Hi Sqod, this is a very good idea, this will be very helpful if more stronger players give their DREAM middle game positions (along with further plans) for/against various openings they play in their games.
I would like to give my dream position while playing against the Sicilian dragon. The strongest attacks against the Sicilian dragon tells us to castle queenside but there is a general rule that " only stronger players should castle queenside whereas beginners should castle king side ". The following position of mine involves Kingside castling.
In the above position i have played many moves for white and few key moves of the sicilian dragon (assuming the remaining moves of black may be non-interactive ones).
Few points i consider from this position are
1. Exchange the f4 pawn (by playing f5 or e5 or both)
2. b3 Bishop and the f1 Rook are aiming at the weak f7 pawn
3. Place my queen on d2 and exchange the dark square bishops
4. Will use the fact of the pinned f7 pawn while making a kingside attack
5. If possible(ie if more non-interacting moves are played) i will place both the rooks on g3 and h3 aiding the kingside attack
The above position may not be the best one yet i'll improve my dream position as and when possible.
Here is a small progress report on on an idea I proposed about a year ago on this site (http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/idea-for-opening-books-desired-next-move). I got a little ridicule for the idea at the time, but as I suspected, it seems the idea does have some merit.
My idea is that in the absence of any moves from your opponent that immediately interact with your opening development, there exist default moves that you want to play and should play when you have the opportunity I mentioned. I believe this idea also extends to the middlegame and possibly also to the endgame. This idea was also implied by a passage in John Emm's book on openings, which I quoted below:
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(p. 44)
The 'Ideal' Development
Just for a bit of fun, imagine if White were allowed ten unanswered moves at the
beginning of the game: what would he do? Okay, 1 e4 2 Bc4, 3 Qh5 and 4 Qxf7
mate would be a good answer (!), but say White could only move each piece once
and wasn't allowed to make any direct threats. If you asked this question to some
strong chess players, their answers might different very slightly, but most would put
forward something like this:
1 e4 2 d4 3 Nf3 4 Nc3 5 Bc4 6 O-O 7 Bg5 8 Qe2 9 Rad1 10 Rfe1
Emms, John. 2006. Discovering Chess Openings: Building Opening Skills from Basic Principles. Guildford, CT: The Globe Pequot Press.
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By using an online opening database I found a fairly objective way to find such default moves that is fairly obvious, so this is no major discovery. I need to stress that default moves are valid and usable *only* when there is no immediate interaction with the opponent's units, which means that any threats that require immediate attention have obvious importance that override the use of a mindless default move. "Interaction" also includes pawns meeting head-to-head, as in e4 ...e5, since that will often preclude a default pawn advance such as d4.
The method of determining default moves is fairly mechanical: you just look one move ahead for what would be your next move, for several lines that stem from the opponent's most common replies, then do a little statistical summary to see which move occurs the most frequently. For example, the database shows that the ten most popular responses to 1. e4 are listed below, with my judgment as to whether that response is interacting or non-interacting.
1...c5 {Interacting since it affects the intent to play d4.}
1...e5 {Interacting since it affects the intent to play d4.}
1...e6 {Non-interacting.}
1...c6 {Non-interacting.}
1...d6 {Non-interacting.}
1...d5 {Interacting since each pawn threatens the other.}
1...g6 {Non-interacting.}
1...Nf6 {Interacting since the pawn is threatened.}
1...Nc6 {Non-interacting.}
1...b6 {Non-interacting.}
If we retain only the non-interacting moves and list say the top three responses by White (assuming that many exist), we get:
The pattern is overwhelmingly obvious: By far the most common next move by White when White has enough freedom is 2. d4. This is exactly White's goal and ideal setup, per John Emms' excerpt above. More specifically, if we look at only the most common response, we get the statistics:
2. d4 {Chosen 5/6 times => default move 83% of the time.}
2. Nf3 {Chosen 1/6 time => default move 17% of the time.}
Per my recent repertoire convention, whenever I go to the trouble to determine the default move, I put a note to that effect in with my move tree, which when combined with the opponent's options, looks like this:
This pattern can be repeated until there is insufficient historical information in the database. (You have to come up with your own convention for how much is considered "insufficient.") For example, if we choose the first non-interacting move encountered in the list of responses in the database, which in the above case is 1...e6 or the French Defense, and continue that process for a few steps, this is the result: (* means wildcard--any move)
I've found this method to work far into the middlegame, though the tendency then is for there to be fewer options at each move, therefore there is less data to definitively determine a default move. However, in my experience there usually exist non-interacting move options well into the middlegame.
All told, this technique has these main benefits to me:
(1) It suggests the best move when my opponent plays a non-book move, at least if my opponent plays a non-interacting move. (If it's *not* a non-interacting move, and it's non-book, then it's probably a mistake!)
(2) It often allows me to extend my repertoire one move beyond the end of book, especially if my opponent played a non-interacting move.
(3) It begins to suggest an overall plan. Since opening books badly neglect this consideration, it's a least a start in the right direction of providing more general information about the opening.
(4) It allows me to reduce the size of my repertoire since a default move covers a number of rarely seen non-interacting responses.
(5) It sometimes tells me proper piece placement, especially when a piece requires two moves to place. For example, after White plays Na3, is he aiming for Nc4 or rather Nc2? The default next move sometimes tells me this.
I'm interested in any intelligent feedback on this idea and/or method, whether positive or negative. There are a number of nuances and implications I won't get into, unless I get some feedback.