04 Jun '11 18:56>
I haven't played 'over the board' for about 15 years, but I did play a fair bit for a couple of years. I was entering my games into a database and saw that my record with Black was better than with White.
So I broke it down by opening and discovered to my shock that my win rate with the Caro-Kann was over 90%!
I usually played c5 or e5 against 1.e4, but sometimes I'd be down to play a league match and just wasn't in the right frame of mind or was tired or something and so I'd turn up and play with the intent not to lose - as not turning up would lose by default and I couldn't do that to the other guys. Half a point is better than zero.
So I'd play the Caro-Kann against 1.e4 and won almost every time.
The grades of my opponents were similar to those I normally played, so it wasn't me outgrading them every time. And now I think back to those games a few of them stand out as I recall noticing my opponent was really annoyed. One in particular went into a fury and kept slamming the pieces onto the board on his move, despite several warnings.
I now realise it was outrage that I'd played the Caro-Kann! How dare I play such a boring opening against them! Obviously I needed to be crushed and so they'd play in a fury and self-destruct.
There isn't really a point to this post - just an interesting observation.
So I broke it down by opening and discovered to my shock that my win rate with the Caro-Kann was over 90%!
I usually played c5 or e5 against 1.e4, but sometimes I'd be down to play a league match and just wasn't in the right frame of mind or was tired or something and so I'd turn up and play with the intent not to lose - as not turning up would lose by default and I couldn't do that to the other guys. Half a point is better than zero.
So I'd play the Caro-Kann against 1.e4 and won almost every time.
The grades of my opponents were similar to those I normally played, so it wasn't me outgrading them every time. And now I think back to those games a few of them stand out as I recall noticing my opponent was really annoyed. One in particular went into a fury and kept slamming the pieces onto the board on his move, despite several warnings.
I now realise it was outrage that I'd played the Caro-Kann! How dare I play such a boring opening against them! Obviously I needed to be crushed and so they'd play in a fury and self-destruct.
There isn't really a point to this post - just an interesting observation.