Category Archives: Class G (all levels)

Are you sitting comfortably? Coaching sessions for 2009

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I’ll soon fix that…

First, we discussed some statements from Jonathan Rowson (

Chess for
Zebras

), who very nearly said:

Chess
is more a game of skill than
a game of knowledge.

He did indeed say:

Improvement
begins at the edge of your
comfort zone” (p.14)

[

Vygotsky

!
shouted Ish.]

“If you want to get better at chess you
need to place much less emphasis on ‘study’ whereby you increase your
knowledge of positions, and place more emphasis on ‘training,’ whereby
you try to solve problems, play practice games, or perhaps try to beat
a strong computer program from an advantageous position.” (p.25).

“Chess skill emerges from chess playing
combined with chess training, where ‘training’ means working things out
by yourself.nbsp; The main skill a chess-player needs is skill in
making decisions, so that’s what you need to do and do
repeatedly. 

If you want to
become a better player, you need better habits, and you cultivate
better habits through training.  The best training is the kind
that pushes you up against the edges of your comfort zone, where you
force yourself to take responsibility for difficult decisions. 
It is so much easier to read books that give strategic guidelines,
hints and tips, etc., but what you need is ‘know how’ and that means
learning by doing.” (p.29)

“…

The
main function of chess trainers should be to guide the training of
their students, rather than to teach them directly.  The best
thing you can do for a student is to select interesting positions for
them and analyse them carefully so you can see the kinds of things that
the student is missing.  The trouble with this approach is
prosaic, but real.  Chess tutors are normally paid by the hour,
and this tends to make you think that you should be showing the
students certain things, imparting knowledge, giving hints and tips,
etc.  This is understandable, but much more useful, I think, is to
give the student difficult positions to solve, to be there in a
supportive role as they solve them, and then carefully consider what
the student missed and why.” (p.66)

We also did a little exercise, under review (watch this space),
designed to find your discomfort zone, by giving a grid of
progressively harder positions to solve.  I soon discovered that
while there are 4798 puzzle books on Tactics, there are only 3 puzzle
books I’ve seen on strategy
and a few more that are mixed in approach, and bugger all on the
opening.

But mainly we tried to identify some things to work on.  So,
name three things you do well, three things you don’t do so well…

GOOD

BAD

PRACTICAL PLAY

 – Keeping up pressure in position

 – Going for simplest winning continuation

 – Limiting enemy counterplay

 – Playing moves that will annoy my opponent

PRACTICAL PLAY

 – Using all of my time available

 – Keeping mobility

 * Piece chemistry/coordination

 * Making practice (at club and at home) really helpful
in terms
of improvement

OPENINGS

 – Open positions/tactics in the opening

 – When I have the centre

 – Black is OK!

 – Gambit openings (e.g. Danish)

OPENING

 – Too narrow an opening repertoire

* Sicilian (one who plays for, one against!)

ATTACKING

 – Sacrifices to get a position with advantage

 – Spotting possibilities for tactical combinations

 – Attacking positions

* TACTICS

 – Calculating all the tactics out (relying too much on
intuition
i.e. Laziness)

 – I’m not good at spotting opponents’ tactical sequences
well in
advance (too many surprises for me OTB)

 * Attacking chess where simplification is not the best
option

 – Defending

 – Complicated games where no pieces have been taken on
the board

 – When you have to defend something and stop your attack

STRATEGY

 – Spotting my opponent’s weaknesses

 – I’m OK with closed positions

STRATEGY

 – Formulating strong/sophisticated plans in
closed/tactical

ositions

 – Strategy: pawn structures and the like
[

http://exeterchessclub.org.uk/content/pawn-formations

http://exeterchessclub.org.uk/content/pawn-mobility


http://exeterchessclub.org.uk/content/whos-afraid-big-bad-minority-attack]

– Endgame

ENDGAME

 – I know very little about principles of endgame play
[

http://exeterchessclub.org.uk/content/general-advice-endgame

]

DR comments:

As this is the third time I think I’ve tried to kick us off in this
way, you may well want to:

a. reflect on people’s responses from 2007 and 2008

http://exeterchessclub.org.uk/content/coaching-adults



http://exeterchessclub.org.uk/content/summer-coaching-2008

b. ask yourself: are these the same things I wrote down last year?

c. ask yourself: have I seen any improvement in the things I wrote down
last year? and if not, why not?

Some of these topics I’ve covered before, perhaps a while ago [see
links].

If you don’t think the links help, I’ll have another go of course.

I’ve picked out a mix of themes(*) from your list of improvement
targets,
some old and some new, and suggest something along these lines:

Jun 30: DR away (volunteer?/video?)
July 07: DR away (volunteer?/video?) 

July 14: Tactics
July 21: Attack/Defence
July 28: Co-ordination
Aug 04: Sicilian Defence [Complicated positions]
 
Comments/Suggestions/Volunteers invited!

Wise words

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The wisest things anybody ever said about chess improvement:

“ …Almost all players lose the overwhelming majority of their games not because of things they don#8217;t know, but because of not consistently applying things they do know. “
— Dan HEISMAN
“Chess is more a game of skill than a game of knowledge”

” <> If you want to get better at chess you need to place much less emphasis on ‘study’ whereby you increase your knowledge of positions, and place more emphasis on ‘training,’ whereby you try to solve problems, play practice games, or perhaps try to beat a strong computer program from an advantageous position <> .” (25).
 — Jonathan ROWSON
A knowledge of tactics is the foundation of positional play. This is a rule which has stood its test in chess history and one which we cannot impress forcibly enough upon the young chess player. A beginner should avoid Queen’s Gambit and French Defence and play open games instead! While he may not win as many games at first, he will in the long run be amply compensated by acquiring a thorough knowledge of the game./em
— Richard RETI
One of the main aims has been to highlight the differences in approach between a Grandmaster and a weaker player, and to try and narrow the gap. To some extent this comes down to technical matters – more accurate analysis, superior opening knowledge, better endgame technique and so forth; but in other respects the difference goes deeper and many readers will find that they need to rethink much of their basic attitude to the game. One example of this would be the tremendous emphasis which is placed on the dynamic use of the pieces, if necessary at the expense of the pawn structure, or even of material. This is no mere question of style; it is a characteristic of the games of all the great players.
— Peter Griffiths
If you have any doubt what to study, study endgames. Openings teach you openings. Endings teach you chess/em.
— Stephan GERZADOWICZ
The Most Common OTB Mistakes:

  1. Playing too fast because of overconfidence
  2. Not recognizing the critical moment
  3. Playing too fast because of carelessness
  4. Being overcautious
  5. Guarding instead of moving
  6. Miscounting
  7. Allowing a removal of the guard tactic
  8. Not adjusting from one phase of the game to another, or not playing differently when way ahead or behind
  9. Counterattacking a guarded rook when an unguarded minor piece is attacked
  10. Not developing all your pieces
  11. Making threats that are easily parried
  12. Overlooking that your move can be easily refuted by a check, capture, or threat
  13. Not asking yourself, #8220;What are all the reasons my opponent made that move?#8221;
  14. Repeatedly making the same opening mistake
— Dan HEISMAN
..we are all occasionally guilty of underestimating the richness
of ideas which lie beneath the surface of even the simplest, quietest-looking
positions.
nbsp;– Mark DVORETSKY
If you want to get better, you have to change.
Jan Przewoznik and Marek Soszynski
Don’t play for traps! Don’t hope that your opponent does something stupid! … After deciding on the move you intend to play, ask yourself, “What wonderful thing does my move do for my position?”
nbsp;– Jeremy SILMAN
“The most important feature of the chess position is the activity of the pieces. This is absolutely fundamental in all phases of the game (opening, middlegame and strongespecially endgame). The primary constraint on a piece’s activity is the Pawn structure.
— Michael STEAN
Deux fous gagnent toujours, mais trois fous, non!
— Alexander ALEKHIN, on the advantage of the Two Bishops at amateur level, and perhaps a reminder to walk before we can run

Any more wise words out there?

