A hardcore guide to study and train your chess openings (1st part)

*

FIRST PART: BEGINNERS.

1. Introduction:

This article has been difficult to write down. Since I announced it, it has been a couple of months and some readers have asked me if I am ever going to do it.

It is not easy.

First, there is a lot of literature in both printed books and articles scattered around the Internet.  While I have my own ideas about openings, I wanted to give an overview of the subject, respecting some opinions, especially since there are more respectable authors than myself, in playing strength and literary merits.

Second, a method for studying openings varies according to the category and chess strength of the player.  For example, you cannot ask a beginner to study the openings like a Grand Master, or even just a Master. This method is not only useless it is  counterproductive and disappointing. How many chess players have surrendered by the “evidence” that they can never be good at chess because it is impossible to memorize all the moves of their favorite lines contained in voluminous chess openings encyclopedias (for example)?

For all these reasons, I decided to divide the article into three parts: Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced. Although this website is specifically focused on intermediate and advanced players, it costs nothing to light the way to those seeking to improve their strength in our beloved game.

I also will include an appendix on how to choose an opening repertoire. The appendix is divided into three parts because each groups’ goals are different.  For example, beginners want their king to survive the first ten moves; the intermediate player wants to arrive with all his pieces to the middle game; and the advanced player does not want to get an inferior position with white (or a lost position with black) before the first 20 moves, knowing of course some of the opening’s main ideas.

And finally, a brief introduction containing some ideas about opening books and the industry that surrounds it.

Ohhh, yes sir, it is an industry.

2. Openings chess books: Fast food for chess players.

I believe that the majority of opening books (at least 90 percent of these, to be condescending) are the McDonalds of the chess world.  Many of the openings books are “fast food” for players because they are easy to make, easy to consume, and they make the reader believe those books are good for their “chess health”. But the truth is they spoil quickly (becoming obsolete really fast) and thus renewing the cycle — new books on openings are published. Big time.

This is a recurring scene for me: I walk into a club, and on the shelves where they are supposed to have chess books, they are filled with opening books with fancy titles like: “Beat the opening X”, “Winning with the gambit Z” or “Winning with the defense Y” or “A thousand traps in the king’s pawn openings” (I invented this myself, any coincidence it is an amazing lack of imagination of the libel’s author), and others like that. I could give some more examples, but my poor imagination would collapse in the attempt to reproduce misleading titles.

However, books about other chess subjects (endgames, middle game strategy, chess literature in general, game collections) are just as important  as openings, and they barely fill half a shelf.  Sometimes if a subject stands out from the forgotten crowd are books about tactics. A waste of paper.

But it is not a waste for publishers and producers of these “chess fast food” books. They sell, and often sell well. The reason is simple: the chess players want to learn how not to lose in a few moves, and they want to beat their opponent with their own knowledge. And if they win in the opening, the better. And because there are so many books published on the subject they start thinking that openings are the most important thing in chess. But the news is, it’s not so.

The truth is: nowadays Masters can easily make mediocre opening books or an e-book to sell on a website. The chess databases that already exceed five million games and powerful search engines give to aspiring theoretical writers invaluable material to build their projects. And if we add the fact that hundreds of thousands of these games are already analyzed by other Masters and Grand Masters, we could say that the raw materials are available to anyone who can use it (or reuse it), and the creativity is often lacking in these books, or articles, or whatever. There are honorable exceptions, which I will not name so as not to libel by omission.

For Example:

Here’s a little theoretical article about the Evans Gambit, the variant 5…Ae7 (1.e4, e5 2.Nf3, Nc6 3.Bc4, Bc5 4.b4, Bxb4 5.c3, Be7) in encyclopaedia format (click to download). Completely raw, can be improved a lot, but it actually took me only two minutes to make it, after deciding what opening or defense I wanted to compile.

The article as is, is a good reference material, (especially by the fact that many of the games are already analyzed) but it is far from perfect. With a little more effort, I could write a few paragraphs explaining about the most fundamental ideas. I could translate the symbols into words, add more diagrams and pictures, cut off some long variants to shorten the analysis (where the assessment for one of the sides is already clear), re-check the games and analysis using computer programs in search of serious mistakes and improvements, etc. If the author has some integrity, he would add some games analyzed by himself, or even research the history of the variant: make it nice, you know.

