Openings advice.

Thank you all for the advice. I've settled on a couple of openings for now, which I'm gonna stick with until the end of next season. I'm going to do 5 problems from the chess tactics server every evening, and I'm going to use rhp to get some games before the season starts. I'm not at all bothred about ratings on a CC chess site though I guess the strongest player at our club is around 1700 ELO. So that's a long term target. But all I want for now is to be an OTB asset, and to be honest, with teams of 5 in the league and only 6 members - I'll probably be that at least 🙂, I can beat an empty seat at least 85% of the time!! 😀

I also have a strong player who's agreed to play a friendly game with me, and talk me through it.

Is there a way to export my finished games to fritz 13 or do I have to input them move by move? I'd like to save a database of my rhp games and analyse them with fritz' help.

yet another battle lost 😞

Originally posted by Wilfriedva
yet another battle lost 😞

Sorry?

Originally posted by Dewi Jones
Is there a way to export my finished games to fritz 13 or do I have to input them move by move? I'd like to save a database of my rhp games and analyse them with fritz' help.

Yes .. using My Games/Manage Games, you can email yourself the PGN of all the games you select. You can then import them into the Fritz Database. Don't pay too much attention to the silicon monster though - knowing you missed in a mate in 13 on move 35 won't necessarily help you improve next time round, and can be rather disheartening.

Originally posted by Dewi Jones
Do tactics? How do I do that? I mean where do I get the material to study. I do have one book on tactics 'tactics for advanced players' its a tough read for me, but it is an excellent book.

chesstempo.com

Vastly superior to CTS, especially if you shell out a few bucks per month to become a premium member. Even as a free site, however, it offers thousands of good quality problems. Do them untimed (standard mode) until you have a strong foundation in all the motifs.

Averbakh's book is for 2000+, not for beginners. I read it when I was 1600s USCF and it was over my head then.

Originally posted by aquatabby
Yes .. using My Games/Manage Games, you can email yourself the PGN of all the games you select. You can then import them into the Fritz Database. Don't pay too much attention to the silicon monster though - knowing you missed in a mate in 13 on move 35 won't necessarily help you improve next time round, and can be rather disheartening.

Based on advice, I'm not going to be spending time analysing my games with fritz just yet, but would like to copy my games over one by one as they finish rather than having to do them all at once sometime in the future. I've got an email from the site with my games there, how do i add thos emoves to fritz 13, probs me being dumb, but i cant find anyway.

Hi

Copy just the games from the email and paste into notepad.
Save as dewigames.pgn (remove the *.txt marker and change the 'save as type' box to 'all files.' A DB should be able to pick them up.

Originally posted by Dewi Jones
Based on advice, I'm not going to be spending time analysing my games with fritz just yet, but would like to copy my games over one by one as they finish rather than having to do them all at once sometime in the future.

That's what I do. Go to the game you want to get, then to Game History (tab above right column), then to "Get PGN of this game" (menu in right column). Select the PGN, copy it, then paste it into your favourite PGN viewer. You don't need email this way, and you can do it the moment your game finishes.

By the way, on your selection of openings, and bearing in mind that I've only just scrabbled on top of 1500 myself: don't. Don't select "favourite" openings that aren't the very middle of middle-of-the-road. Unusual openings are unusual for a reason, and those reasons are valid for you and me even more than for the professionals.
You don't see 50% of games in the Tal Memorial, the World Championship, or the Hoogovens being opened with the Alekhine, the Larsen, or the Colle. That's not because they're considered beneath the attention of the Grand Masters and only fit for beginners - it's because even among Grand Masters, only a specialist can avoid being mullered Reveal Hidden Content by them. The pros know all too well that these unusual openings only create anything of value if you know what you're doing not just as well, but much better than your opponent. Otherwise, they're either busted or boring. Larsen could play the Larsen, because he was the world expert in that opening. You and I are not.
Instead, you'll see them playing openings like the Spanish, Sicilian, Queen's Gambit (Slav, but recently I've seen the classical again, as well), Nimzo- or King's Indian, openings like that. Very well known openings. Openings for which there is a lot of theory. Yes, but your opponent on this site will know no more of that theory than you do, and the one thing such openings share, the one thing professionals love is this: both players get their chances.
None of the "normal" openings are one-sided. You will never find an opening in which you have all the joy, but if you follow the trodden paths you will at least never find one in which your opponent has it all, either. If you play the Alekhine, you will either get lucky and play it against someone who plays at random and loses quickly; or, more likely, against someone who also has an opening book, and slowly but surely strangles you. If you play the Sicilian, you have to be willing to play a lot of variations - but all of them let you play chess. And that's what we're here for: play chess, not variations.