How not to beat Jack Rudd

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Local International Master Jack Rudd, known as the fastest pawn in the West, visited us recently to give a simul.nbsp; In characteristically quick time he defeated all challengers with a score
of 13-0, leaving most wondering what had hit them and a few mournfully looking for crumbs of
comfort in a post mortem dissection.

Jack gave us a demonstration of how many different ways to win a chess game:
being alert to tactics (Simon, Sean),
positional grinds (Tim),
lordly attacks (Sean)
or simply taking advantage of elementary mistakes (Brian, Richard) with a bit of
endgame technique (Richard, Tim).

Both Simon and Tim probably had a draw in hand with more accurate play   Looking a little deeper at the games you can see how he often took his chances (Simon, Sean) while we let some go (Jonathan). Jack was also content to pick up small advantages as he went along (Tim) without searching always for the very sharpest move.   Interestingly, he used a greater range of opening moves than I’ve seen used in a simul.; Fischer and Spassky would open 1.e4 on every board!

Here are some of the games with notes by DrDave and Fritz.nbsp; Fritz is typically cryptic in some of its suggestions and assessments, so I haven’t tried to interpret them all.   They’re all worth a look, if only to decide for yourself why they’re wrong!

Click on […] to see games list.

At a more general level, I think I’d say that we made Jack’s life
easier by often playing too passively
in the opening (Simon, Brian, Sean,
Jonathan, John…).Where we stood our ground and played
for some concrete goals (Richard, Tim and very nearly Dan) I was more
optimistic.

Level 290

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We’re used to doing puzzles which might be mate-in-one (Level I),
mate-in-two (Level II) and so on. Someone asked on Friday, what’s
the highest level you can get? Well, I have heard of a 1220-move
monster by Babson, but that has some peculiar conditions.

The most moves in a forced-mate problem with no conditions is this
one, from Otto Blathy, who published a whole book of such
monsters.

Mate in 290 — best of luck!

SOLUTION:

Youtube video
of the solution

P.S. I thought that was the record, but when searching on the web
this weekend I found this Level 292 problem (which is also an illegal
position):

[blockquote][em]The longest in a legal position I thought was a
226-mover, sent to me by David Beckwith, but
apparently some computer has found a
[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxIaMcO2amE]Level-524
[/url]
puzzle… I expect only a computer could invent or solve that one![/em][/blockquote]

Annotating games

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A recent email:

I’ve never annotated a game. Could be interesting. Perhaps you could
send me a game and I’ll try to annotate it without computer. Might show
you my thinking.

The games that are most valuable to annotate are your own games, (but maybe in future it might be a good exercise to look at somebody else’s). I think it’s a good discipline to look at all of your serious games at least briefly after the game with your opponent, then again at home with some software, and record your thoughts.

I’m happy for people to use a computer to reveal any tactical points. The aim is to get you to show yourself what you were thinking about during the game, what you think with hindsight, and, from any mismatch, see if there’s anything you can learn from or smarten up in future.

Never annotated before? You do it how you like, but the way I do it is: Fritz looks over my shoulder as I trot through the moves of a game, giving me a running assessment of the balance of the position (+0.31,+0.2, +0.2, +0.3, 0.0, -0.87). If you plotted this assessment on a chart, it would wander up and down around 0.0, taking an occasional lurch as one side or the other missed something, maybe settling at a new level after a particularly classy or duff move. A good annotation would comment on  the assessments while they are stable (The features of the position are… which is balanced or one side is better because…) and the lurches (This makes Black’s position worse because… Here White overlooks…) and the mismatches (At the time I thought X and my opponent thought Y but really Z) and give some sort of overview of the game (White did this well, Black did that well but this not so well… I’ve made this mistake before, so… Lessons for next time might be…).

The point of doing an annotation for training purposes is to compare what happened with what should have happened (the computer can do) but also to compare what you were thinking with what you should have been thinking. [I’ve got a bunch of my own games with my own comments here if you want to see what sort of mess I make of this task.]

I usually feel free to ignore my computer when it disagrees with me about exactly which side of 0.0 we are, except when the difference starts to get to be the size of half a pawn, when I worry that I’ve mis-assessed the position. [Either it is or I am bad at positional sacrifices; I played a pawn sac against Ivor on Saturday which I thought was just killing, but my computer reckoned I was losing all the way through.]

And always remember, you’re trying to find the turning points, and not just noting mistakes but trying to find improvements.  While you’re digging deeper, finding better moves for yourself or your opponent I have hopes that you’re learning. When you’re just describing what’s happening and not pointing out better moves  I worry that you’re not getting the most out of the exercise.

Jacob Aagaard throws in a how-to guide for annotating your own games in his Excelling at Positional Chess.  He describes a number of different levels of work, depending on your capacity for work:

“

  1. Write down three things you have learned from the game.

  2. Always write down the time you spent during the game

    3. < li style=”font-weight: bold;”> Check the opening theory

  3. Write down the critical moments of the game, the things you saw during the game and what you think went wrong.  Do this the same evening.

  4. Analyse the game yourself.  Only when finished should you refer to [computers].

  5. Check for structural assistance [from your computer] to gain additional insight. “[This is a database search based on pawn structure and maybe ECO codes, to find similar games and find out how other people handled the position from either side.]

  6. “Tournament reports and diagnosis of weakness.  …Make a list of all my mistakes from my games, and describe them.” [The idea is to find your typical mistakes, things that you often get wrong.]

  7. Training based on tournament reports.  … For every weakness there is a remedy.”

DVDs: is it just me?

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I treated myself to a ChessBase Fritz Trainer DVD recently, 943Mb of files crammed into one corner of a 4.7Gb disc.  Nearly all the space is taken up with movies of a balding middle-aged guy stumbling through commentary like:

” Erm… Now, I’ll show you… er… one of my own games… um… er… playing Black against… um… er… er… um… Z Grophulous in the New York open in 1985… er… yeah…” [names changed to protect the guilty, but that’s a transcript]

Now, I’m quite happy to have audio commentary, even when it’s as under-rehearsed as this, so at least I can follow the moves on the board without having to look somewhere else on the screen for the commentary: that seems to be a good use of the technology.  But I can do without actually watching the guy sweating under the lights… Does it really add to the experience?  Why would I want to look at the author and not the chessboard?  I have a strong feeling that, with the latest ChessBase products, we have a case of “we can do this, so we should do this”.  Maybe if it was someone as important as Fischer or charismatic as Kasparov I’d change my mind, but currently I think it’s a waste of effort.

