Chess Openings Theory

Advice from good players is always welcome. It's evident one must
know & obey (mostly) the general rules in the opening, but the theory
is so gigantic, no one really can master it. I bought therefore Eric
Schiller's books:
1. Complete Defence to Queen Pawn Openings
(based on Tarrasch)
2. Complete Defence to King Pawn Openings
(based on Caro-Kann)
3. Hypermodern Opening Repertoire for White
(based on English & Réti)
The main idea, of course, is to avoid as many opening lines as
possible.
Once these systems (with the emphasis on pattern-recognition instead
of studying variations, variations...) mastered, it's recommended to
study a few openings in particular, but still with the idea to know a few
openings well, then knowing a bit of everything).
If any of the better RHP-players would care to advise the lesser gods
would be great. Who's in?

Your time would be much better spent developing your tactics!!!! It is
a waste of time to "know openings 12+ moves deep" as it rarely plays
out that way. I happen to know a few openings well and have seen
that players quickly deviate from known lines.

You should learn a bit about the caro-kann (very SOLID) and
something to defend against d4...generally if you follow these
guidelines in the opening and know tactics you'll be ok:
1. don't move a lot of pawns except to aid piece development
2. control the center
3. efficient and quick piece development is key
4. probably castle

chess is 99% tactics as they say...learn that first...usually only very
high level players gain from a lot of opening theory. STUDY TACTICS!

You're right, but what, say, you don't know the 3rd or 4th move, or so?
At the club, not so long ago, my opponent played first moves I had
never seen before. I lost in 20 moves. He'd used... 3 minutes. Time-
limit though was 90 minutes pppg. I used 45 minutes. It was
something (I'll have to look for my score-sheet) he'd learned by
heart. I'm not sure, but I think he used the name 'Stonewall Attack. If
my memory is more or less intact, I think his moves were 1.e4 & 2.d3.
Statistics showed, however, a 65% score for Black, which I was. He can
use that, of course, only once against the same player. That's for sure.
I read indeed that tactics should come high on the priority list, but
when your opening is poor, you don't even have to think tactically. And
what about strategy/positional play?
I hope we can at this Forum exchange chess-ideas as well. We all
want to enjoy the game and try to improve our levels.
Thanks a lot.

If he played 1. e4 and 2. d3 and you defended with 1..c6 and 2. d5 (a
la caro cann) then he is already worse (then the white's best second
moves of d4 or Nf3)

I think if one has tactics and knows opening ideas well you usually
don't get burned. Yep, positional play is important too. If you are
relatively new, I think the best plan is to learn a few openings and
defenses well, maybe read Silman's "Reassess Your Chess" for
positional understanding, and get a book on tactics which has a lot
of "problems" to solve. A great (somewhat advanced) book for tactics
is Palatnik's.

hello it seems that you are here to play and learn wellcome. quick
advice! this is correspondene chess (refer to other postings here) otb.
is completely different!!! chess yes, tactics written in books are for otb
chess . and internet blitz chess! the tactics although tried rarely work
in correspondence chess! mainly because there is plenty of time to
research in books data bases ect your next move. so
CORRESPONDENCE CHESS is for learning nothing more. we are all
students here! although we are allowed to chat in the class room.

I agree wiht most of the points you say, but it would be a good idea to
Know about positions, what is the plan, the idea of any position, and
that is strategic. Each position has its own plan, and you can see that
each opennig has a war of ideas.

For exaple if you will find opennings with an Island of a pawn in the
center, ones side idea is to get compensation giving the pawn, the
other side try to arrive to and ending which the pawn is a weakness.

You can have majority of paw in queens side and your oponent in the
king side there are rooles to play thar position.

An openned colum against a strong knight in front of a pawn.

There are may war of ideas and the side that makes the best plan will
win.

The tactics is after you get the advantage making a good plan will
result in a tactical position that you have to explote.

Both are very important but tactics is in a moment in a move and
plans are changin continously. If you make a good plan but cant see
the tactical move you will lose.
I m sorrry about my english, is not good ( Im studying).

