Fromper's new 2008 improvement thread

[Fromper]

Ok, time to retire the old thread of "My improvement goals and plan" and start a new one for the new year.

As mentioned elsewhere, I just won the U1400 section of a major tournament this past weekend with wins in all 5 games, so my USCF rating should increase from 1335 to roughly 1457, according to the ratings estimator on the USCF web page. I'm thinking that a good goal for this year will be 1700 by the end of 2008. That's tough enough that I'll have to really work for it, but it's not so hard that it's outside the realm of possibility.

My main study right now is Pandolfini's Endgame Course, which I photocopied, put on flash cards, and I'm going through it over and over to really learn the whole thing. I'm also working through Reinfeld's 1001 Sacrifices and Combinations. I'm also trying to play every day on FICS, even if it's just a quick blitz game, and review my games afterwards.

I'm a little stuck for an opening repertoire right now. I was playing the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit as white, to learn how to attack by playing a classical attacking gambit. But I have yet to win a game in a USCF tournament with it. This last tournament, my opponents managed to avoid the gambit altogether, transposing to a Pirc, a Caro-Kann, and an oddball Nimzo-Indian-ish type setup in my 3 games as white. I want to play tactical games, but I don't want to only play the BDG, especially since I haven't been winning with it much.

So I'm thinking of switching back to 1. e4 at least part of the time, since I like most of those openings, but I don't know how to handle the Sicilian. I was playing the Smith-Morra Gambit, but I'm not that great with it. And I'm kind of scared of playing most other Sicilian lines, because I know how much study it requires to play them correctly. Honestly, I'm thinking of just saying "What the heck" and diving head first into the Open Sicilian in internet practice games, and just learn as I go. I might even try it as black, just to learn more about how to play against it. After all, that's how I learned the French.

As for black, I do well in the opening with the French, but the middle games often end up less tactical than I'd like, and I sometimes have a hard time converting a slight advantage into a win. So I'm thinking of trying something more open and tactical. I've been practicing meeting 1. e4 with e5 in internet games, though I've stuck with the French in tournaments. But after writing that last paragraph, now I'm seriously considering trying out the Sicilian as black, at least in practice games. Any suggestions for which line would be the best to try for when starting out using the Sicilian?

Against 1. d4, I keep coming back to the Englund Gambit ( 1. d4 e5). It's blatantly unsound, but I just keep winning with it. I've looked at other responses to 1. d4, just because I play the same people a lot in tournaments and I don't want them to be too prepared for me. But I keep coming back to the Englund, because I just keep winning with it.

All in all, I'm experimenting a lot more with various openings than I used to. For a while, I was scared to play an opening that I didn't study first to get comfortable with it. But since I'm playing more blitz games online, I'm getting more opportunities to get used to openings the hard way, instead of just studying them to learn them. And I'm practicing other phases of the game at the same time, so I think that's the best way to go. I'm sure with all this experimentation, I'll eventually find more openings I like, and those will be the ones I'll play more often in tournaments.

--Fromper

Quick addendum: The results of this last tournament have been posted to the USCF site, and most of my opponents did well, so I gained more rating points than predicted. My new rating is 1468, which is 45 points higher than my previous high.

So I'm shooting for 1700 by the end of 2008, but I think 1500 in the next 2-3 months would be a reasonable goal if I could find enough USCF rated games. We're trying to get a team together for the US Amateur Team South in February, but other than that, the next major tournament around here isn't until the end of April. The club where I play one or two games on most Saturdays just lost its location, so we may stop meeting if we can't get another place soon. It'll be hard to gain rating points if I only play in one tournament in the next 4 months.

--Fromper

[Ronaldinho]

Ooof. You really want to go for the sicilian?

Seems to me there's only one reasonable mainline sicilian choice at your level - although, personally, I suspect that you won't score as well with it as you would with ...e5.

The dragon. THis is VERY theory-heavy but it's also black's most logical piece setup, which makes it easier to understand. Black's play tends to be very thematic, but, of course, in the yugoslav you just have to study it like mad. Ward's book on it is very good, if perhaps a tad boosterish.

It's also a VERY fun line.

(I think you'll heave better luck with it over the board than online. At FICS, I think a lot of people play with an opening book in their lap).

(Not sure the name of it off the top of my head, but 2.... Nc6, 3. ... e6, and 4. ... Bb4 is trappy and may win you a lot of games against weaker opponents. It's not popular among stronger players for a reason, however.)

[Fromper]

I don't want to seriously study the Sicilian, or any other opening. I've got higher priorities in my study.

But as I said, I'm trying to play more games on the internet and just try things out, learning a little bit at a time the hard way. I'll compare my games afterwards to MCO-14, learn from my mistakes, and eventually maybe I'll be comfortable with more openings than I am now. But when it comes to tournaments or internet league games where I really care about the results, I'll stick to the openings I'm already comfortable with.

I just think it'll be good to have backup openings prepared for when I face the same opponents multiple times, which happens often at the local club. Besides, I'm still primarily playing unsound gambits, so I'll need to switch to more sound openings eventually as I reach higher levels. It'll be easier to learn those openings a little bit at a time by trying them out, instead of trying to cram a book into my head all at once at some point in the future. And I still believe the best way to learn to play against an opening is to try playing it. So even though I've got the French as a sound response to 1. e4, I want to try the Sicilian as black so I'll be better at playing against it when I play 1. e4 as white.

Overall, I'm thinking I should probably go around 50-50 in my practice games between using the openings in my current tournament repertoire (Blackmar-Diemer, French, and Englund) and trying out other openings just to see how they go and learn something.