And surely that disc space could have been better used?  There are only 114 games on this disc, and most of them don’t have commentary. The previous generation of products, CDs, used audio to make just a few important points (rather than waffle over every move) and included a good-sized database with many annotated games, which to my mind is better value.

[We seem to be repeating the problems with chess videos: all format and little content. Once I transcribed the moves from one video, and it came to less than 2 sides of A5.  How many A5 pages do you get in a book costing as much?]

Bird lives!

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Bird lives!

Ah, not Charlie “(Yard)Bird” Parker, whose untimely departure in
1955 prompted jazz fans to write this graffito all over New York, but
Henry Bird, who left us two sprightly variations: the Bird Defence to the Ruy Lopez, and his very own opening, 1.f2-f4.  2008 is the 150th year since Bird died, and at
this year’s Paignton Chess Congress, there was a special prize for the
best game played with his opening.  This resulted in a bigger crop
of Birds than usual, as you might expect, and the prize winner was the
following game (courtesy of Bill Frost at ChessDevon:

Because of the increased risk of the Bird, I reviewed what I knew about it in case someone played it against me… No-one did, so I thought I’d record the results of my review here.

” Having forgotten familar openings, I commenced adopting KBP for first move, and finding it let to highly interesting games out of the usual groove, I became partial to it.” — Henry BIRD

I first found out about Bird’s opening (1.f4) in some random beginners’ book, where the author dismissed it (as have many authors since) with the recommendation that Black play From’s Gambit (1…e5 2.fxe5 d6 3.exd6 Bxd6 [idea 4…Qh4+ mating] 4.Nf3 g5!?), and noted that if the From turned out one day to be better for Black then White could dodge into the King’s Gambit.

That satisfied me for a while, but I became interested again when the opening kept cropping up in B.H.Wood’s CHESS magazine in the 1970s.  That may have had something to do with the editor’s own liking for the opening, but surely it was more than that: lots of players were happy to try the Bird (directly or by transposition) and you never saw a From.  Could it really be dismissed?  I rather suspected not, and that the From wasn’t all it was cracked up to be: critical, surely, but if White knew what they were doing, perhaps they could keep the pawn and survive.

I was reassured when Neville Gill wallopped the Bird when winning the PCC Championship for 1976, then woken from my dogmatic slumbers when Jerry Anstead used the Bird to beat Gill (and others) winning the title in 1980.  Yet, Rumens and Bellin, both players of the Dutch defence, weren’t above the occasional Bird while contesting the Grand Prix in weekend congresses.  Then I discovered Bent Larsen had been interested in it; not mere dabbling either, he took out Spassky with it in a crucial game:

  • Larsen – Spassky B V [A03]

NB for all example games, see above […]

“In this last game with the white pieces I played Bird’s Opening, of which most masters have no high opinion, but I chose it for the very reason that they do not play it and do not know it. I know it quite well, have many original ideas. Now I challenge Spassky with it; let us see what ideas he has to show.”

Since Larsen’s heyday, IM Tim Taylor and GM Henrik Danielsen have both played and promoted the Bird extensively; it’s also a familiar feature of club and county games in the Westcountry. So, there’s more to this opening than is obvious in the books; in fact, it’s an ideal club opening in many ways — unbalanced, untheoretical and underestimated!  [And like all such openings, it will become better known, people will write books about it, and eventually it will become an opening like any other…]

Defending against the Bird

This is really what I spent my time looking at.  There is no consensus in the books and comics about Black’s best line: Gufeld recommends the From; Keene & Levy suggest 1…d5, 2…Nf6 and 3…Bg4 (but consider only 3.e3); Aagaard & Lund prefer 2…Bg4; and so on.  Perhaps all are adequate, but it seemed to me that the From would be no surprise, and that systems with …Bg4 allowed White to play the sort of unclear attack with 1.f4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.e3 Bg4 4.h3 Bxf3 5.Qxf3 and 6.g4 that they were surely hoping for.

On the other hand, going for 2…g6 and allowing White to play the Dutch with a move in hand wasn’t attractive either; all the various treatments that Black can adopt (Stonewall, Ilyin-Zhenevsky, Leningrad, Antoshin) have their counterpart in the Bird and all looked thoroughly playable for White, and, as I don’t play the White side of the Dutch, I thought I wouldn’t thrive a move behind.  As long as White avoids the various pitfalls known to theory (e.g. 1.f4 d5 2.e3 Nf6 3.b3? d4!) I imagine White would be pleased to play this way.

Actually, what am I familiar with?  I have a reputation for knowing a lot of opening theory, but, while I do find it fascinating, my actual over-the-board choices are usually driven by the desires to (a) avoid any theory, and (b) avoid whatever my opponent wants to play.  This rather negative philosophy led me to consider 1…c5 and 1…g6, both systems that I have played on and off against 1.e4 for years.  Checking with Tim Taylor’s excellent monograph, I see he concluded that White cannot expect any advantage with standard Bird moves against 1…c5, and should instead transpose into some sort of Sicilian with 1.e4 — perhaps either the Closed or Grand Prix variations of the Sicilian Defence, although Taylor prefers Be2. As I am usually very happy to see White choose anything like these when I play 1.e4 c5, I resolved on 1.f4 c5.  I have an idea that if Black were more recently rehearsed in the Modern and King’s Indian than I am currently, then 1…g6 with …d6 and eventually …e5 would be an equally uncooperative yet satisfactory way to defend.

Openings workshop 2008

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Interesting… much more general questions than previous years. There may be a theme of these questions, about the tension between seeking opportunity and accepting risk. So here goes…

How should you play against 1…Nf6 when you want a Stonewall Attack?

The Stonewall Attack is 1.d4 d5 with 2.e3/3.Bd3/4.f4, intending to clamp down on the centre then attack on the King’s-side with moves like Nf3/O-O/Ne5/Qf3/Qh5/Bxh7+…

This can be very dangerous if Black castles into it, although if you can see it coming in time it’s easy enough to dodge (Bf5/g6/O-O-O). If Black replaces 1…d5 with 1…Nf6, White’s system may come to nothing, pointing in the wrong direction.

The common solution is for White to play 2.Nd2, threatening to take over the centre with e2-e4, which may provoke Black into playing 2…d5, when we can return to our standard system with relief. If Black doesn’t play …d5 then you can either stick to your guns with e3 and f4, or carry out your threat to play e4. It’s not a bad idea to have a second string system, like the Colle, that you can switch to in case of move order problems.

Delaying castling or castling queenside in the London System?

It’s unusual. Johanssen remarks in his book with Kovacevic that:

“Although queen’s-side castling is relatively rare in the London system, it may sometimes pay to keep the option open.”

…which is about as much use as a rubber crutch. There are some games in that same book where Queen’s-side castling appears:

  • Blatny P. – Chernishov K. [D05]
  • Winants – Mohandesi [A45]
  • Popov N. – Makarichev S. [A90]

These suggest that the times you might consider queen’s-side castling are:

  • If there is an open h-file
  • When you wish to throw up your King’s-side pawns
  • When your opponent is aiming at the King’s-side in a similar manner

I always liked Pillsbury’s guidance:

“Castle because you will or because you must; but not because you can.” — Harry Pillsbury.

