There are plenty of better sources of opening knowledge; however, pick up a book like MCO, and unless you have tons of money to pay the author, you get no interaction. This is a segment on how I win, particularly in games where I tie an advantage back to the opening, or even just knowing the opening.
General opening recommendations for openings are:
a) Stick to openings; at least for a long while - Don't flip flop and play the French one week, the Sicilian the next and the Caro-Kann the next. Why? Because you want the chance to be in the same positions over and over again so you can improve over time. Why switch and put yourself in such drastically different positions.
b) Have something for everything - You've been studying Capablanca playing 1. d4 in games in which his opponent played d5. You are feeling great about your understanding of what he did against different things (just an example). You get to a tournament, your opponent plays.. the Dutch! And you have nothing. You look at his Stonewall setup and you have no idea what's going on.
Why not take chessbase on your smart phone, put in 30 minutes, and infinitely have a better idea from the percentages what masters playing white are trying to do and avoid. If you're a good player, it's not going to be hard that you're fighting for control of e4, so are they, and if they force retention of control of this square, you have to make them pay for it with some discomfort.
c) Always check your losses - If you lose, most of the time it will be because of something lacking in your middlegame or middlegame-endgame transition. Check to make sure that when your opponent played some slightly different move, proceeding as you normally do wasn't a bad idea. You can, once again, use chessbase percentages for this.
d) Start your chess career playing 1. e4 and 1. ... e5 v. e4. Learn how to play open positions.. how to stay solid. And then, when you're ready to get serious, learn d4 and d5.
I had an 1800 who is from Europe and hadn't lost in many games at Glenwood Chess Tournaments lose to me while he was playing the Grunfeld. He came up to me after and said "I feel Americans are just brutally attacking only, and conversely you really understand static positions." I'm not sure about that; but I do feel that there is a benefit to starting with e4, and then switching to d4, even if the switch is not permanent.
Qualifying ratings on chess.com
I wish that what I had was a bunch of notations from slow games, but sadly I lose most of those. What I do have is many blitz games on chess.com. Mistakes often happen in blitz, but I tend to believe that the beginning of games represents your inherent ideas about opening play, because you are not yet under time pressure.
Every time I argue to my students "you should know this line" or "that trap" I get back, "yeah but a strong player isn't going to fall into that."
Most of the players I know are between 100-150 points lower on chess.com than their USCF strength, so with that qualification, here are blitz games I have compiled with the corresponding ratings.
White - Joeanthony1900 1820
Black - Ashamril 1792
1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 Bg4
This is when I just feel fangs come out on my side of the board. I know what to do when black fails to maintain control of the b7 square, and while a very good player may be fine, they better really know what they are doing.
Why do I like d4? I feel it allows me to grind the game to a halt, limit opponents opportunities and then take shots when I feel it's safe to do so. He just made me feel safe; observe the change in tempo from play that has been quiet to this point (and would remain so had he played say.. e6).
5. Ne5 Bf5 6. cxd5 Nxd5 7. Qb3 Bc8 8. e4 f6 9. exd5 fxe5 10. dxe5 cxd5 11. Nxd5 e6 12. Bb5+
I'm already looking at 12. ... Bd7 13. Nc7+ Qxc7 14. Qxe6+! Kd8 15. Bg5+ as a possibility (not checked with a computer for accuracy). Will it materialize? I don't know at this point. But a NM who was once rated in the high 2300s told me that the difference between him and most non-masters he's met is that most of them wrote certain moves off as unplayable, where as he tried to make them playable.
12. ... Nc6 13. Nf4 Qe7 14. 0-0 g6 15. Nh3 h6 16. Qc2!
This is the move that could be dropped right into the middle of Reuben Fine The Middlegame In Chess... I believe that one would have to be rated much higher than the average very strong club player to see that using h6 to stop the massive threat of Bg5 and Rd1 is superseded in terms of immediate peril by the weakness created on g6... at least with the clarity that many lower rated players would like to claim AFTER seeing Qc2. Perhaps better was a simple Qb4 instead of h6.
