The Problem with The Black Pieces
A while back Reassembler wrote a post detailing the problems with building a repertoire for White. Now I will explain some of the problems we run into when building a repertoire for Black.
In the opening Black is fighting primarily for equality. Black prepares responses to White's ideas and in most lines it is ultimately Black who decides the flavor of the position. As Black we do not have to prepare as many variations, we just have to prepare a few very well.
Take for instance the Sicilian. When White plays e4 we will play c5. What are White's options? Aside from the Open Sicilian, White only has a handful of choices, and all of them require very little theoretical knowledge for both sides. White can fianchetto his kingside bishop and play the Closed Sicilian, he can play the c3 Sicilian, he can play the Smith-Morra, he can play the Grand Prix Attack, or he can play ideas with Bb5. Now if you are Black you need one line against each of these (I will mention here that you can eliminate preparation against the Smith-Morra completely by playing 1 e4 c5 2 d4 cd 3 c3 Nf6!? which pretty much forces 4 e5 Nd5 which is a known position in the c3 Sicilian). So including the Open Sicilian (and excluding the Smith-Morra) we have to be prepared to play against only 5 lines when we play against e4.
Black gets to choose his specific variation of the Sicilian, and this is where Black's real work comes into play. In any particular variation of the Open Sicilian there are probably two or three really good White tries, so we learn those. Except that a lot of books recommending openings discount these or mention the best tries very briefly (this is the advantage of having survey books that analyze both sides of a position rather than repertoire books recommending one side of a position). So it may take a long time to actually find the best tries for White. Here's where things get really tricky. The best tries for White continue to maintain a slight advantage well into the middlegame, meaning that for you to play such a variation you have to be making the best move in a worse position for 20-30 moves until your opponent slips and you can equalize. But the longer you go in this worse position the greater the chance that you will not be able to win at all, but rather will have to equalize by forcing a drawn endgame and ending the game (this is what happened last night in my game which prompted this post).
Let's talk about last night for a little bit, not the game, just the opening. We played my pet line the Accelerated Dragon, there are two main White tries, he chose the Maroczy Bind. Basically White gets a space advantage and tries to deny Black any active plan, the drawback of this line for White is that even if he succeeds it is very hard to win. If you're Black in this line you have to patiently create play, there are several plans at your disposal, but you are lacking space and the pressure is always there. For an active player like me this is a little uncomfortable however I have studied the opening enough to know that the activity is there if you are patient. But it is clear, especially after looking at the line in more detail last night, that White can practically force a favorable endgame, even if he can't win. So basically if you want to play this line as Black you might have to play a cramped position for the whole game and then try to equalize in the endgame which will almost certainly result in a draw. That's not fun at all.
Here's the point: I have played the Accelerated Dragon against e4 for almost 10 years. Everyone knows I play it, everyone knows I would rather play White's other main try than the Maroczy. And if I do play against the Maroczy, I have to accept this shitty position that could just fizzle out before I even get a shot in. So what are my options?
There are options within the Maroczy which may provide me with a more complicated game and this may be where I should look, but what about when my opponents find the best try against those? The line I played last night is the most highly respected try against the Maroczy (I talked about it in an earlier post) and it leads almost by force to a slightly favorable endgame for White. I am confident that I can draw this endgame, but I don't know that I'll ever be able to score a point.
So I'm stuck. In order to avoid the Maroczy I would have to learn a new Sicilian or (even worse) a new response to e4. So now instead of my original 5 lines against e4, which is what I enjoyed about being Black in the opening, I will have to prepare several additional lines against e4. It is true that I was planning on unveiling a couple new lines against e4 anyways, but I shouldn't have to.
This is the misery of building a repertoire for Black, I enjoy all the positions except for one and it makes me want to change my first move and start all over again.
In the opening Black is fighting primarily for equality. Black prepares responses to White's ideas and in most lines it is ultimately Black who decides the flavor of the position. As Black we do not have to prepare as many variations, we just have to prepare a few very well.
Take for instance the Sicilian. When White plays e4 we will play c5. What are White's options? Aside from the Open Sicilian, White only has a handful of choices, and all of them require very little theoretical knowledge for both sides. White can fianchetto his kingside bishop and play the Closed Sicilian, he can play the c3 Sicilian, he can play the Smith-Morra, he can play the Grand Prix Attack, or he can play ideas with Bb5. Now if you are Black you need one line against each of these (I will mention here that you can eliminate preparation against the Smith-Morra completely by playing 1 e4 c5 2 d4 cd 3 c3 Nf6!? which pretty much forces 4 e5 Nd5 which is a known position in the c3 Sicilian). So including the Open Sicilian (and excluding the Smith-Morra) we have to be prepared to play against only 5 lines when we play against e4.
Black gets to choose his specific variation of the Sicilian, and this is where Black's real work comes into play. In any particular variation of the Open Sicilian there are probably two or three really good White tries, so we learn those. Except that a lot of books recommending openings discount these or mention the best tries very briefly (this is the advantage of having survey books that analyze both sides of a position rather than repertoire books recommending one side of a position). So it may take a long time to actually find the best tries for White. Here's where things get really tricky. The best tries for White continue to maintain a slight advantage well into the middlegame, meaning that for you to play such a variation you have to be making the best move in a worse position for 20-30 moves until your opponent slips and you can equalize. But the longer you go in this worse position the greater the chance that you will not be able to win at all, but rather will have to equalize by forcing a drawn endgame and ending the game (this is what happened last night in my game which prompted this post).
Let's talk about last night for a little bit, not the game, just the opening. We played my pet line the Accelerated Dragon, there are two main White tries, he chose the Maroczy Bind. Basically White gets a space advantage and tries to deny Black any active plan, the drawback of this line for White is that even if he succeeds it is very hard to win. If you're Black in this line you have to patiently create play, there are several plans at your disposal, but you are lacking space and the pressure is always there. For an active player like me this is a little uncomfortable however I have studied the opening enough to know that the activity is there if you are patient. But it is clear, especially after looking at the line in more detail last night, that White can practically force a favorable endgame, even if he can't win. So basically if you want to play this line as Black you might have to play a cramped position for the whole game and then try to equalize in the endgame which will almost certainly result in a draw. That's not fun at all.
Here's the point: I have played the Accelerated Dragon against e4 for almost 10 years. Everyone knows I play it, everyone knows I would rather play White's other main try than the Maroczy. And if I do play against the Maroczy, I have to accept this shitty position that could just fizzle out before I even get a shot in. So what are my options?
There are options within the Maroczy which may provide me with a more complicated game and this may be where I should look, but what about when my opponents find the best try against those? The line I played last night is the most highly respected try against the Maroczy (I talked about it in an earlier post) and it leads almost by force to a slightly favorable endgame for White. I am confident that I can draw this endgame, but I don't know that I'll ever be able to score a point.
So I'm stuck. In order to avoid the Maroczy I would have to learn a new Sicilian or (even worse) a new response to e4. So now instead of my original 5 lines against e4, which is what I enjoyed about being Black in the opening, I will have to prepare several additional lines against e4. It is true that I was planning on unveiling a couple new lines against e4 anyways, but I shouldn't have to.
This is the misery of building a repertoire for Black, I enjoy all the positions except for one and it makes me want to change my first move and start all over again.
But White can pick such a line against almost any Black opening. I have a book by Pinski in which he comments on one diagram: "What can I tell you? If you are playing the black pieces, sometimes you have to suffer like this." :)