classical vs. hyper-modern openings

which do you perfer?? 

im just curious 

i mean like a standard QGD or a kings indian defence

Hypermodernism is a school of chess thought which advocates controlling the centre of the board with distant pieces rather than with pawns, thus inviting the opponent to occupy the centre with pawns which can then become objects of attack.

Now do you know what hypermodern or hypermodernism is??

It may be totally coincidental, but since deciding to play the Reti as white and the Modern as black, my rating on chess.com improved quite a bit.

The advice I would give others is that classical openings are probably better for less experienced players and they can add hypermodern openings later when they get better at positional subtleties.

Rich you´ve played for 4 years and your rating is still only 1600, don't be a jackass you aren't exactly gods gift to chess either.

I'm not the going of on strangers just because they try to be helpfull, you are.

And seeing as how I haven't played a year yet, while you have played for 4 years, my performance so far is alot better than yours.

140 rating more in 3,5years less, suck on it.

With that said, I know I'm not good, actually I'm terrible at chess, but so are you Rich and you really could use a more humble attitude.

I think what also matters in chess is maturity, you have to grow up in your "chess life", get some experience with how to deal with chess and how to look at it.

What I want to say, Rich, is that although your rating is higher than Duffer's, person's "chess maturity" is more important than his rating here in the forums (unless we're analyzing positions or techniques). No need to say "your experience with chess doesn't matter, because you have lower rating than me".

To not be a troll: I don't feel comfortable with fianchettos, but I do play Nimzo-Indian defense. I'd say I like classical openings more, controling the center with pawns.

I know I stink at chess, and my rating is higer than yours... so you must really stink 

I like the classical, but the modern is real chess. Chess is more than tactics.

Hypermodern openings were developed in the 1920s yes, to respond to the situation when most games were opened with 1.d4 and most ended in draws. Some hypermodern openings may be crap but still they are interesting crap. Personally I like the KID and the Pirc as Black, but as White I stick to the old fashioned 1.e4.

I don't think classical openings necessarily mean tactical games. I enjoy closed positions and I play 1.d4 as white, French and Caro-kann as black, which are all classical openings, I think.

The two hypermodern openings I play are 1.Nf3 and Nimzo-Indian, but they don't seem to result in typical hypermodern positions. What I mean by this is that I have pawns in the center in both of these openings.

I think Paranoid-Android has a good point. Certainly the Ruy Lopez (Spanish) is as classical as one can get, but it's hardly a "non-positional" opening. I think the definition given above states pretty clearly the difference; both styles fight for central control, they just do it differently.

A free piece of advice to folks who think responding to a misbehaving teenager is a good idea: When immature kids act out to get attention, the best response is to simply ignore them. Rich's jerky comment in response to my post doesn't merit a response from anyone. If he's ignored, he'll lose interest quickly and go set fire to someone else's garage.

If someone needs to feel better about himself by clucking about having a higer rating than me, I'm sure how pathetic he is is obvious to everyone.

thanks tony 

 As a public school music teacher, I find time before school and during lunch to play with the kids. Whatever happened to king-pawn openings? Has 1. e4 e5 fallen out of fashion. The horror.  I miss those days.

When I'm just a little sleepy, I can fall prey to one of their little hyper-modern traps! It's just a game to them, after all.

Does anyone else think this? There may have once been a debate about which type of opening was "best," which has been answered with the conclusion that both are good. But that hardly makes the terms meaningless. Do modern GMs find no meaningful distinctions that are worth discussing between openings like the KID and Gruenfeld versus openings like the QGD and Semi-Slav?

I agree with tonydal. It doesn't matter that much anymore if you choose hypermodern or classical opening, you play both type of openings with the same, today's modern knowledge. It was different when hypedmodern openings were something new in chess, because they were created along with new, hypermodern principles. Today these principles are pretty much standard thing to learn.

Not sure about modern GMs (I doubt it) but it seems to me that both terms are too broad to lend themselves to much productive discussion. "Classical" may in this context be used to refer to something as tactical as the King's Gambit or as positional as the Queen's Gambit, openings that might be considered almost antithetical. "Hypermodern" also includes very different things, eg the Gruenfeld is a widely accepted opening at top levels while St. George's Defence is not.

If GMs play some hypermodern openings and don't play the rest of them, it usually just means that those, that aren't played, create some weaknesses that are too big for GM games. All hypermodern openings still follow the same principles, but the quality of some isn't good enough for GMs.

Caro-Kann is one of the classical openings historically, but it doesn't push any pawns in center squares, it controls the center with c6 and e6, and so does Nimzo-Indian (e6), which is hypermodern opening. The difference may be that Nimzo does have fianchetto, but it's usually a late one when center is already more or less controlled by other black pieces, the fianchetto in Nimzo is more of a developing the problematic bishop than controlling the center. Caro kann seems to be somewhere between classical and hypermodern openings.

Any experienced Caro-Kann player agrees with this? NM Penguin?

I don't know the Nimzo well but I think the Black will frequently play d5 and / or c5 at some point. I am pretty sure that in the King's Indian you will usually play e5 if you can, or if not then c5. And of course the Gruenfeld has d5, usually followed by c5 pretty soon. Most good 'hypermodern' openings involve some pawn pushing in or near the center at some stage.