See http://exeterchessclub.org.uk/content/castling for general advice on delayed castling.

Click on […] to see games list.

Playing Black against 1.d4?

See separate pages and separate blogs

What about 1.e4 c5 2.c4?

I was surprised to find 800 games played in recent years where this move was played, with a normal spread of results (55% to White). I wouldn’t play it as White because I would find it difficult to make any play against the locked centre after 2…Nc6 and 3…e5. However, out of the 800 games, this scheme was rarely chosen by the defenders, presumably because Black also wants to leave enough play to win, hoping also to leave open the option of transposing into a favourite version of the Sicilian. If that’s so, White might be able to sneak across into a version of the Maròczy Bind; for example, lots of Black players went 2…g6, which probably leads to the best-known version of the Bind. I’d prefer 2…e6, even though 2…g6 is in my repertoire.

Why is the Bind so uncomfortable for Black? Because lots of the appeal of the Sicilian depends on having a half-open c-file, a minority attack with …b5 and the chance of blowing up the centre using your extra central pawn with ….d5; once White plays c4, all that goes out of the window.

I keep getting caught out in common gambit openings…

Here’s a player getting caught out:

[C21] Danish gambit – fork, 2000

1.e4 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.c3 dxc3 4.Bc4 cxb2 5.Bxb2 d5 6.Bxd5 Nf6 7.Nc3 Nxd5 8.Nxd5 c6?? 9.Nf6+ gxf6 10.Qxd8+ Kxd8 11.Bxf6+ …

Full marks to Black for having the courage to take on White’s opening and accepting the gambit, but this involves definite risks if you forget (or never knew) the traps in each variation. Most gambits have traps like this. Let’s have a list of gambits:

Vienna Gambit 1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.f4 (3…exf4? 4.e5)

King’s Gambit 1.e4 e5 2.f4

Danish Gambit 1.e4 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.c3

Göring Gambit 1.e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.c3

Scotch Gambit 1.e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Bc4 and 5.c3

Evans’ Gambit 1.e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.b4

The best way to avoid problems depends on your taste: “…d5 is the antidote to the venom in most gambits” as they say, but you will struggle to play that against the Evans. I recommend to start with:

Vienna Gambit 1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.f4 d5!

King’s Gambit 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf5 3.Nf3 Be7 4.Bc4 Nf6! 5.e5! Ng4 and 6…d5

Danish Gambit 1.e4 e5 2.d4 exd4 3.c3 d5!

Göring Gambit 1.e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.c3 d5!

Scotch Gambit 1.e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Bc4 Nf6 5.O-O Nxe4!

Two Knights’ 1.e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5 d5 5.exd5 b5!?

All of these lines need some study, but I hope this is a shove in the right direction.

P.S. The game I found where Black got Danished… was won by Black (Berry)!

Is the Benoni any good?

Sometimes! The type of Benoni usually played is the Modern Benoni with …e6xd5. This is a high-stakes opening where you really can’t busk it in the sharper lines, you have to study and learn… and all the lines are pretty sharp… That said, it’s a fine way to unbalance the game and so play for a win as Black.

I’ve recently recommended to Charlie that he play the Benoni, but delay the exchange. (I believe our very own Andy Pickering was a fan of this approach.)

Two reasons for choosing to delay:

After …e6xd5 and cxd5, White has a standard way of arranging their pieces which usually includes Nf3-d2-c4, where the Knight frees the f-pawn to move, and from c4 it supports e4-e5 and puts pressure on d6. If Black delays …e6xd5, then clearly White is going to have to find something else to do for a while, and there is a view that Black can more easily find useful things to do [trying to arrange …b5 with Na6-c7,Rb8,Bd7] than White.

The main line Modern Benoni has a problem, which is the Taimanov Attack (Flick-Knife Attack) with 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5 e6 4. Nc3 exd5 5. cxd5 d6 6. e4 g6 7. f4! Bg7 8. Bb5+!. e.g.

Kasparov G. – Nunn J. [A67]

Black faces a serious attack and has found no clean way to equalise; White is taking risks too, so if White falters at all the counter-attack will be swift and terrible… but many players of the Benoni prefer these days to play it only after White has played Nf3 (e.g. 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 c5). Delaying the exchange avoids this difficult line (and maybe some others).

The lines without …e6 are slower and stodgier; Black often plays …e5 when the lines divide according to whether you plonk the Bf8 on g7 or e7 (when it usually goes next to g5). These lines are more solid but harder to play for a win.

What are the Dos and Don’ts of the Scandinavian with 2…Qxd5? What plans should each side follow?

“This fine defence…” — Jonathan Speelman

“…Sucks all the life out of the position.” — Anon.

Many of us associate the Scandinavian with some devastating Fischer miniatures from the 1960s. But since Larsen re-established this defence as an option for GMs at Montreal 1979…

Karpov A. – Larsen B. [B01]

Spassky B. – Larsen B. [B01]

…it has had a dedicated following, resulting in its ultimate achievement, successful use in a World Championship match by Anand, when Kasparov couldn’t show anything against it, even though he won in the end. (However, Anand did not repeat his experiment!)

Kasparov G – Anand V [B01]

The Scandinavian 2…Qxd5 is particularly difficult to get a handle on because the unforcing nature of most of the variations. After the exchange of pawns we have a ‘structure’ rather like the French Rubinstein or main line Caro-Kann, in which lines Black has given up their stake in the centre and can be said to have made another concession, either blocking in the Bc8 with …e6 or playing the unnecessary …c6. After …Qxd5 and …Qa5 (say) Black has supposedly lost time but has made no commitments with their pawns, which means they can adopt a very natural development scheme.

It’s often said that exposing the Queen on d5 ‘wastes time’, but after Nc3, Qa5 each side has developed one piece, so I don’t see it: however, White is still ahead in development because they start first. White can maybe get another free hit against the Queen by Nf3-e5-c4 or Bd2/Ne4, and that’s when White gains time to improve their position (not to develop).

Hmm, plans… It’s not possible to ‘read’ the structure to generate moves in such a straightforward way as, say, the French Advance. [For these reasons, I dislike playing against it and I don’t think I’d ever take it up!] It’s hard to talk in general terms, it’s more about specific piece arrangements and move orders and whether they make any progress, but let’s have a go. [In his magisterial two-volume review of the strategies behind chess openings, John Watson pointedly avoided talking about any variations with wPd4 and bPe6/bPc6, rather devoting 7 pages to common themes from the French/Caro/Scandinavian.] Deep breath:

White normally gets in d4 and operates on four ranks. Black holds back on the first three ranks, not wanting to open up lines while they are behind in development, and must avoid weaknesses – which I guess is a plan of sorts.

White has advantages in space and development but these are each hard to make use of because of the lack of tension in the position and because these advantages can evaporate with time and exchanges. So, White needs to avoid exchanges, to keep active, to make problems…

Next level down: the Scandinavian is what I call a light-square defence, leaving White with a pawn on d4 and control of e5 but disputing the centre at d5 and e4. Perhaps the ultimate for Black is to play …Bb4, …Bxc3, …Nb6, …Qb5 with a grip on all the light squares.