And that’s all folks! A brand new book to sell. If the author is a GM the books will sell well even after he jacks up the price.

*

“We are all children of the (Chess) Informant”

Garry Kasparov

Openings books come from a pre-computer era (and before the Yugoslav Chess Informant), where chess players had to rely on chess magazines to copy (literally by hand) their favorite openings and defenses, so the books were an improvement compared to the suffering of copying books, hundreds or thousands of pages. As evidence of the misery, I have a callus on the middle finger of my right hand I guess I´m not the only one.

With the advent of computers, the study of openings and chess as a whole has become easier, however the TMI syndrome (Too Much Information, a term invented by the Grandmaster Andrew Soltis ) is here to spoil the most enthusiastic student.

But the good news is, if copying is easy to book assemblers, it will be for you. Let the compiler to compile, you have no need to buy a bad opening book anymore. In this article you will learn to choose the good opening books and produce your own theory.

Just keep reading

3. Beginners.

This is for those beginners that know the following:

• how to move the pieces,
• the main chess rules,
• the basic checkmates,
• maybe some endgames like king and pawn against king,
• and can solve with relative ease forced combinations of two moves.

It’s time to take another step forward, and study some openings.

I would like to add that “my” Beginners know that in the openings you should pursue three goals:

1. The control of the center,
2. Piece development,
3. and king safety (castle),

and that at this stage is a waste of development time (tempos):

• consecutive movements of a piece,
• the adventures of the Queen in this early stage,
• and some pawn captures (poisoned pawns).

All the beginners should know all of the above, at least theoretically, but still they have difficulties playing, especially against more experienced players. In short, they do not know how to apply the theory learned into practice.

Before explaining any method, I will answer this question: What should be the repertoire of a beginner?

My suggestions:

• As White, King’s pawn openings (1.e4) and against different defenses for Black, I recommend playing open systems — structures with the most attack and tactical opportunities as possible, for example, gambits.
• Avoid if possible mono-thematical and unimaginative openings such as the King’s Indian Attack, and similar systems, that is, as they propose universal answers against any black defenses. (It can be argued that inducing students to play “bad” such as playing gambits is a weak advice, but here comes the answer: this type of game is just an experiment. It is the beginner’s crawling through the world of chess. I have the opinion, as many experienced coaches do, that the beginner should pass through the classic stages of chess history, the Italian school, the romantic, the modern, hyper-modern, etc.. the right way to do this is beginning to play open openings.
• What about black? Well, again, a classic approach: Double king’s pawn against king’s pawn (1 … e5);
• The beginner could experiment the Sicilian (1 … c5), but after some mastery of the opening’s basic principles and some experience with double king’s pawn. The Sicilian, although sometimes leads to closed games, it also brings a great deal of dynamism that the student would benefit from practice.
• And against Queen’s pawn? Again, 1…d5. There are several defenses where Black can open the game, or play gambits (accepting the Queen’s Gambit or the Schara-Henning Gambit, for example). Playing Indian defenses at this time could complicate the chess life of the most enthusiastic chess novice.

There is a some orthodoxy in my suggestions, but everything has an explanation: in this stage of learning, the student will define what kind of style he has, what positions are best for him to handle, and so on. But more importantly, at this time when the “chess cubs” can commit the “sin” to skip stages, and start playing “Grand Masters Openings” and neglect other aspects of chess.

I’ve had, and I still have, students that find hard to understand, for example, the dynamics of the pieces, why some gambits and sacrifices of material are correct, and despite already playing in some advanced levels (1800-2000), the attacks and counterattack positions, open and dynamic, are alien to their understanding. The reason? They started their chess life playing openings like 1.c4 (English opening), 1.Nf3 (Reti Opening) and 1.d4 (Queen Pawn’s game), and they disregarded the importance of playing 1.e4, open positions, gambits, etc…They believed they could play like Karpov just like that, and now any player with an aggressive style take them out of balance, or they lose the north in positions where the action asks for a dynamic game, not the slow, positional strategy.

