Defensive opening

@OctoPinky said in #15:
> That's the feeling I got with Sicilian: it is defensive/passive in the sense that you are usually going to have to defend just from the start, but I would call this the opposite of "solid", as it is quite fragile.

It's imbalanced and double-edged. But yeah, black gives away some tempi on development (c5 doesn't help develop anything, an early a6 doesn't help develop anything) so white can typically start with an initiative and black starts out on the defensive.

But again, it's a question of whether "defensive" means that you're giving the opponent an easy opportunity to launch an attack because you think you can defend it successfully, or whether it means not giving them the opportunity at all by trying to stay on an even footing in terms of centre and development for as long as possible.

how many qualitiers about the resulting positions of early move decision that get names, are there.

about the nature of the many continations that those positions (which in which branch what carry the same name prefix) still contain as possible futures, to make plans, imagine or apply previously known ones, or else...

open, closed, aggressive, one of the defensive meanings, solid, entreprising, non-entreprising, tactical, sharp, trappy, sound.

passive? others. now can we reduce to a minimum number, better yet, make Venn diagrams of all of them.. and make some survey, say all the participants here. being honest about which Venn potatoe they would have 2 words intersect or be different, given the ensemble of words.

these might have to be natural language too, for more informatoin and interactions..

raw survey of how subjective words can be, with hidden variables of the chess board at first. then we might use names of lines and FENS of positoin to start agreeing on better Venn diagrams. we might need to always talk in parallel about such words, as they don't make much communicative sense, in my opinion.. steam language implies rambling if wanting to be specific about a mutildimension problem. many things are in any given position. even more near the intial position..

I would love to see some progress in language.

@RamblinDave said in #21:
> or whether it means not giving them the opportunity at all by trying to stay on an even footing in terms of centre and development for as long as possible.

In that case, what an "attacking opening" would be?

@drSabrotna said in #5:
> How do you want to play?
> Solid, with fire? Or bring the entire hordes of hell?
> Use risky lesser seen gambits and openings?
>
> Solid:: slav and caro. Petrov and QGD mainlines or QID
> Middle:: Taimanov or Kan or Kalashnikov or French and QGD Tartakower (also solid)
> Sicilian Dragon or Sveshnikov and Grunfeld or KID or Nimzo or Semi Slav or Dutch
>
> More risky:: Scandinavian, Pirc, Black Lion, Old Indian, Benoni/Benko, Latvian, English Rat, Budapest, Albin, Englund

Scandinavian is not risky. It is a tool employed to have a solid, safe, equal and sometimes drawish position.

@OctoPinky said in #19:
> I was thinking of Scheveningen, but most of them, except (maybe) Sveshnikov, allow White to start an early attack.

Try four knights Sicilian(e4 c5 nf3 e6 d4 cxd4 nxd4 nf6 nc3 nc6). There are almost no ways to attack for white.