If White gets enough oomph, it may be they can blow up the position with d4-d5. Black usually restrains the white d-Pawn with …c6, when it starts to look a bit like a Caro-Kann, with White’s Queen’s Knight on c3 instead of e4.

Black wants to play …e6 and play the Bf8 somewhere, but before playing …e6 the Bc8 should be developed. Black can’t hang around, as Bc4 in combination with Ne5 will force …e6. The Bishop when on g4 or f5 then can become the target of attacks, either by h3/g4/Ne5 or Ne5/g4. This can lead to some very sharp play with both sides making committal moves, as in the famous game Anand-Lautier.

Anand V. – Lautier J. [B01]

Black has some choice over the timing of …Nf6, …c6 and …Bf5, depending on which ideas they wish to avoid or allow. [Ian Rogers tried hard with …Bg4 but these days …Bf5 holds sway.] So, delaying …Bf5 gives you the option of …Be6 against 6.Ne5; while delaying …Nf6 avoids White’s Bd2/Ne4/Nxf6, making a mess of Black’s pawns.

Let’s have a look at the quiet main line variation:

Lutzenberger R. – Turcan M. [B01]

Black has been experimenting with 3…Qd6; this keeps the Queen in play but obviously restricts the Bf8 and may offer White another free hit with Ne4 or Bf4. There are other sidelines like 5…Nc6, 5…Ne4 and 4…e5 which are tricky to meet if you haven’t seen them. White can also mix it up by delaying Nf3 in favour of Bc4, or playing an early Bd2/Ne4.

Advice for White? There’s no consensus in books for our level: Keene/Levy ignored 5…Bf5 in 1994; Gufeld (1996) gives the quiet main line; Collins recommends the sharp main line as played by Anand; Dzindzhi (2007) suggests Kasparov’s 6.Ne5, a move order also favoured by Baker (1998); and Emms (who must have some sort of grasp of this opening, having written about it several times) recommended 6.Bd2/7.Ne4 in 2001 without considering it a cosmic mind-blower in 2004. Emms’ 2004 book includes the direct try 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qa5 4.d4 c6 5.Bc4 Bf5 6.Bd2 e6 7.Qe2 Nf6 8.d5 cxd5 9.Nxd5 Qd8 10.Nxf6+ Qxf6 11.0-0-0 Nc6 12.Bc3! which he thinks is better for White.

Nigel Short went through a creative phase when playing against the Scandinavian, and we can perhaps borrow his idea of delaying d4:

  • Short-Rogers
  • Short-Oll

Or 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qa5 4.Bc4 Nf6 5.d3 followed by Nge2, 0-0, Ng3 and perhaps f2-f4-f5 (Sodjerg). And if you really can’t bear it, you can try 2.Nc3 or 2.d4 dxe4 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.f3.

Click on […] to see games list.

What about the Four Knights’ Game with 4.g3 (Glek Variation)?

Some White players are prepared to give up the fight for the advantage in the Ruy Lopez and just get into a reasonable position which suits their style and look forward to outplaying their opponent around moves 25-40. One opening that is used for this purpose is the Four Knights’ Game, where Gunsberg’s 4.a3 and Glek’s 4.g3 have been played. John Nunn’s “New Ideas” reviews some of the early experiments with both moves. There is no ‘answer’ for Black, because there is no ‘question’ being put, other than, can you survive the middlegame against me?

I think the earliest g3 was Nimzo, but here’s the main man these days, Igor Glek.

Glek I. – Wells P. [C47]

One response that you might save for a rainy day in Exmouth is 1.e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.g3 Nxe4?! 5.Nxe4 d5 6.Nc3 e4 7.Ng1 Bc5, with some attacking chances. I’ve managed to lose to this idea in Blitz… Here’s a game from a chap who sounds like an Indian computer facing the reincarnation of the spirit of defence…

Sengupta Deep – Petrosian T. [C47]

Click on […] to see games list.

Classical or Hypermodern?

Gligoric S. – Miles A. [D25]

Lilienthal A. – Kortschnoj V. [D86]

The eternal debate… I recommend avoiding hypermodern approaches until your chess is good all round; because of their amorphous nature, you have to be prepared to play a variety of positions. So, after 1.e4 g6, White has a number of systems available, most of which are very flexible, and Black has a hard time deciding whether to challenge the centre by …c5, …d5, …e5 or all three, while making sure that White doesn’t break through with d5, e5, f5, h5 or all five.

Having said that, I know Jonathan W has been playing the Alekhin and Grünfeld: “I have to adopt unusual openings, as otherwise I tend to get into trouble with more experienced players who know the familiar ones that little bit better than me.”.

Perhaps these defences are not so variable in their themes as the Modern. I dunno, for a while I was playing nothing but hypermodern openings… On your own head be it!

I have a piece on this issue elsewhere: http://exeterchessclub.org.uk/content/hypermodern-approach

Click on […] to see games list.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Emms Attacking with 1.e4

Keene/Levy An opening repertoire for the Attacking Player

Alburt, Dzindzhikhashvili&Perelshteyn Chess Openings for White, Explained

Gufeld An opening repertoire for the Attacking Player

Plaskett The Scandinavian Defence

Emms The Scandinavian

Collins Attacking repertoire for White

Johanssen/Kovakevic The London System

Soltis The London System

Baker A startling chess opening repertoire

Keene/Jacobs An opening repertoire for White

Nunn New Ideas in the Four Knights

Psakhis The Complete Benoni

Evans Stonewalling

Fine The Ideas Behind the Chess Openings

Znosko-Borovsky How to play the chess openings

The Seven Deadly Chess Books

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Jonathan Rowson is a young Scottish GM who has written two of the best and most important books of recent years: The Seven Deadly Chess Sins and Chess for Zebras.  They are important because they are some of the best discussions about how chess is actually played that I have ever read; often Rowson seems to be writing for the first time about things that have rarely been mentioned, let alone explored in any detail.  The books are also confusing, pretentious and irritating by turns. 

‘I’m enjoying it – but I don’t like it.’ Geoff Chandler, October 2005

Let’s take them one at a time.

The Seven Deadly Chess Sins is an exploration of chess psychology.  There is a psychology of chess, the academic study of what chessplayers do.  In fact, chess players have been called the ‘fruit flies of psychology’ because they are such a favourite research subject.  Rowson isn’t very interested in all that stuff.   He quotes with approval:

“It seems to us that the theories associated with board reconstruction experiments represent an idealised picture of master chess which may be misleading. … So often, as any player will agree, it is hopes and fears which seem to influence the choice of a move.” – Hartston and Wason

It’s the emotional swamp which is Rowson’s territory, seeing it not just as the source of mistakes but a promising route for seeking improvement. 