What I will contend here though is that this entire pressured situation goes back to seeing Bg4 and pouncing all over it, knowing what to do and the resulting pressure created.
Black went on to choose erroneously to protect g6 and lost the rook and the game.
This next game was a 2/1 game, where I don't play as much and where my rating is much lower, but I wanted to include it because of how exactly the house falls.
White: Torblednam 1366
Black: Joeanthony1900 1451
1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 a6 5. Nc3 Qc7 6. Be2 Nf6 7. 0-0 b5 8. Bd3 Bb7 9. Bg5 b4
The problem that I don't think white expected in this move, but that I've also experienced against plenty of strong players in slow games, is that my threat of an in-between move comes with me capturing with a pawn and threatening queening; where as his doesn't.
10. Nce2 Nxe4 11. Bf4 Qc8 12. Bg3 Nxg3 13. Nxg3
Here I'm already elated. I won a pawn by understanding e6 Sicilian openings and pressure on e4, and I just got a bishop for a knight in a very open game.
13. ... Be7 14. Nh5 0-0 15. Nf4 Qc5 16. Nb3 Qg5 17. g3 Bd6 18. Nh3 Qd4 19. f3 Qh5 20. Kg2 Nc6 21. Be4 f5??
Here I do make a mistake, but my opponent didn't take advantage. I didn't set myself up due to time, but I'm a believer his mistakes in the opening took place when he had plenty of time... Here he does not take advantage. I probably should have played Bc7.
22. Bd3 Ne5 23. Be2 Bc7 24. Qd2 a5 25. Nc1 Bb6 26. Nd3 Ng4
Now, one can say "it's blitz." I'm not convinced that the average 1700 USCF player, even with time, sees the threat of Ng4 followed by the now protected Ne3+. Your average club player likes intuitive moves.. the underestimate the threat of moves that do things like "put a piece on a square that is naturally attacked by a pawn" even if said pawn cannot take.
27. Ne5 Ne3+ 28. Kh1 Qxh3 29. Qxd7 Qg2#
This next game is against a chess.com 1912, which probably means that this guy is very possibly a USCF expert... You can tell by the moves that he clearly just didn't see a threat here.. which is why it pays to know your openings. My students would claim that a player this strong "wouldn't make a mistake like that." This guy did...
White: Joeanthony1900 1842
Black: WuhoUnited 1912
1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Bg4 4. Ne5 Bh5 5. Nc3 Nd7 6. cxd5 cxd5 7. Bf4 Ngf6 8. Qb3 Nxe5 9. Bxe5 e6 10. Qxb7 Be7 11. Qc6+ Qd7 12. Qxa8 Black resigns
Here's the thing, you can argue "oh yeah, blitz, Qd7 is a terrible mistake." It is. However, black was already in a lot of trouble here. On Nd7, without even looking for better, immediately one can see that Bxg7 wins a pawn. e4 also has some potential. Kf8 comes with it's own positional problems. Black clearly misunderstood the opening. It would have been my bad if I had failed to punish bad ideas behind Bg4.
In this next one, I play a player who underestimates one of my favorite threats, Qc2 in indian openings with dual mate/h1-a8 threats coming. Start with this rule I have in d4 openings.. when they fianchetto queenside, you do the same kingside.
White: Joeanthony1900 1838
Black: ID67 1833
1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 b6 5. cxd5 Nxd5 6. Nxd5 Qxd5 7. g3 Bb5 8. Bg2 Nc6 9. 0-0 Rd8 10. Bf4 Bd6 11. Bxd6 Qxd6 12. e3 Ba6 13. Re1 0-0 14. Rc1 Bb7 15. Qc2 Rd7
Here it comes..
16. Ng5!!
Threatening mate or winning a piece on c6. By the way, I've got this exact threat going in rated games..
16. ... g6 17. Bxc6
Black resigns..
I'm a huge believer that knowing your openings creates middle game threats at a higher rate than not knowing. In this game, knowing that his Tartakower setup meant taking on d5 was key...
No comments:
Post a Comment