"Booking up"

Originally posted by heinzkat
You can do that for your "favorite" lines. But how about the lines that you have to know about, their essentials, i.e. if you want to play the Najdorf as Black, you have to know something about 3. Bb5+ regardless, you can't go around that...?

I don't think it changes, if I am reading the question correctly. For instance, a number of people will avoid Alekhine's by playing 2. Nc3. GMs on the black side respond to this in different ways. Kengis himself often responded with 2. ... d5, with sharp and unusual play if white pushes with 3. e5.

I have also seen GM Ivanchuk play 2. ... e5, transposing into a Vienna, and on the site I have been playing 2. ... d6, transposing into the Pirc.

In other words, the GMs who play your opening also have to deal with the "side" variations, and you can learn much by seeing how they respond.

As I have gotten older, I have started opting for lines that have similar thematic play, even if they are not the theoretically best. I aim for familiar positions and piece placements, so it will be easier for me to recall over the board, and simpler to identify the salient strategic and tactical features.

Paul

Originally posted by Weadley
I looked at wormwood's games, I looked at alot of games at chessgames.com
I looked high I looked low. Then I found a local club and had some friendly people beat me and explain how they beat me. All that has helped me to become the crappy player that I am now. I still mostly blame wormwood!

😵

Originally posted by heinzkat
How did YOU gain "concrete knowledge" on the abundance of opening lines, their various subsystems and subvariations?

pick a player I like, get a database of all his games and memorize. So no "understanding the ideas vs memorization" thing. just raw memorization and THEN you begin to understand some.

Originally posted by philidor position
pick a player I like, get a database of all his games and memorize. So no "understanding the ideas vs memorization" thing. just raw memorization and THEN you begin to understand some.

I have to do it the other way around- if I see patterns in the games, the ideas are clearer, and then recall becomes clearer. In other words, if I see and learn the ideas, the moves are easier to find.

I suppose it's a semantic, chicken/egg kind of question, but I started out with the raw memorization approach and it was only marginally successful for me.

Paul

A very specific example, I really "hate" to get in a theoretically known position that I don't know anything about. Should I have "known" this??:

Originally posted by heinzkat
A very specific example, I really "hate" to get in a theoretically known position that I don't know anything about. Should I have "known" this??:

[pgn]1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4 Bxb4 5. c3 Be7 6. d4 Na5 7. Be2 exd4 8. Qxd4 Kf8 *???[/pgn]

Up to Kf8 the position is standard, but I never saw that move. You are going to get outprepared sometimes, especially as white (most amateur players focus their attention on black more than white). But this position looks quite promising for you doesn't it, I would not mind playing white here.

But up to Qxd4 you should know the positions that occur when playing the evans. And if he makes an unfamiliar move, just play sensible moves! Building an opening repertoire is more about getting into positions you are familiar with and know how to handle than learning variations, if you don't know Kf8 but do know the line with Nf6 for example, than you're fine here I think.

Originally posted by Gatusso
Up to Kf8 the position is standard, but I never saw that move. You are going to get outprepared sometimes, especially as white (most amateur players focus their attention on black more than white). But this position looks quite promising for you doesn't it, I would not mind playing white here.

But up to Qxd4 you should know the positions that occur when ...[text shortened]... you don't know Kf8 but do know the line with Nf6 for example, than you're fine here I think.

To be honest I didn't know much more after Nf6 either 😛

Originally posted by heinzkat
To be honest I didn't know much more after Nf6 either 😛

Well, I think in this respect, if you play enough games in that position, you get a 'feel' for it, heaps of hard theory would only serve you if you are playing on master level.

Originally posted by Gatusso
heaps of hard theory would only serve you if you are playing on master level.

Whatever "master level" is, I want those heaps, that's the next step 😛

(and below "master level", whatever it may be, my openings suck anyway)

Originally posted by heinzkat
A very specific example, I really "hate" to get in a theoretically known position that I don't know anything about. Should I have "known" this??

whether you should've know it or not is sort of pointless. the real question is what are you gonna take away from it? next time it comes up, are you gonna be in the place called "this looks vaguely familiar, what was it again that I was supposed to do here?", or are you gonna make some kind of systematic effort to make sure you'll be at "ah yes, this old thing, fortunately I KNOW what the correct plan here is."

Originally posted by wormwood
whether you should've know it or not is sort of pointless. the real question is what are you gonna take away from it? next time it comes up, are you gonna be in the place called "this looks vaguely familiar, what was it again that I was supposed to do here?", or are you gonna make some kind of systematic effort to make sure you'll be at "ah yes, this old thing, fortunately I KNOW what the correct plan here is."

Next time I would play O-O a tempo instead of spending 30 minutes on it 😕

Originally posted by heinzkat
How did YOU gain "concrete knowledge" on the abundance of opening lines, their various subsystems and subvariations?

Having given this more thought (it's an excellent topic IMHO), I thought I should add something else.

Losing has probably been my biggest gain of "concrete knowledge". If I lose a game, I really study it hard, with the idea of never losing the same game twice. I focus on the variation, attempt to isolate the move, moves, or idea that created difficulty for me, and prepare for the next time I face it.

The best application of concrete knowledge in my games has come from previous losses in the same variation.

Paul

Originally posted by heinzkat
You can do that for your "favorite" lines. But how about the lines that you have to know about, their essentials, i.e. if you want to play the Najdorf as Black, you have to know something about 3. Bb5+ regardless, you can't go around that...?

I like to look at the distribution of openings I get over a period of time. This decides what I focus on in my preparation.

Example, currently if I play 100 games as black vs e4. Only about 25 games will reach my main defense (the accelerated dragon). The vast majority are Alapin/Smith Morra's, Closed Sicilians etc - and this pretty much captures the player choice between 1700 - 2100.

Needless to say I spend most of my time analyzing the Alapin these days.

Originally posted by nimzo5
I like to look at the distribution of openings I get over a period of time. This decides what I focus on in my preparation.

Example, currently if I play 100 games as black vs e4. Only about 25 games will reach my main defense (the accelerated dragon). The vast majority are Alapin/Smith Morra's, Closed Sicilians etc - and this pretty much captures the play ...[text shortened]... etween 1700 - 2100.

Needless to say I spend most of my time analyzing the Alapin these days.

how are you going about the alapin? I've done some work on it, but the Big Crunch is still ahead of me.

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.

Haven't I mentioned 2...Qa5! before