His sins are: Thinking, Blinking, Wanting, Materialism, Egoism, Perfectionism and Looseness.  (I’m very amused that Thinking is a sin.)  Perhaps some detail would help:

  • 1. Thinking: Confusion, pattern limitations, lack of faith in intuition.
  • 2. Blinking: Missing key moments, lack of “trend sensitivity” and “moment sensitivity.”
  • 3. Wanting: Attachment to results, carelessness, expectation.
  • 4. Materialism: Misevaluating, lack of dynamism, oversights.
  • 5. Egoism: “Forgetting” the opponent, fear, impracticality.
  • 6. Perfectionism: Time trouble, inappropriate copying.
  • 7. Looseness: “Losing the plot,” drifting.

Warming up?   The first example in the first chapter (Thinking) shows an example from a GM which obviously provides Rowson with some real inspiration but which might make the rest of us despair…

  • Rozentalis E. – Appel R. [B02]

Wow. Is chess really that hard? Do I really have to be able to come up with ideas like that?  Well, no, but if you want to get better, you do need to stop playing the way you do right now.  Shaking up your ideas is part of Rowson’s plan.

  •  1. Thinking:
    • Hodgson J. – Tiviakov S. [A25]
  • 2. Blinking:
    • Emms J. – Webster A. [B06]
  • 3. Wanting:
    • Miles A. – Arkell K. [D00]

    Black has just offered a draw.

  •  4. Materialism:
    • Capablanca J. – Lasker E. [C80]

    5. Egoism:

    • Thomas – Redpath [C07]

    6. Perfectionism:

    • Morozevich A. – Rowson J. [B80]

    7. Looseness: 

  • Urien – Rowson [B84]

These are quite sophisticated mistakes, but I think the same things can be seen at club level as well.  (I just made a mental note to myself to find club-level examples of all of these things).

The irritating bit of Rowson’s book is that it is hard going.  The examples are hard.  He gets distracted when discussing them.  Not all the examples are clear.  And then he includes a huge variety of anecdotes, quotations and ideas from outside chess, some of which are hard to see the value of, and some of which seem included just to let us know how widely-read is the author. 

“When considering whether to use these ideas in the book, I was concerned that it might seem too abstract or contrived for most readers and hard to apply to their real games… So even if I’m not making any sense, or if you only partly understand what I’m saying, the main thing is to have the courage to look at chess with new eyes.”

I like the aim.  However, he’s not really achieving it with passages like this:

“There are some striking parallels with quantum theory in the way of viewing chess outlined above, particularly Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle … and Bohr’s Principle of Complementarity.” (p.84).

Oh, yeah?  One exasperated reviewer concluded:

“It is at best a flawed if earnest effort. At worst it is a pretentious, barely mitigated disaster … The Seven Deadly Chess Sins is strong evidence that to the seven we should add two more: writing this book, and buying it.” http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review274.pdf

Harsh… I understand this love of quotation and pursuit of analogy from Rowson’s point of view; writing something like this, or a PhD, is rather like being in love, everything you read or think about reminds you of what you are doing, and you want to include everything.  I did end up wishing that he had a more brutal editor, but it’s a record of his journey and his thinking, and after a while you enjoy the ride with him.

He has a final rather defensive note, entitled The Author’s Redemption, where he says:

“I’ve tried to write about chess as I’ve come to understand it: a complex a rewarding game that lies, tantalisingly, beyond the full grasp of the human intellect. … There is no virtue in giving easy answers to the questions posed by a difficult game. “

And while I think it is not usually given to the author to decide whether he is redeemed or not, I will concede the point.  10% of the book may get up your nose, but the other 90% is witty, informative, thought-provoking, and more likely to focus you on your bad habits of chess than anything else I know.

Chess for Zebras is much more focussed.  The examples are just as demanding (you remember that I used one of his examples when we looked at planning in the endgame) and Rowson’s temptation to throw in a quote by ‘my favourite Buddhist writer’ is still there, but where in Sins the author seemed happy to show us a deal of thought-provoking material and let us get on with it, in Zebras Rowson is more helpful in guiding us through the thoughts he hoped to provoke.  He is also to be commended for listing our website in the bibliography!

That endgame example is accompanied by a long transcript of exchanges between Rowson and one of his students.  I guess that Sins is the result of Rowson thinking about how he got good at chess and how he is going to get better, and Zebras is the result of Rowson trying to teach others to get better.  It’s lower-key in many respects but more punchy.  I threw a couple of quotes at you last time:

“If you want to get better at chess you need to place much less emphasis on ‘study’ whereby you increase your knowledge of positions, and place more emphasis on ‘training,’ whereby you try to solve problems, play practice games, or perhaps try to beat a strong computer program from an advantageous position.” (25).

“Chess skill emerges from chess playing combined with chess training, where ‘training’ means working things out by yourself.  The main skill a chess-player needs is skill in making decisions, so that’s what you need to do and do repeatedly.  If you want to become a better player, you need better habits, and you cultivate better habits through training.  The best training is the kind that pushes you up against the edges of your comfort zone, where you force yourself to take responsibility for difficult decisions.  It is so much easier to read books that give strategic guidelines, hints and tips, etc., but what you need is ‘know how’ and that means learning by doing.”

The contents list is an amusing read in itself:

  • Part 1: Improving Our Capacity to Improve
  • 1. What to Do When You Think There is a Hole in Your Bucket
  • 2. Psycho-logics
  • 3. Storytelling
  • 4. Which Myth are You Playing By?
  • 5. Concentrate! Concentrate? Concentrate.
  • Part 2: Mental Toolkit for the Exponential Jungle
  • 6. Why is Chess so Difficult?
  • 7. Something that Works for Me
  • 8. Doing and Being
  • 9. Why Shouldn’t I be Defensive?
  • 10. Glorious Grinding
  • Part 3: Thinking Colourfully about Black and White
  • 11. Three Types of Theory and What They Mean in Practice
  • 12. White’s Advantage
  • 13. Black’s Advantage
  • 14. Finally….

Oh, and why Chess for Zebras?

‘Thinking like a zebra’ therefore means being more open to experience and less constrained by convention.  It means allowing yourself to think differently.”

It’s going to be hard to do more than scratch the surface of what you can find in Zebras, but let’s give another couple of examples, ones that rang a bell with me.  The first section of the book is about productive training; we already looked at one from the this section in an earlier session (the Estrin endgame).  The second section is about expanding your conceptual toolbox, and the third is about openings from the points of view of White and Black.

Doing and being

  • Miles A. – Reinderman D. [B08]

Zugzwang Lite

  • Hodgson – Arkell [A36]

Click […] for list of games

Learning opening lines

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Lots of things to say about this…  Here’s half-a-dozen or so little nuggets to ponder, and a bit more practical advice.

“Of my fifty-seven years I have applied at least thirty to forgetting most of what I have learned or read.  Since then, I have acquired a certain ease and cheer which I should never again like to be without.  (…)  I have stored little in my memory, but I can apply that little, and it is of use in many and varied emergencies.  I keep it in order, but resist every attempt to increase its dead weight.” — Emanuel Lasker

1. Is opening preparation mostly wasted in practical play?  A four-board match played away at Exmouth one Saturday…

The top boards each made a mistake on move 5: 1.c4 e5 2.g3 Nc6 3.Bg2 f5 4.Nc3 Nf6 now 5.e3(?) was possibly inaccurate, allowing 5…d5!? (highly recommended in Kosten#8217;s book, although NCO suggests White can still extract an advantage here) but Black didn’t play it, preferring 5…Be7.  Did the players know better?  I had the idea they didn’t know it at all, and were making it up as they went along.

