On Wednesday, February 2, 2022 at 8:12:25 AM UTC-5, Eli Kesef wrote:
On Wednesday, February 2, 2022 at 1:18:14 AM UTC+2, William Hyde wrote:
On Saturday, January 29, 2022 at 1:44:42 AM UTC-5, Geeknix wrote:
I'm playing around with chess trying to decide how to improve my game.
I am thinking to focus in on my favorite openings and master them first.
Unless you are playing speed chess that is a terrible idea.
Practice tactics first and foremost. Then endgames and positional play. Openings last.
Bs"d
EVERY chess game has an opening. Not all have an endgame.
"Openings teach you openings, endgames teach you chess" - Stephan Gerzadowicz:
Study openings, and tactics, and the essentials of endgames, like king + pawn endgames.
And of course; opening traps will give you many a quick win, often within 10 moves, and that is VERY funny.
Yes, you will be able to beat weak players, playing the same traps over and over and over.
That suits you, but the original poster actually wants to get good at chess. So that he can beat the players you avoid.
A friend played in the world student Olympiad and scored 4.5/7 against opposition rated 2400 (so about 5000 in lichess). He knew even less about openings than I did, and I knew little.
Well, there was one exception. Since he was playing for his country he thought it was his responsibility to learn some openings, so he learned one system in the Grunfeld. ECO gave this as
equal at move 17, with Karpov as the source.
He played this line against Yusupov, who won in 26 moves. The future Candidate commented that "Everyone in the Soviet Union knows this line is lost for black".
It was my friend's only loss in that event.
Learn traps.
Studying traps helps to learn tactics, as above, provided you look at just why the trap can be successful, instead of just memorizing the moves.
But when confronted with a trap or gambit you don't know, it's best either to not take the pawn or
to return it when convenient. Many trap specialists are not particularly good at the game once they are out of their preparation and you are likely to win even if your opening position is at best equal.
I learned this the hard way at age 17 when a stronger player sprung the wing gambit in the Sicilian on me. Though in this case he was probably going to win anyway, had I responded by an appropriate pawn return the game would have gone on much longer.
Since I learned this rule I've never lost OTB to a trap. Twice I have even knowingly entered a lost position so as to avoid my opponents prepared gambit. I won both games. They were so disconcerted at losing the effect of all that preparatory work
that they couldn't switch to the kind
of positional play required to win. Those, by the way, were fun wins, particularly when a strong IM
dropped by the board to see his friend's win, only to see me, in huge time trouble, cheapo the hell out
of him - though at this point he was lost anyway.
William Hyde
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)