Originally posted by wormwood
how are you going about the alapin? I've done some work on it, but the Big Crunch is still ahead of me.
Since I play g6.. Bg7.. d5 lines- I find the play in the Alapin to be largely positional.
I can divide my lines into 2 real branches, games where White opts for e5 and closes the center and lines where White allows the exchange (either by capturing d5 or by delaying capture via Nc3 or such.)
What I have done is I printed out 125 games where white plays e5 and I have gone through each game and lightly annotated them. The annotation in my mind is key-
1) games are printed out without any annotation.
2) I make notes on, piece placements (especially the g8 knight and the light square bishop) I note the move where development is completed for either side, I note any critical positions, and I note where an endgame has been reached. any other commentary is limited to short notes like (??! what is this) etc.
3) I go pretty fast because I have a lot of games to cover- so I shoot for about 8 games in an hour. I find that the more games I have done the faster following games tend to be since typical maneuvers start to reveal themselves.
4) I play the games over the board, not at a computer. (personal preference, I calculate better and faster over a real board)
5) Once I am done with the games I go to chessbase and make new folder for databases relating to the Alapin. In particular I make a middle games folder and an endgames folder. I also will append key lines to my repertoire database so I can fast search twic or w/e for new games in my line.
my practical results in the alapin have improved from prob a 25% score to closer to a 55% score or so
"Booking up"
14 Dec '09 19:52
Back to Top