building my opening repertoire - Chess Forums

seguin99 · 07-01-2008, 09:44 PM

i am a fairly good player im am the top rated player for my age in my province. i'm an excellent tactician and im great in endgames but i was wondering if someone could give me some advice on building an opening repertoire

Fromper · 07-01-2008, 09:55 PM

When you say you're top rated in your area for your age, what exactly is your rating? I think advice will be very different if we're talking 1800 vs 1200.

As for picking openings in general, I think that depends on what you want from your openings. Do you want mating attacks, or a quiet game that will probably go to the endgame? As black, are you playing to win, or just to hold a draw? Do you have time to spend on lots of detailed opening study, or are you looking for lines that can be played with less preparation?

--Fromper

seguin99 · 07-01-2008, 10:04 PM

sorry about that well my rating is 1730 and i want a quiet game, i want to play for a win as black and yes i have enough time to study openings

Fromper · 07-01-2008, 11:29 PM

If you're looking for quieter, positional openings, maybe consider stuff like the Queen's Gambit or English as white, and the French or Caro Kann against 1. e4 as black. You might want to pick a grandmaster who has a style similar to what you're shooting for and see what openings they play. I'm more of an attacking player these days, so I'm no expert on the quieter openings or grandmasters, but maybe look at Karpov's games for ideas.

--Fromper

seguin99 · 07-02-2008, 12:53 AM

Is there a software you recommend because right now all i have is a note book with an opening tree and its not working out very well

Fromper · 07-02-2008, 01:17 AM

There are a few software programs for that sort of thing, but I haven't gotten around to trying them out yet. I just put the main lines in a Microsoft Word document, so I can save them in one place and print it out to take with me when I travel to weekend tournaments, so I can study them in the hotel room between rounds. Hopefully, someone else will have some suggestions.

--Fromper

JacksonWShowalter · 07-02-2008, 02:01 PM

Chessbase Light is free and is probably the best all around software available.
ChessBase - Download

harrrrpo · 07-02-2008, 03:31 PM

I think u should have MCO
it helped me a lot

of course u don't study each opening for long weeks then say,
"Hmmm..i can't find my self"

But I think u should just read the introduction of every opening, where the author introduces the ideas , and the player who first played this opening , and even the strong grandmasters who played the line

then u follow these grandmasters in their games(it's a terrific way to improve ur opening)

I hope my advice helped u

seguin99 · 07-02-2008, 03:38 PM

Originally Posted by JacksonWShowalter

Chessbase Light is free and is probably the best all around software available.
ChessBase - Download

yes I've just downloaded chessbase light a couple of days ago but im not to sure how it works could you help me?

Fromper · 07-02-2008, 03:53 PM

Originally Posted by harrrrpo

I think u should have MCO
it helped me a lot

of course u don't study each opening for long weeks then say,
"Hmmm..i can't find my self"

But I think u should just read the introduction of every opening, where the author introduces the ideas , and the player who first played this opening , and even the strong grandmasters who played the line

then u follow these grandmasters in their games(it's a terrific way to improve ur opening)

I hope my advice helped u

That's an approach I hadn't considered before. I have MCO-14, but I tend to only use it when I have an opening in mind that I want to try, so I look up the mainlines there. Then I use it as a reference when studying my games after I play the opening, to see what the grandmasters play differently than what I did. But the possibility of just sitting down and reading the intro sections, and of using it as a guide to what grandmaster's games to study, had never occurred to me. Good suggestion.

--Fromper