--Fromper

[Perseus]

From personal experience I can say it's a good thing to go at things with the other pieces for a while to be better against it.

[bjphillips]

Hi Fromper
Have you noticed any errors in the Pandolfini book? There are a few of them - typos and I think outright oversights. Rather than drill them I played them out against a computer at quick time controls and that's where I noticed a couple of instances where I think he missed a few lines. There is errata (one site I found listed 30+ errors... mostly typos) posted on the internet but before you go looking for that you might want to see if you can find them yourself. I found it a tremendous morale boost to be able to find errors in a published book and perhaps you will too.
Good luck in pursuing your goals in 2008.

Brian

[bjphillips]

Hi again,
I'm not sure if you've read Ken Smith's article Improving Your Chess in which he says that if you want to improve you must play gambits. There is a caveat though. He advocates gambits only after you have a rock solid repetoire that you can play against anyone without fear (including Kasparov). I have played a lot of gambits and there are many games in which I'd really like to have had something a little more sound up my sleeve.
In the same article he outlines recommended reading/studying lists as well as repetoires by rating. I wouldn't advocate following this blindly but it may help you thrash out your options. You can find his article here:
http://web.archive.org/web/200104050....com/lssn.html

Brian

[Fromper]

I already found the errata list in Pandolfini's book. Where there's an error in the diagrams or solutions, I corrected them on my flashcards. Since the solutions are on the back, I'm still trying to figure out the positions, without caring if there's an error with the book.

I've heard it said that playing gambits forces you to improve your attacking skill, and I've been following that route successfully. I keep thinking I should find sounder openings, but I haven't found anything I'm really that comfortable with yet. Does the Albin CounterGambit count as sound, since it's sounder than the Englund Gambit? I've been thinking of trying that and/or the Baltic Defense. I have a book on unusual QGD lines that covers them both.

--Fromper

[bjphillips]

Hi Fromper,
I have followed a similar "gambiteer" path (Wing Gambits, BDG, Danish) and there are a few things you might want to consider. What is your objective in the opening? Is it to set up an attack or is it to create attacking chances? These are not the same thing. If you want an attack out of the opening then I think you must surrender material. If you are satisified with an aggressive opening leading to tactical play then you don't necessarily have to gambit. I can't exactly put my finger on my concern here but it comes down to something like this. If you gambit then you are trading material, a static feature, for time/development, a dynamic feature. This makes it incumbent upon you to succeed quickly or you are just down a pawn and your opponent may be able to just grind out a win.

The problem with playing with/for a dynamic advantage is that it is much less obvious and much more difficult than playing with a static advantage. That is not to say that you won't get benefit from it and in fact it is probably necessary at some point for development as a player. You may find it much easier to improve your rating, however, by playing soundly and following the classical principles. At the C and D level games have lots of tactical and positional blunders. From what you've said you already know how to exploit the tactical blunders. Exploiting the positional blunders is less obvious but still fairly simple. The advantage of playing a little more soundly is that you aren't under the pressure of playing with a static disadvantage from the get go.

Second, do you want to study openings to score points now or do you want study openings that will develop you as a player? If you want to look towards your long term development then perhaps you should consider more mainline stuff. Consider this question. How many well annotated GM games can you find for your repetoire? If you can't find any/many then you have to do a lot more work to understand the games. This is further complicated by the idea that if the line is offbeat or risky it is probably less simple to understand.

Third remember that openings just don't matter that much under 2000 strength. Craig Sadler, a Canadian C class player makes a couple funny points in this article Patzer's ½ Point
His fourth point "no matter how much you prepare you will be taken out book by your fourth move" is an exaggeration but in my experience it isn't all that far from the truth against players up to A strength.

I sympathize with your difficulties in preparing for d4. I have not solved that riddle yet. There is the Dutch which is forcing but the 2. Bg5 lines take you right out of your game plan (though it can be nightmarishly tactical so you may like it). The Nimzo and the Benoni are probably worth a look too if you're really stuck...

Anyway enough of my ramblings...

[JacksonWShowalter]

Good post with sound advice! Therefore nobody’s going to listen to it. BTW it seems Dutch players are well prepared for the main lines and even the Staunton Gambit then along comes 2.Bg5 and they get flummoxed. I’ve scored a couple nice miniatures with it. Here's one vs. a 1700...a postal game no less:
http://chess.maribelajar.com/chesspu...?id=1183809035

[Perseus]

Originally Posted by JacksonWShowalter

Good post with sound advice! Therefore nobody’s going to listen to it. BTW it seems Dutch players are well prepared for the main lines and even the Staunton Gambit then along comes 2.Bg5 and they get flummoxed. I’ve scored a couple nice miniatures with it. Here's one vs. a 1700...a postal game no less:
http://chess.maribelajar.com/chesspu...?id=1183809035

Um. Try the Staunton or the Lebedyev-Barden on me and you're likely to draw. While I find the Staunton an okay line (for white) in the frisky moods, I'd play the Fianchetto systems if I would bother with 1. d4.
I've played lots of games in the Lebedyev-Barden (2. Bg5) and haven't lost a game. I tried various approaches including the funny kill-that-bishop lines .
It's true though that 2. Bg5 is a tad annoying. Why would white want to keep black from setting up a normal Dutch formation? Going into normal lines gives white much more of an edge in my opinion, then again that doesn't count for much on lower levels of play.
As for the Staunton, well, you need to be paying attention as black obviously since it'll kill you in a second if you don't. Usually, in my experience, a bunch of trades take care of everything.