Crossroads
I have the feeling that I'm standing at a crossroads when it comes to opening play.
I made a lot of progress in positional play lately, and my middlegame play has benefited greatly, but I still suck at the opening. If they play within my league, I'm doing great, but when they deviate, I soon find myself in trouble.
The reason is that I don't really understand the openings I play. So I'm in doubt whether I should try to learn the openings based on the books I have, or that I better can learn to think for myself in this specific area.
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| Black to play |
2bq1rk1/1pb2ppp/1np2n2/2PppP2/1P2P3/2NP2P1/1B2N1BP/Q4RK1 b - - 0 16
I played black here, and I wasn't happy at all. My knight was under attack, and after 16. ... Nbd7, my position would be very cramped.
I had the feeling that I misplayed the opening because my opponent played a move order which got me on the wrong foot. I screwed up the variations myself voluntarily because I was out of a plan.
Luckily I decided here to opt for a positional passive knight sac, which was deemed by Stockfish as around 0.0, which usually means that white is in trouble. And indeed, I soon took over the initiative due to the opened LoAs (lines of attack) and the pawn wedge in the middle.
I noticed that there is series of black openings that have a lot in common, as if they belong to the same family:
- Nimzo Indian
- Vienna variation
- 1. ... b6
- QID
- French defense
- Classical dutch
- QP
- London
- Catalan
- Veresov
- Trompovsky
- Torre
- English
- Et cetera
Temposchlucker wrote (in part):
ReplyDelete"So I'm in doubt whether I should try to learn the openings based on the books I have, OR that I better can learn to think for myself in this specific area."
Instead of an exclusive "either-or," I suggest you take an inclusive "both-and" approach. Or, as the great bard, Yogi Berra, has advised,
“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
Only if it’s a silver fork. ;-)
No doubt by now you have memorized the moves in a number of the main variations in your chosen openings. It usually happens that, when at the end of the memorized line(s), we get stuck with “Okay, I got to the desired theoretical position which is evaluated as advantageous for me. But, WHAT DO I DO NOW?”
Memorization IMHO is usually a waste of time, unless you KNOW what the opponent is going to play. The further you and your opponent are from master level, the more likely that you will NOT succeed in getting to your memorized final position. One of you WILL deviate from “theory” and then both players must depend on their skill set.
Instead of merely memorizing the lines and relying on your memory to keep everything straight, I suggest playing out to the end position of each theoretical variation, and then thinking very deeply about WHY the evaluation is positive for you. I suggest studying that position until you KNOW every feature that is in your favor, every feature that is bad for your opponent, and what to do with those features.
Repetition of the process in closely related variations will provide the information that is needed to extrapolate from what you KNOW to what you should do when the opponent deviates from theory. Implicitly, if the theoretical evaluation is correct, then the opponent should NOT have played this variation, arriving at this specific position. That’s a big “if”!
Augment that deep study with master games that have reached the same position, regardless of the preceding move sequence. If there are no master games that have reached the same position, that is information that “theory” has outrun “practice” and I would be very leery of aiming for that position. As GM Aagaard says, “Think inside the box!”
Repeat the variation moves from move 1 every time you study it. This will help cement the variations in your memory, and, if you’re paying attention, will also trigger alternatives that may be more favorable or more comfortable for you to play.
Yeah, I KNOW: you already KNOW all this “theory.” The question is: do you put into “practice”?