Richard

Originally posted by Shallow Blue
That's what I do. Go to the game you want to get, then to Game History (tab above right column), then to "Get PGN of this game" (menu in right column). Select the PGN, copy it, then paste it into your favourite PGN viewer. You don't need email this way, and you can do it the moment your game finishes.

By the way, on your selection of openings, and be ...[text shortened]... . And that's what we're here for: play chess, not variations.

Richard

you take that back about the Colle, there is nothing unusual about it! its not like its
1.g4, or 1.f4, or 1.b3, or 1.b4 its a queens pawn opening and may well transpose into
something resembling a queens gambit. Ok its not considered the best opening, but
its, as the first correspondence world champion stated, the 'easiest', good opening to
play.

The trick is to play the same opening with white as you do with black, for example, you
can play the same system against the Dutch defence (1..f5) with white as you can
against the Birds opening (1.f4) with black, this will save you eons of time and effort
trying to learning a particular system against every one of your opponents possibilities.

But then, how often do you meet 1. f4 or 1... f5?

Originally posted by tvochess
But then, how often do you meet 1. f4 or 1... f5?

me dear tvochess, I meet 1.f5 all the time, my kids smartphone plays it a lot, also I
have met 1...f4 on not a few occasions, but this was not the point of my assertion,
that is, with what frequency i meet these openings, but that one can save a lot of
time and effort by playing similar systems. For example, I play the Colle as white,
problem solved, I need not learn French defence, Sicilians, Caro Khans, Ruy Lopez,
Petroffs, nada, I play the Colle, all I need to do is know when it works and when it
doesn't work depending on blacks set up. This leaves me with what to do as black.
Against 1.d4 I play the Colle with reversed colours, it is, after all, simply the Slav
with reversed colours anyway. I have halved my need to learn a system to play
against the queen pawn. If I meet 1.f4 i play what i would against the Dutch as
white, i have halved my need to learn to play a system as black. If I meet 1.e4, I
play the Sicilian, personal choice, yet if I meet the English as black, I simply play
the symmetrical English, essentially a Sicilian, I have halved my need to learn a
system against the English. That leaves 1.g4, which i dont think is very good for
white, i have a simple line which i posted and 1.b4 and 1.b3, which i also have
specific simple lines for so that i dont get wasted in the opening.

All in all, the point is, that i have a complete repertoire for black and white the basis
of which is to reduce opening theory as much as possible so that i can concentrate
on other more important things. Why? because i know what I like and what I feel
comfortable with. Ok my lines are not what Gm's play and they are not considered
the best, but i am neither a GM or a particularly good chess player, but I understand
them and they are easy to play which is the main thing.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
you take that back about the Colle, there is nothing unusual about it!

Yeah, that's why you see it so often in Wijk aan Zee, Linares and Dortmund. 🙄

Richard

Originally posted by Shallow Blue
Yeah, that's why you see it so often in Wijk aan Zee, Linares and Dortmund. 🙄

Richard

so unless and opening is played at the Wijk aan Zee, Linares and Dortmund, its
unusual, unassailable logic to be sure.