Openings directories

Submitted by GM LuckyTiger on Chess.com

Strongest chess play­ers in their in­ter­views em­pha­size on the im­por­tance of the open­ings in the mod­ern chess. This mat­ter is so cru­cial on the top level that up to 100% of their chess train­ings are ded­i­cat­ed to prepar­ing of open­ings vari­a­tions. All other as­pects of the chess mas­ter­ship (such as: strate­gic un­der­stand­ing, endgames, study­ing of clas­si­cal games etc.) were sup­posed to be stud­ied at the be­gin­ning of their chess car­ri­ers. Now, only open­ings, open­ings, open­ings…

But these talks are about top play­ers. What should do less ex­pe­ri­enced play­ers who just at his/her start? Of course im­por­tance of open­ings knowl­edge is not so huge there. Even if they get win­ning po­si­tion from the very open­ing it does not mean he/she will win this game. That’s why I am strong­ly con­vinced that play­ers up to level 2400-2500 should not sac­ri­fice all their chess time only for open­ings. Books by Nimt­zovich, Dvoret­sky, Aa­gard, Alekhine and many-many oth­ers could be (and should be) stud­ied. As well, mas­ter­ship of anal­y­sis is a good key for long-last­ing REAL im­prove­ment.

But this idea does not mean that you should for­get about open­ings train­ings ab­so­lute­ly. I offer to spend less time on open­ings in order to in­vest saved time in the real chess im­prove­ment. Giv­ing my on­line and of­fline lessons I have seen that prob­lem of build­ing up an open­ing reper­toire is both im­por­tant and chal­leng­ing. A lot of play­ers can not use Chess­Base and Rybka prop­er­ly. Open­ings books they buy in­clude a lot of ma­te­ri­al and to de­fine what im­por­tant and what not is a prob­lem since its re­solv­ing re­quires an ex­pe­ri­ence or some­body’s ad­vice.

That’s why I start­ed to help my stu­dents cre­at­ing files for them in the open­ings they were in­ter­est­ed in more of all. I do not tell these files helped them to re­solve all their prob­lems. But they pro­vide them with the basis of that or an­oth­er line. As well, op­po­site to mul­ti­ple videos that are post­ed in the in­ter­net, you can save my files (in cbv or pgn for­mat) and use them in fu­ture when­ev­er you need with­out any prob­lems.

What do my files in­clude? I put there main lines and ref­er­ences to im­por­tant games. Of course I pro­vide this ma­te­ri­al with word ex­pla­na­tions where this is re­quired in my opin­ion. The main goal I am fol­low­ing is do not over­load files with extra ma­te­ri­al. When­ev­er you are need­ed to pre­pare a con­crete line for a con­crete game you can just look at such file and get a re­quired ap­proach.

My files are very con­ve­nient for using. You can both watch them on com­put­er screen and print out pgn file and look vari­a­tions on the board. As well, when­ev­er you see some good game played in al­ready ex­ist­ing line, you can just add it to that file. Also you can add there your games played by these vari­a­tions.

The level of play­ers I try to be ori­en­tat­ed on is very dif­fer­ent: from 1500 to 2400. Of course, files will be use­ful not equal­ly for them but I am sure they will be! As well, I offer an email-sup­port for lines that are put to my files. If you down­load­ed the file and you have some ques­tions about some con­crete po­si­tion or what­ev­er – just send me an email and I will help you.

If you are enough encouraged with all this - welcome to my new page http://chesstao.com/openings.php