I have fallen into the trap of studying WAAAAAAAAAAAAAY to much
openings. However, as a result, I find that my opponent makes the
first mistake a lot of the time, and I'm playing a better position very
early on. I also find that unfamiliar opening variations cause me to
lose very quickly. For example, the Accelerated Dragon is my favorite
defense as Black. My opponent once played the Alapin (2. c3), and I
didn't play 2. ... d5, so my opponent quickly got a very good game.
In another game, I was White and the game went 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6
3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 e5 5. Nf3? and I did very poorly.
<b>However,</b> that's not to say that we should be studying in
order to completely avoid losing such games completely! In chess,
the most valuable learning experiences you have are huge mistakes
like that that you can be sure to never make again. Those two games
are among the most valuable experiences in the tournament chess
I've played (4 tournaments, 17 games.) So my advice would be to
set up a plan as white. For me, it's e4, and on e5 i play Nf3 and Bc4,
heading for an Evan's Gambit or a 4. Ng5 Two Knights Defense. I
know what to play against Phildor's (3. d4) and I know the absolute
basic line in the Caro (2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxd4), and know to
play the open variation if my opponent plays Sicilian. There's a point
for the Caro-Kann: I don't play against it that often, but I really don't
know what I should be doing when I do play against it. You learn the
openings as you need to. For example, I know that the Maroczy is
the best way for white to cope with the Accelerated. However, I've only
played against it once in a casual game against a guy who was going
to show me how much better the Classical Dragon was than the
Accelerated.

I have heard left and right that studying tactics is the way to go.
However, I don't study tactics much, because it doesn't yield quick
results like studying openings and playing more games do. Yes, it's
lazy! Sue me!

I'd now like to quote Alexander Alekhine: "In the beginning of the
game ignore the search for combinations, abstain from violent moves,
aim for small advantages, accumulate them, and only after having
attained these ends search for the combination -- and then with all
the power of will and intellect, because then the combination must
exist, however deeply hidden." To me, this makes perfect sense. I
have also heard <b>this</b> idea left and right. For this reason, I
study a little strategy every once in a while from <i>How to reassess
your chess</i> and study very little tactics. Silman preaches in the
book that the key element of chess is understanding the strategic
ideas of a position. Among grandmasters, tactics is a sort of laundry
evaluation of a position. There are tactics, or there aren't. (This is an
over-generalization, I know, but work with me.) But positional play is
the really deep beauty of the game. But yes, what you say at the end
if very important: if you miss a tactical move, you <u>will</u> lose
immediately.

Thanks for reading this, and please bear in mind that I'm a duffer,
and don't want to tout this post as the word of a GM.

RogueTwo

Hi! Maybe you can try the advance variation against the caro-kann! It
would match the sayings of Alekhine.. I used to spend a lot of time
studying openings too.. But it takes a whole lot of time, and then in a
club, sometimes you can play a particular opening only once in two
months or so, and then you forgot all about the details; so I try to
play less known (and maybe a bit worse) lines; by the way, one
should instead learn more of the endgame! But I admit not doing it
myself.. One of our clubplayers started to learn the first two years
nthing else than endgametheory, and became a very strong player!

How much endgame knowledge do you think is necessary? My teacher
said that after he finishes going through some Giuocco Piano material
with me, I may be close to expert strength, and I'm about 1100-1200
right now. From this, I draw the conclusion that he plans to teach me
to win in the middlegame so that i won't need that much endgame
theory. Under this approach, tactics are everything! It doesn't seem
too farfetched to me. Anyone else?

If you always checkmate your opponent in the middle game then no,
you need no knowledge of endgame theory. But you will always find
someone who is as strong or stronger than you tactically in the middle
game and you will find yourself in an endgame. Once you get to the
endgame that is equal in material and position it is a knowledge of
endgame theory over your opponent that can create a win or at least
ensure a draw. I think a solid higher rated chess player will have some
balance of knowledge in all three areas of the game.

