Skeptic wrote:
Openings I wouldn't worry about too much in your games. Dirty little
secret: for most class players, studying openings is almost a
complete waste of time. Think about it: suppose you know the
Caro-Kann main line up to, say, move 15. What are the chances that
your opponent does?

Exactly. And there's also the point that there's absolutely no point
getting to a position where the book says, `with a winning attack' if
you have absolutely no idea how to carry out the attack. Sometimes,
`the attack plays itself' but, other times, very accurate play is
required, with deep calculation. (And, sometimes, the author of the
book looked at the position, thought, `Yeah, White's obviously
winning; let's go on to the next game' and didn't notice that Black
has some defensive resources.


If he deviates from the "book" at move 4, do you know why the move
he made is inferior? Almost certainly not.

On the other hand, going through some master games in the openings
that you play is a good idea as it allows you to see what shape the
game should take from there. This gives some of the understanding
that's lacking from the sort of opening study that low-rated players
tend to do.

But, as you say, at 1335, the main areas for (productive) study are
tactics, tactics and endgames. There's probably not much point
reading Nimzowitsch yet: again, no point knowing subtleties of pawn
structure if you're dropping pieces to simple tactics.

Other useful resources are Dan Heisman's column at chesscafe.com and
the chessgames.com daily puzzle (fairly easier on Mondays; gets harder
through the week).


Dave.

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