I used to play this years back. I’ve played mostly QP openings since but I’m thinking to going back to this. I’ve checked this video to help me out.
jacklemoine.com/2010/04/guioco-piano.html
Tartakover’s Book on 500 Games gives this opening extensive coverage, too. I would appreciate people’s thoughts on this.
That book was published in about 1938. The GP, if your opponent lets you play it, has a reputation for being drawish. It might be good for crossing someone up who is expecting the Ruy Lopez, I suppose.
Hey Mike, how about making the uscf ID numbers to the right clickable?
The problem is that it’s been analyzed to death. There is very little chance of finding anything new, and if Black knows what he’s doing White will have no chance of an opening advantage. At the amateur level (up to about 1700, say), it’s still worth a try.
I don’t think GM Kudrin plays it for a draw. Even in chess openings: What is old becomes new again.
All the best, Joe
Only if it is a member wanting to click that.
I remember that Power Chess '95 and '98 recommended it as an opening. Its commentary said it recommends it because it can lead to either extremely quiet positional play or fast attack. An example of this is that one can go Pianissimo or Evans Gambit among others.
But among other limitations (and I only have limited experience here) is that it seems like many-if-not-most scholastic games either go Spanish or Italian. Not just analyzed to death, but some might say played to death… 
I wouldn’t be one of them, as I enjoy playing it very much. 
Perhaps the question might be, if you’re considering going Italian then why not play the Spanish? Answer that and you’ll know, despite the Giuoco’s drawish reputation. However, one might also wonder why one wouldn’t lead Scotch Game or Three Knights if one wants either a fast open position or quiet positional potential.
The basic reason the Scotch and the sharp lines of the Giuoco went out of fashion was that if you don’t land a knockout blow quickly (and you shouldn’t if Black knows what he’s doing), the open position will make it hard to avoid simplification. The slow lines of the Giuoco still have some cachet with players who aren’t looking for any particular opening advantage but are content to fight it out in the middlegame. Objectively the Lopez is stronger, but some people, especially at the amateur level, don’t want to meet “specialty” variations that Black may have studied closely, even if they aren’t entirely sound. There really isn’t any answer to this kind of question; it’s a matter of taste.
The Giuoco Piano is toothless.
Despite its name, the Giuoco Pianissimo is more critical: see the Karpov-Korchnoi 1978 games, for example. Marin has a good chapter on it…
Like I said, tell that to Kudrin!
All the best, Joe
I am sure that Kudrin could squeeze most of us in the 7.Bd2 modern line, but there are a lot of positions he could do that from. Black gets a fully equal game with zero weaknesses.
A couple years ago, I ran into someone at Ennui Café studying the Möller Attack via the Soltis book: we were looking at the positions after Portisch’s 13…h6, rather gruesome.
It seems to me this is where openings books always stop. But if both sides know the line, then this is just the beginning. If you look at the position, there can only be a few reasonable plans for white. I’m surprised there is less information on what the next few moves should be. Of course, books have to stop somewhere, but with so few moves available…
qualitychess.co.uk/products/ … ail_marin/ is very good on the analysis of the position after 19…g6
Kudrin doesn’t play it that way. He likes the Pianissimo setups with d3, c3, and Bb3. You get what amounts to a restrained Lopez position while avoiding some of the annoying (if semi-sound) sharp replies to the Lopez. If you want information on those long lines of the Moeller Attack, you really have to look at correspondence games. That’s the only place the line is seriously deated any more.
I tried C/Ping the move text to ChessBase, and it left out all the comments/variations/NAGs, but if you put a dummy PGN header in front of the material all the analysis shows up. I think CB didn’t recognize it as “true” PGN without the headers… So, for any others out there:
Yes, to copy/paste in a Chessbase window you must have just the moves (though CB is fairly tolerant of format), no notes that can be read as moves. You can get around this by making a text file with PGN headers, but if you just want the game (say, to do a “search board position”), it’s usually faster just to re-enter it by hand.