You are incorrect in your assumption that endgame knowledge only
applies to the endgame. These
terms "opening", "middlegame", "endgame", are man-made
inventions and were created to break down a highly complex endeavor
into more manageable, yet still very complex, parts. In reality, these
three "phases" of the game are part of the same continuum. What
you do in one "phase" of the game directly and irrevocable influences
the other "phases". Arguably the engame is the most important part
of the game because this is where the definition is. This is where a
well played game is actually resolved. You cannot play the opening or
the middlegame well without knowledge of the endgame. It is the
endgame that all your efforts in these other phases are gearing
toward. Of course if your opponent happens to blunder, you may not
enter an endgame as such. But if your position was sound such that it
would withstand correct play on the part of your opponent (without
blunder)and still result in success, it occurred because you were
thinking about the endgame all the while.

Actually, I did not make the assumption that endgame theory ‘only’
applied to the endgame. Certainly someone with a knowledge of
endgame theory will work at least in the middle game toward a
position that will yield to an advantage in the endgame. The previous
assumption that was made was that if you studied just tactics and
became very strong tactically that you did not have to worry about the
endgame. That assumption I think only holds true if you can always
checkmate your opponent in less than about 25 moves. For example,
if the board is never clear of pieces to the degree that you can have a
pawn and king race to the 8th rank there is not need to understand
the theory of the ‘square of the pawn’. I think we would both agree
that this is a very unrealistic assumption. You will get to endgames in
chess no matter what your level of play is. But before endgame theory
can be applied to any portion of the game there is a necessity to
study the theory. That, I think, was the original question to which I
was responding.

I realize that the terms "opening", "middlegame", "endgame", are
man-made inventions. But so is the game of chess itself and a large
portion of the chess theory that I have studied anyway breaks the
game down into these three phases.

That is good advice if your goal is to become an "A" class player and
then cease to improve. If you desire to take your chess skill beyond
that you must become less pragmatic and narrow in your thinking and
learn about ALL areas of the game (especially the endgame). The
suggestion of studying tactics sounds erroneous at best. Never have I
ever heard of a master dispensing such proletarian advice.
Tactical "awareness" and skill develop as you learn about strategy and
concepts. To get fundamental, tactics and strategy are really just
poles on opposite ends of a spectrum. They must work together and
in harmony in order to be effective. Try to separate the two and you
will meet with disaster. The real "nuts and bolts" of chess is about
ideas. These ideas are said to be of a strategic nature and involve the
achieving of certain peripheral "goals". The main goal of which is of
course to checkmate your opponent, or to secure a draw where
checkmate is not possible. This must all occur in an environment of
tactical soundness. The focus on tactics alone is tantamount to
treading water in the middle of a lake with no intention of swimming to
shore. And likely to be equally fatal!

I studied from a Cuban International Master Adelkis Remon, one of
the most strong players I have met, more than many todays grand
Masters.

He taught us the way cubans train their players.

First you have to prepare one opening, with white and black. This
hepls you not to lose in the first moves.
You have to be prepare to reply any move in this opening, so you hav
e to investigate in informator,enciclopedias and data bases.

After that you have to see how grand masters play that positions, in
this point you learn the plans, estrategic, this is the midle game.

And of course you have to know and view tactics and strategic.

But the best way to leanr after you have a level is reviewing many
games as much as you can, and put atention in its plans.

Reviewing games you can learn openning midle game, and ending.

For that reason you could have a game until 30 moves wiht good
chanses even against a gran master.

I like to review many games, I would like do it Hundred times daily.

First off I own quite a few of Schiller's books and I do not think they
are all that good. What most players will, or should, recommend is
one good all around opening book such as MCO or the set of ECO...I
recommend MCO because ECO's are quite spendy. Then you buy
reportoire books for the openings you like. Such as if you are like me
and love the Philidor, I know supposedly bad but hey, the man who
knows it well is tough to beat (I have never lost a PCG game OTB or
Internet) you buy the books on that opening. You have your MCO to
cope with all the others and you have your faves that you learn by
heart. Also..owning the Informants will keep you up on latest theory
quite well.

As for tactics...yes! Get all the books you can..because they will teach
you how to get your stuck butt out of a bad opening and win or draw a
losing game.

Dave