Open-2-Win: Are Popular Chess Openings Really Better?

Overview

Objectives/Goals The objective of this experiment was to test what effect popularity would have on the results of real-world games, as popularity is an indirect factor in an opening's success. Methods/Materials I used a device with access to the Internet such as an I-Pad or a laptop to go to the chess.com database. Then, using database information collected by the database over thousands of master games, I wrote down the statistics and compared them with the popularity of the opening and types of openings. Results I found that usually the popular openings were usually better for the side initiating them though usually white dominated due to him having the first move. This agreed with my hypothesis overall predicting that popular openings for a side would have better results for it-why would it be played? Conclusions/Discussion This project shows us how usually if an opening is studied, there will be new lines opened up, etc., and how people play openings for hopeful future profit from them. I concluded that popularity indirectly influences openings to be better for the initiating side. This project can help people clarify which openings they would probably want to pick, providing an overall view of the several most played openings on the spectrum. More studies can be done to determine relations between other factors and success rates, such as king safety, etc.

Competition history

• CSEF 2017 Mathematical Sciences · Entry J1509

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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