On Tue, 1 Jun 2004 09:59:59 -0400, "Matthew"
wrote:

I have seen advice around that beginners study the opening to much. So, I
have intentionally put more weight on studying tactics and the endgame. My
rating has gone up to 1500, and I think I am loosing games because of not
knowing the opening.

A friend recommended Nunn's Chess Openings. I purchased it, but it seems to
be a bit monotonous. I don't have any friends my level in chess nearby to
study with. Does anybody have any ideas how to make it more interesting?

Matthew

Matthew,

Nunn's Chess Openings (along with ECO and MCO) is intended as a
refere3nce book on the openings. What I do is to go over every game I
play and look at how the opening progressed.

When I am the first to deviate from book I try to understand what the
difference is between the usual book move(s) and the one I played so
that if I ever reach the position again I'll understand what moves are
book and more importantly why those moves are better than others.

When my opponent deviates from book first I take several actions:
1) look over the analysis of the moves that are book (in order to
understand) whether my opponents move was inferior and why.
2) analyze the game until the transition to the middlegame to check if
I understood how to get advantage after opponents move.

As far as learning a new opening variation I adopt the approach that
Steve Lopez favors in his series of articles called "Learning a New
Opening" in the Chessbase Technical Notes on-line column that he wrote
some years ago. [The articles are availabe at www.chessbase.com and
www.chessbaseusa.com.] Lopez incorporates studying some books into
learning a new opening, but mainly uses a chess playing program and a
chess database program with a large (several million games) database.
Lopez talks about using Fritz and Chessbase 8 in his examples, but
with some adaptation you could use crafty and scid, both of which are
available for free. Check the articles out.

Good Luck

Mike Ogush