G3: a take on what I despise.

Notice: All players mentioned here are great players!
This blog is written from black's perspective.

My uncensored opinion

Sometimes you want to quickly play a few games, and there happens to be a 1+0 arena. Great, let's join. Oh god, oh no. IntoGloryRide, Zooey, Pebblerye come barging in! And they have the white pieces! Oh no! G3! Kill me already.

I really envy Bertfighter at times. As I write this, his mutual score against these players is:
6 - 4,
38½ - 22½
62 - 8

And here is my mutual score against them:
2 - 5
2 - 3
12 - 15

(head-to-head scores date from August 9, 2023)

What we can conclude here is that I suck with the black pieces against g3 and that there is work to be done. It's my least favorite opening to play against. Both Zooey and IntoGloryRide go into this 'stalling mode' where they seem to wait for you to come out of hiding and here we are with me producing some blunder and they snatch victory away from me. Not to mention that all 3 players are incredibly fast as well and that if I survive the opening and mid-game then there still is the clock that becomes my enemy.

My structured opinion: What to do against g3?

It has been my main topic for philosophy lately. And while my structured opinion is still under construction. I can share my light on the matter. Study link:

Compared to e3 (and many other openings):
E3 needs a theoretical approach. This is because the most common lines are 20 forced moves in a row and we already are in an endgame and from there you can try to deviate from the main line to force some advantage over your opponent. But if it is ChangeOpening playing the white pieces, well... ...better lower your desired achievement to a draw, victory is in most cases a bridge too far.

G3 on the other hand:
The power of G3, and in many instances, also its greatest weakness, lie within the many unclear positions. Many positions in G3 can be continued with 5+ different lines and very quickly it becomes unnecessary to study anymore. Since the same position is unlikely to happen again in the near future. Of course the mentioned players have their preferred lines and you can study their games to counter whatever it is they do. But they can deviate too as soon as they realize their opponent has come prepared. So this would mean a lot of work for only a temporary solution.

What can we conclude from this?
Well, an unclear position means you can start playing your own game! and g3 is unclear as soon as move 1! Just don't reply with e6 and you should be fine.

Examples:

I dubbed this one the g3, mirror opening. I see it most commonly played by white. As you can see there are many viable replies and eval shows something between 0 and +1.

A move later in this opening again: unclear position and a lot of options to choose from. I usually go with g5 here.

This is g3, stockfish line and again we see a lot of options to continue. At depth 38: 5 options with an eval between 0 and +2.

This is the g3, c5 opening, stockfish line. This specific position shows a lot of non stockfish continuations. Tablebase shows Nc3 and Qc2 are played most commonly. Eval shows 4 continuations between 0 and +2.1 (depth 43)

With these examples I want to prove that g3 needs an insightful approach rather than a theoretical one as there are too many different lines and many of those have an unclear continuation.

What to do in the opening?

For this explanation we are going to analyze the mirror opening, stockfish line. As I see this opening most commonly on the board, early in the line actually many people deviate from the stockfish path and as soon as move 7 we don't see any games in the database.

Mirror opening, stockfish line.

There is a good reason why SF prefers Nh6 as a reply to the g3 opening. Current unattended squares in the mirror opening are the best accessible by the knight. On top of that. You create maneuverability for the bishop and rook.

The power of getting knights out of the way early shows. Along with moving the rook, you deny the opponent development in the center. This is something to push for in the opening. As you can create tempo in your own development. This is IMPORTANT in many g3 lines, it is not exclusive to the mirror opening!

As far as the 'mirror opening, stockfish line' goes, you should learn it at least until this move. From here white can come with 5 good continuations. Best move is Qb3, but not easy to calculate as it is followed with a capture sequence.

I recommend studying chapter 4, 5 and 6 to improve your play as black.

My Solution

Since I'm a fan of the a4 opening I might as well mirror my theory to black and play a5 as a reply to g3. A decent reply it seems. It immediately breaks open the position and allows for decent development for black in the center. d3a5, who sadly closed his account, would be proud.

Before we delve into my theory I want to once again state that g3 needs an insightful approach. It is very difficult to teach insight. I would rather have a chessboard between us so I can show it face to face. Insight in antichess, from what I've experienced over 25k games, is built on a handful of mnemonics and simple rules. Break positions down by these rules and you can actually start sorting them in boxes. You will find that many positions need a similar approach on how to continue. sometime in the future I will delve into this with another study & blog.

On the other hand is that bullet tc's need theory and memorization, you can't spent 5 seconds per move with your lovely insight when you are given only 1 minute, duh.

Anyways here is my approach to g3:

This is from g3, a5 stockfish line. eval show various continuations between +2.8 and +3.8 a5 kinda exploits g3's weakness. g3 has too many continuations in the opening to effectively prepare all of them.

And a5 has, within this line. at move 5 and 10 for black 2 moments where he can continue with 5+ options. Many of this lines require white to play very specific obscure moves, which are very difficult to find for the average human being.

Here I show that black again has a lot of options with his 10th move.

This is the g3, a5, a6-lock line. Commonly played. And I really enjoy this as black can push for e6, quickly activating the bishops and queen.

Are there any traps?

Oh I love traps. Therefore I play the Double knight defense and a4 opening. For my a5 reply against g3: the g3, a5, a6-lock line has the same traps as my a4 opening, just now it is from black's perspective. You could consult my a4 study to learn these. I have yet to find traps in the g3 mirror opening and stockfish line.

Conclusion

I mostly highlight my own reply to g3 here, which is a far from excellent reply actually, use the study to prevent my shenanigans from besting you. Another thing I noticed is how few games there are documented in the database for the stockfish line, meaning the community as a whole has room for improvement to play, and counter g3. Important is to understand the coherence between knight, bishop and rook in this opening to limit your opponent's development in the center.