Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Reti Opening: Rare Bird?

I'm making a push to finish my New York 1924 tournament book annotated by Alekhine. This tournament was a showcase for the Reti opening (18 games, 6 of them classed as the "Reti Reversed").

I updated my file of personal games, and it's approaching 6000 games (mostly ICC). I did a quick search, and only 6 games had Nf3, c4 and g3 as the first 3 moves for white. I did a search of my 3.4 million game database and it only came up about 12000 times...so maybe 3x as often as it does for me, but still pretty rare.

I'm curious if other people find this to be a highly rare opening, either online or over the board. I have no interest in playing the opening as white, and don't think I'd recommend it to a beginner, but it seems like it would be a good surprise weapon based on my statistics.

7 comments:

transformation said...

i only have 1,000+ out of 3,900 of my internet games with this opening. :)

Steve in TN said...

On a personal level, my most enjoyable games as White were Retis.

I recently went back to the Catalan and am finding that it is not as pleasing, nor was the London.

likesforests said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
likesforests said...

The Reti shows up in 1% of my games.

likesforests said...

BUT, the Reti often transposes into the KIA or the English. And some of what books consider Reti lines... like Nf3/c4/b3 vs c6/d5 or Nf3/c4/e3 vs e6/d5 would not be discovered by that search, although whether those are formally Reti lines or not I do not know for certain.

Robert Pearson said...

An interesting and slippery subject; I find this exact sequence to be very rare in my games (as Black) but after 1. Nf3 I usually play Nf6. When the game begins 1. Nf3 d5 I think most class players shy away from 2. c4 because they aren't comfortable with either dxc4 or d5 in reply, even though these moves are not especially threatening. As to when it's a "Reti" and when it's an "English" well, after say, 1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 e6 3. g3 we still don't know! People like dk who play this a lot have subtle and devious minds.

Polly said...

wahr: When I play the English I usually play it in the sequence of c4 Nc3 g3. I guess by not playing Nc3 early there is always that possibility that the knight may end out on d2 to start. Depending on the move order I think it can transpose easily.