Board 2, the players scampered along in the French Tarrasch: 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 Nf6 4.e5 Nfd7 5.Bd3 c5 6.c3 Nc6 7.Ne2 cxd4 8.cxd4 Qb6 9.Nf3 f6 10.exf6 Nxf6 11.0-0 Bd6  This is the tabiya, where the real first choice lies for White, who followed the old main line: 12.Nc3 0-0 13.Be3 Bd7 14.Re1 Be8.  Now here all the books give this position as equal; although it is unbalanced I don’t know why White wants to learn and play this line, Black has so much counterplay…  [GMs at the time were playing 12.Bf4.] We than had 15.Ng5 (a very important move) and then 15…Bh5? which was the first deviation from theory… White can now get an instant plus with 16.Bxh7+! e.g. 16…Nxh7 17.Qxh5 Nxg5 18.Qxg5 Nxd4? 19.Nxd5! but it was not refuted by White’s chosen 16.Qb1?!  So White played into Black’s hands, Black didn’t know it and  made a mistake, and White couldn’t take advantage of it…

Board 3 was a bit less theoretical, although it has been played before: 1.Nf3 g6 2.e4 c5 3.Bc4 Bg7 4.0-0 e6 5.c3 Ne7 6.d4 cxd4 7.cxd4 d5 8.exd5 after which Black surely should not have played 8…exd5(?) but 8…Nxd5, when there is some sort of plan against the IQP instead of a ‘normal’ White small plus with no prospects for Black.

And Board 4 had the unlikely start 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.h3… Not a GM move, but an attempt to play the opponent, and not the GM author of the opponent’s latest book purchase.

So, opening preparation can be a complete waste of time!

2. We are often told: “Learn ideas not variations”.  This is a good starting point: there’s nothing sadder than watching a player trot out a move from a book in the wrong position, or even a move that leads to the right position, but the player doesn’t understand what to do in that position when the moves run out. [Common examples include: playing c2-c3 in the Colle [1.d4 2.Nf3 3.e3] when you aren’t forced to by Black’s …c7-c5; playing the Giuoco Pianissimo in every game but not having a clue what to do after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Nc3 Nf6 5.d3 d6 6.O-O O-O 7.Be3 Bb6, and then playing a3 or h3 or even b3; playing the Fried Liver sacrifice 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5 d5 6.exd5 Nxd5?! 6.Nxf7!? rather than the superior 6.d4!]

I got more out of reading Fine’s ” Ideas behind the chess openings” than reading any number of more detailed books; it’s terribly out of date now, but to anyone taking up the Queen’s Gambit or French Defence, I’d certainly recommend starting with Fine’s discussions there.  Tracing the history of ideas-led opening books, I can remember enjoying How to Play the Caro-Kann (Keene et al., RHM), where literally every move is discussed at some length, and How to Play the Sicilian Defence (Levy O’Connell, Batsford), which emphasised systems over variations.  Many modern opening books for club players use ways of explaining I associate with Bellin and Ponzetto in their ‘Mastering the…’ books, showing themes and piece placements related to structures as well as to variations.

3. “It may sound like a platitude, but openings have to be studied in accord with your own tastes. Another point is a little less obvious: in constructing an opening repertoire, you need to take your own powers of memory into account.  (…) I know from my own experience what an excruciating labour it is to memorise ‘theory’ before a game.  You have it all written down in notebooks, you have gone through it ten times before starting play, and you still can’t remember it.  If this is so, it may well be better to concentrate on what I call ‘opening schemes’ — logical systems with a smaller amount of theory, in which it is more important to understand the position and know about typical ideas and resources than to memorise specific details and precise move-orders.” — Mark DVORETSKY

At a minimum, you should have some key games in your memory: the most simple wins for each side, the central ideas, the most common tactical patterns, and, vitally, any traps that are around in your opening.  Dvoretsky says, keep a card index, but these days I guess you would use a computer.  Although modern computers have a huge capacity, treat them like Lasker treats his memory: keep any databases small and well-ordered.  Just having the games saved on your computer won’t transfer them magically to your brain; you need to go through them and see what is typical and untypical of each game, and what reason if any might explain the differences.

4. “Some players learn a lot of variations by heart and repeat them in play whenever possible.  But their opponents may by so  ignorant or unkind that they step ‘out of the book’ long before that wonderful advantage-for-me sign has been reached.  I remember a young player who said he lost three years of his life studying the Najdorf!  He realised that he had learned variations, not chess.”

“On the other hand, it is perhaps overly simple to say that you must learn the ideas behind the openings … But the trouble with chess is the opponent: if you know only the ‘ideas behind the variations’ and he knows the ideas and a lot of variations, he is likely to beat you.” — Bent LARSEN

 

5. “As Victor Korchnoi points out in his book of best games, when you study openings you don’t remember the variations. What happens is that the strategic motifs become familiar to you at a deeper level – which means getting the kind of positions in which you know what to do.” (…) “…It’s really better not to try to memorize anything – the only stuff that will stick are things that can be hung on hooks of deep understanding. If you have good abilities in calculation and vision, much can be worked out during the game; what is ‘theory’ anyway other than a collection of imperfect games which have, for the most part, been analyzed rather badly.” … ” You’re best forearmed by understanding the middlegame structures that come from your openings.” — Nigel DAVIES

I think the other significant ‘hooks’ to hang things on are your own games.  Make a card index or a database of all your own games, find out where you or your opponent diverged from what your book says, decide if it was a mistake or an improvement or just as good.  You should find that each time you play a line, the ‘tree’ of moves that you can recall grows.

6.

“What do most readers look for in an opening book? Unfortunately, something that they won’t get. TWIC readers, for example, apparently want pretty much what my own students keep asking for: a book which explains all the ‘ideas’ of an opening, but isn’t cluttered up with all sorts of nasty variations which one will never run into over the board anyway. I’m sorry to report that this is just a fantasy. Learning an opening by accumulating abstract ideas is a little like learning a language by reading a grammar book. Worse, actually, because generalizations in chess don’t apply with nearly the consistency or predictability of grammatical rules. If a chess opening could be learned by absorbing the opening’s ‘ideas’ (whatever those might be), the opening phase of the game would be universally mastered and of little interest. The fact is, no verbal description of what squares are important or where the pieces ‘usually’ go can describe the dynamic interplay of tactics and positional factors in any major opening. Whereas, by contrast, the straightforward study of enough examples will lead to a nuanced and practical knowledge of how to play that opening. In addition, by studying in context, you will automatically get a much better grasp on how those important squares and typical manoeuvres work than you would have from reading a general description.” (…)

“To summarize this lengthy review, then:

(a) openings can only be learned by study of numerous examples and variations, not by learning abstract ‘ideas’;

(b) books can use either the tree structure or the illustrative-game approach successfully, but the second choice often leads to the omission of key material;

(c) watch out for books which fail to attribute analysis–there’s a good chance that the material is copied from elsewhere;

(d) before you purchase a book, if you get the chance, compare a few variations in it (preferably ones you play) with what you have in your database. If a simple collection of database games gives you more information than what’s in the book, try to assess whether other qualities of the book (line selection, instruction, guidance) outweigh its lack of original information. Barring that approach, your best bet is to go by the company’s and author’s reputation, and hope for the best!”

