Hi All,
I took the decision to try and zap my memory of all and any chess openings that I had built up over the years. The reason I did this was whilst I could move like the best of them, I didn't know why I was moving x to y.
Out went all those books I bought over the years. Entire books on single openings, endgame books, you name it. No more giving my postman bad backs as he delivers another heavy tome.
Unfortunately, my playing by intuition has killed my chess. On move 2 I am in a cold sweat as I quite literally have no clue what I am doing. Depending on the level difference, by move 10 the game is over and I am off sweating on move 2 of the next game.
Anyone else experience something similar and how did you overcome it?
Originally posted by JDK2We bought opening manuals 😛
Hi All,
I took the decision to try and zap my memory of all and any chess openings that I had built up over the years. The reason I did this was whilst I could move like the best of them, I didn't know why I was moving x to y.
Out went all those books I bought over the years. Entire books on single openings, endgame books, you name it. No more giving my ...[text shortened]... e 2 of the next game.
Anyone else experience something similar and how did you overcome it?
Seriously,it would make more sense to try and understand why you move x to y than trying to forget all about it.
How can you conciously try to forget anything anyway?
I must NOT remember to play 5.d4....I must NOT remember to play 5.d4....I must NOT remember to play 5.d4....I must NOT remember to play 5.d4....I must NOT remember to play 5.d4....I must NOT remember to play 5.d4....
It's not working very well 😕
Originally posted by JDK2well, I'm sure chess whiz kids will jump on this subject shortly, but replace intuition with logic and I'm sure you won't be that lost any more 😉
Hi All,
I took the decision to try and zap my memory of all and any chess openings that I had built up over the years..... Anyone else experience something similar and how did you overcome it?
Edit: just had a quick look at some of your finished games, even with my little chess experience I can see some areas you deffo need to improve: don't leave your pieces unprotected, try castling earlier...
Greenpawn's advice in one of my earlier threads: develop, castle and leave your pawns alone. Fight for key central squares and open files
not that I've taken everything on board yet but at least I feel that I can now reach 1600!
- Joined
- 25 Jul 07
- Moves
- 27921
The ideal scenario is to understand the *strategy* behind the opening you are playing. Once you do that, the question "Why do I move 'x' to 'y'?" becomes very easy to answer, and you find that your play has a sense of purpose.
Unfortunately it's not always that easy. At the moment there are only two openings I play where I have a clear idea of what I'm trying to do right from the start : King's Gambit as white, and King's Indian Defence as black. For every other opening, I'm playing from basic principles, namely:
- Can I get any advantage this move?
- Do I need to worry about what my opponent is doing?
- Control the center
- Get your pieces onto active squares
- Avoid moving a piece twice
The above is a reasonable default position, but understanding what's going on in an opening is better if possible... and to return to your original point, the best way to understand the strategy behind an opening is to read a book about it. Don't try to learn the lines off by heart, but try to understand the *point* of the opening. For example, in the KID, once the center is blocked black attacks on the king side while white attacks on the queen side.
When I have time I need to get to a similar level of understanding for all my openings, but in the mean time just following the simple rules above, and watching out for tactics, should get you through the first 10 moves in one piece.
Originally posted by JDK2this is a most commendable and an inspiring proposition, I myself know no opening theory past the third move, but have a simple general strategy which i try to employ in almost all situations. however even today i was thinking that its a two edged sword, we follow the theory until it reaches a point where we are forced to think for ourselves, in correspondence chess, this seems not to be advantageous, for our opponents, regardless of their playing strength, may also be able to follow a database, up until the twentieth move say, thus we may not be able to realise any type of advantage, on the other hand, we play unorthodox opening moves, from our own originality, whence the theory is not well known, according to general strategic aims and we may force our opponent to think for themselves from the very beginning, the advantage of which may be realised sooner rather than later.
Hi All,
I took the decision to try and zap my memory of all and any chess openings that I had built up over the years. The reason I did this was whilst I could move like the best of them, I didn't know why I was moving x to y.
Out went all those books I bought over the years. Entire books on single openings, endgame books, you name it. No more giving my ...[text shortened]... e 2 of the next game.
Anyone else experience something similar and how did you overcome it?