4. A method of studying openings for beginners:

For this you need a database with miniatures, games with no more than 20 moves, 25 max. We will publish some, but there is an inconvenience, that they are not analyzed for copyright reasons, but at least they will be useful for you with this method. If you could get books with miniature collections commented in words, not symbols, it would be great because it also would help you understand the games.

This is not the time to memorize long variations, but I recommend writing the first five or six moves that define an opening (here’s a primer cart to help you out), and compile miniatures under the name of these. Notice, that instead of full games, we are talking about miniature games (games with less than 20 moves.) Usually these games are defined by strong attacks, explosive tactical blows, and of course serious mistakes. As the material available from each opening is huge, I advise you not to spend too much time in each game, five or ten minutes each. At this stage it is more important to learn from chess ideas than from long variations, however do not discard the opportunnity to learn by heart some move orders and sequences.

Yes, that’s fine, you may say, but what are those chess ideas?

Do not spend much time at this stage with every move, a game of 20 moves is not a text book.

Summarizing, repeating and widening the definition, step by step:

• What are the typical breakthroughs (pawn advances to exchange with other pawns to open lines )
• How to place the pieces to the attack and / or defense
• Common tactical themes (both simple and spectacular combinations). This could give you list of the weaknesses and options that you get in your opening positions.
• Common mistakes committed by both sides.
• Answering the question: How do they win the white / black when they win?
• Choose a limited number of games to be considered a model game, for both sides, and learn them by heart. The memory in chess is important, despite some say the contrary.
• If you want to go a little deeper, expanding the number of moves to be analyzed (instead of miniatures from 15 to 20 moves, up to 25)
• Repeat the steps with another opening/defense.

Of course, for every hour you spend studying your openings, you should spend four playing and putting your research at stake. I imagine it is very difficult to play tournament games all the time, but playing fast games, both online and live, it will be easier. I would not now enter into the debate about if is good or bad to play Blitz (five minutes per player), but ultimately is a possibility to consider. Blitz is fun, you will spend a good time, and the number of games you will play in a couple of hours will be over 10 games, so this way you have practiced your openings big time; accumulating experiences is vital in chess. Of course you should (must) analyze your serious games, but for blitz games with trial and error method will be enough. To let you know,  there are players who thoroughly analyzed lines of openings that occur continually in their games, even in blitz. That depends on the time you have available, is up to you.

Warnings:

• (For young children who read this): seek help from an adult, preferably a chess player, if you do not understand some of what I wrote here, I know that sometimes my writing can be a bit confusing, specially in English
• (For parents/coaches): the help of a coach to guide this process, or even prepare in advance the information for the training of children and youngsters could be invaluable, but if the children are too young, please remember that chess is a great fun game that gives them great pleasure, and so they see it this way. This item is made especially for at least young chess players who could (and want) exercise their will power in the methodical study of chess. Any attempt to induce very young children by this method could be counterproductive. Softening the training and making it scalable  would be essential, and the way to apply it would depend on the good understanding of each coach.
• (Players eager to get better at chess) Of course, you have to understand that this type of study of the openings only works when you are faced with inexperienced players like you. With stronger players you will find more resistance, and possibly lose games. It is normal, do not be discouraged, persevere. Do not doubt, this will improve your playing strength , and it will prepare you for the next stage.
• I would also like to clarify: This method is not intended to be “The Method” to study openings, but the practice and the experience of many other coaches indicates that at least it is not wrong; Also, this one fits with the spirit of our ChessForReal.com website, a serious approach to the study of chess.
• I would like to repeat something important, this method is not designed for absolute beginners, it is made for those who already have some notion of the game, and have the desire and the will to engage in the study of chess.

Free chess downloads here:

This is something you can start working with (of course, if you’re interested in Evans Gambit. If not, expect future publications. I also accept suggestions).

*

Here it ends the first part of this article aimed at beginners. Next week I will try the method for intermediate players.

Ad Majorem Caissa Gloriam!