— John WATSON

Well, Watson is an IM, and is perhaps telling us what we might need if we want to be an IM who plays ‘major’ openings.  Club players who don’t know much about any openings, major or minor, can’t acquire a lot of opening knowledge at once.  I would expect that we have to lay in the broad, rough pencil outlines of understanding before we can paint in each finesse.  I think all of the above quotes are probably true for different levels of player, with different amounts of study time available; what are your ambitions, what can you manage?

7. “Reading and nodding is not learning”, says Jonathan Rowson (after Nigel Davies), and he’s absolutely right.  You have to do something more deliberate to get the information in, and you have to practise getting it out, too.  Read and nod, yes, but put a line in the margin beside everything that is important, then take some notes, and see if you can get all the main points of a chapter down on one side of a piece of paper.  Shut the book and read your notes and see if they still make sense.  Then put aside your notes, get out a set and a board (or an empty game in a database) and see what you can recall.  Wait a day, then try writing it all down from memory, or, even better, explaining it to someone else and see when you dry up and which questions you can’t answer; go back to the book to patch up what you know.  Wait a week, and do the same.  Play a bunch of 15-move games, write the moves down, see where you or your opponent went wrong, see if there was a better way to take advantage of any mistakes.

8. Whatever the green lobby tell me, I always think that the natural resource in shortest supply is time.  There are ways to cut down the amount of theory you need to know:

Choosing non-confrontational openings: Purdy once said (re-published in Action Chess) you can learn all the opening theory you need “to get by” in 10 hours.  He recommended the Colle System (1.d4 2.Nf3 3.e3) as White, and the Rubinstein French ( 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2/Nc3 dxe4) as Black against 1.e4.  Against 1.d4 and other closed openings, he recommended you aim for a standard formation of …d5/…e6/…Nf6/…Be7/…b6/…Bb7/…c5, which, against the Queen’s Gambit, is called the Tartakower variation (first seen at the London 1922 tournament ).  He didn’t say these were great openings, just systems where there was a decent trade-off between strength and ease of use.  If you want to do more than “get by”, maybe you need to study more, but Purdy was very clear that spending 10 hours studying the middlegame or endgame would do more for your chess results than any 10 hours on the opening.

Choosing early deviations: “Is it possible to play the Ruy Lopez with just strategical ideas? Probably not. Is it possible to memorize all the lines? Probably not.” — Alexei SHIROV.  I liked Andrew Greet’s championing of the Worrall Attack in the Ruy Lopez, a deviation from the main line by 5.Qe2.  [He then rather spoiled things by writing a book large enough to act  as a shelter during inclement weather (or even nuclear attack), but  the  approach is sound.]  Retracing his steps, we might recommend the Ruy Lopez Exchange Variation (4.Bxc6), or the Scotch Game (3.d4), or Bishop’s Opening (2.Bc4), or even Bird’s Opening (1.f4) as ways of making it more likely that the battle takes place on ground of your choosing.  Then you have to learn less.

White and Black: You can adopt similar systems as White and Black; obvious examples include the King’s Indian Defence and the King’s Indian Attack, Bird’s Opening and the Dutch Defence, the English Opening and the Sicilian Defence, and so on.

Sister openings: You might think about playing the Semi-Slav (…d5/…e6/…c6) as Black against 1.d4, and perhaps the Caro-Kann (1…c6) or Scandinavian Defence (1…d5) as Black against 1.e4.  These openings share some features in common, and your pieces will often end up on similar squares.  These would form a decent set of openings to use if you play the Colle System as White.

Moving in the same street: rather than taking up an entirely new opening, you are better off using as much of your existing knowledge as possible, and moving to a different variation of the same opening.  So, if you already play the Ruy Lopez, you might prefer on move 5 to play the Centre Attack (5.d4), the Four Knights’ (5.Nc3), the Andersson-Steinitz line (5.d3), or some other variation where a lot of your homework will still prove useful.

Traps: I have no problem if people include lines in their repertoire where traps arise.  But you shouldn’t choose an opening just because it has a trap, and you may find that none of your rehearsed traps ever arise in practice.  Ask around… I know Ray has had some success with 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Nf6 3.c4 e6!?, getting in a few standard tricks, while although I like very much to play the MacCutcheon French (1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Bb4), I never get to play it, because White nearly always plays 4.e5 or 3.e5…  So everything I know about this line is just ‘dead weight’ in practice.

Wacky openings?: Grob’s Attack (1.g4 e.g. 1…d5 2.Bg2 Bxg4 3.c4) will always have a fan base, but it’s only a surprise once and antidotes can be found.  The trouble is, while any opening can be played with shallow ideas or deep ones, it’s easier to find a layer of deeper ideas in a mainstream opening.  You are then faced with learning the whole of a new opening, with your hours of study of the obscure lines of the Grob being wasted.  “…kids need to move on to real openings as quickly as possible…” opines Nigel Davies.

10. Learning from what?

Dvoretsky recommends building up your own card index; most of us I think would prefer to take a pencil and a stack of sticky notes to a book.

Books: There are different levels of book with different styles which might suit different levels and styles of player.  There are excellent books about things I couldn’t have imagined when I starting reading chess books… I guess there’s a ladder of difficulty which can be hinted at in the title: “Starting Out…” “Explained…” “Winning with…” “The Complete…” and even “The Ultimate…” represent some sort of hierarchy, and depending on your grade, memory and study habits, I expect you could decide what’s appropriate for you.  Some books have key ideas, some use a tree structure, others are based on complete games, some use a mix of approaches. Complete games undoubtedly help you remember themes, but are also undoubtedly used as padding.  It’s not enough that a book contains detail, it needs to be useful, organised and well-explained detail with a point.  So, even if you see detail, don’t assume it will do you any good.  As a rule, more elementary books use illustrative games, and more advanced books use ‘trees’ of variations, but Lev Psakhis arranged all his material in his monumental tetralogy on the French around illustrative games.

Show and tell: I’ve always thought that videos, DVDs and so on, however memorable, have a terribly small amount of content.  I’ve had to transcribe every video I’ve ever owned because (a) such a transcript wasn’t packaged with the product, and (b) it’s essential to compare the lines given with other sources, otherwise you have to keep zipping back and forth to find the position you are interested in.  And when you do this, you might find a video costing pound;15 has about a page of variations in it.  They really have to have a substantial accompanying booklet to be worth it.

Software: Most databases have all the features you need to organise a repertoire: trees, sort functions, training modes and so on.  There is even software ( BookUp) which is designed specifically to help you organise and test yourself on the openings you play, and boasts a transpositional feature which I haven’t heard about elsewhere.

Hybrid DVDs: The latest development seems to be a DVD bearing a database linked to videos of talking heads.  I haven’t seen many of these but if the talking heads are telling you important things, then it’s the same pain as with a video finding the part where they talk about the position you are interested in, and if they’re not telling you important things, well, it does beg the question, why the talking heads…