his game would seem to start declining with him starting to trade pieces off and survive the endgame. Doesn't this ring a bell? Look at the modern london system players below master level. You can see them often going for a quick Ne5/h4-h5 against inexperienced players, but when somebody plays correctly with a quick c5 and Qb6, their game seems to quickly collapse as they either have never seen someone play correctly, or they just don't know how to deal with the pressure, which makes them decide to start clearing the board of minor pieces.

Next, ill look at the Caro Kann. The Caro Kann started as (and still is) an attempt for a better French Defense with a way for black to get his bishop out and play c5. The only downside was that black would lose a couple tempos and would often be severely behind in development and even losing if it weren't for his ultra solid slav structure. This opening often strives for an endgame where black hopes to be better. Black also knows that his defense is extremely hard to crack without white giving him major compensation in some way, Which gives black players a false sense of security as it tells him that he doesn't have to worry about what his opponent does and can just play improving moves while waiting for white to overextend. Oftentimes if you do nothing as white, black will follow and just shift pieces around until he finally has something to defend or punish.

In conclusion, if you are a serious chess player who wants to improve and have fun, then you should strive to learn the critical openings and defenses. Rather than treating chess as a party game where you hope for a premature attack.and a quick win/waiting game where you hope they mess up, you should learn how to develop all your pieces to their best spot, how to use all of them in an attack, how to defend, how to counterattack, and how to look for good candidate moves. People tend to avoid the mainlines due to there being too much theory,¨ but in reality, you shouldn't expect your rating level to be complete masters at the game and know more. Nor should you be scared to lose. Losing in the critical openings, especially when you played the best you could, is very important and reviewing those games and learning what you did wrong will significantly improve your chess skill.

Im open to criticism and debate

NOTE: I am NOT calling the caro kann bad, i am simply saying that its often played feebly and gets a bad reputation due to that.

London system, Caro-Kann Defense, and Slav Defense are good openings playable at any level.
Kramnik, Carlsen etc. have played the London System.
Botvinnik, Bronstein, Petrosian, Karpov, Kasparov etc. have played the Caro-Kann.
Botvinnik, Kasparov etc. have played the Slav Defense.

Lasker has played the London System as black, i.e. a tempo down.
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1102115

Who cares which super GM has played the london system? We are talking about your average 1200. They should be learning types of pawn structures, how to fight for the center, and most of all, they should be having fun. Theres 0 fun in the london when black plays correctly.

Those systems are supposed and invented to stop a storm attack hurricane but they failed at high level eventhough you will lose an endgame!!

Dont be so angry puffy

Its good to play alot of openings. And find what works for you. There are no bad openings. Just bad moves. I guess. Or what do you think puffy?

Why would i want to stop my storm attack hurricane?

But there are definitely fun openings and boring openings, openings that limit you as a player and openings that dont, and openings that you can learn from more than others.

Top GMs play anything (and good luck to them!). I think the Caro Kann offers a lot of strategic possibilities - advance, exchange, panov bottvinnik, two knights etc and a variety of centres (IQP, e pawn blocked oblique, reversed KID). Even after ...d5*e4 black has three completely different choices (KN, QN, Bf5). A rich selection. The London looks more like a "system" - whatever Black plays I'll go e3, Nf3, Bf1 to somewhere, 0-0... All very reasonable, but rather dull. 1 d4 d5 2 c4 and a world of possibilities beckons. The Dutch Stonewall, or the Kings Indian Attack have similar (albeit more aggresive) drawbacks to the London - the games begin to all look the same (to a club player...).

The caro kann is nowhere near as annoying and limiting as the london, but there are people that play it agianst everything and have the same followups agianst everything.

560 words to say a couple of nonsensical things are way too many. Sorry for not caring to read them all.

yet you took the time to count all the words :laugh:

Of course I didn't care to do that, either. My browser has a word count addon.

So then what point are you trying to prove by speaking here?

To remind you that you are ten thousand miles away from being a chess authority, so you always make nonsensical posts.

What makes you think that i make nonsensical posts when you wont even read any of them?

why are so many people on this forum obsessed with telling other people what openings they should play? If they want to play the London, let them play the London. If they want to play the Caro-Kann, let them play the Caro-Kann. The last thing we need are a bunch of self-appointed "opening monitors."

Initial position - minute 10:30, the position I'm talking about - 13:53 - 17:50.

I prefer White. If my opponent defends that, hats off - he's the better player and the better person.

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Carlsen - Ding

London System - King's Indian Defense

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=2004686

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are you mad because your ruy lopez and italian doesn't work? 😄