Many many errors, but good blitz fun :-)

White: Malcolm

Black: NN

5+3

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5 b5 4. cxb5 a6 5. bxa6 Bxa6 6. Nc3 d6 7. g3 g6 8. Bg2 Bg7 9. Nf3 O-O 10. O-O Nbd7 11. Re1 Nb6 12. e4 Qc7 13. Be3 Nc4 14. Bc1 Rfb8 15. Qc2 Nd7 16. b3 Nce5 17. Nxe5 Nxe5 18. Bb2 Nd3 19. Red1 Nxb2 20. Qxb2 c4 21. b4 Qb6 22. a3 Bd4 23. Qd2 Be5 24. Ra2 h5 25. Kh1 h4 26. f4 Bxc3 27. Qxc3 hxg3 28. hxg3 f6 29. Bf3 Kg7 30. Rh2 Rh8 31. Rd2 Bb5 32. Rxh8 Rxh8+ 33. Rh2 Rxh2+ 34. Kxh2 Qf2+ 35. Kh3 Qf1+ 36. Bg2 Qd3 37. Qxd3 cxd3 38. Bf3 Ba4 39. Kg2 d2 40. Kf2 d1=Q 41. Bxd1 Bxd1 42. b5 Bg4 43. b6 Bc8 44. Ke3 Kf7 45. Kd4 e6 46. dxe6+ Kxe6 47. Kc4 g5 48. Kb5 gxf4 49. gxf4 f5 50. exf5+ Kxf5 51. a4 Kxf4 52. a5 d5 53. a6 d4 54. b7 Bxb7 55. axb7 d3 56. b8=Q+ Ke3 57. Qe5+

1-0

Well you know what= If I actually knew how to improve at openings, then I would be better at openings in a real game.

I went through a couple of your games now, and in my estimation you are already a stronger player than me-

So it would be more than a little ridiculous for me to "give you tips" or any other kind of instruction on <how> to learn openings or anything else about chess.

If I knew what "worked" then I'd be doing it myself.

I think <Malthrope> would be an excellent choice to ask about this= also <achieve>, <hms123>, <Boomie>, <Open Defence>, <Big Crawdaddy>= they are all significantly stronger players than me.

I could give you opinions off the top of my head- actually that would describe 99% of all 23,000 of my posts at this website.

But I really believe that it is ridiculous to "take advice" from someone who knows less than you do about something.

This is why I think <JRobiretard> is the single most embarrassing "chess figure" I'm aware of- in the world.

He has posted 80 million videos on every aspect of the game= including a very long "Openings tutorial"- and he's a FISH. He's a PATZER. He is DUMB AS A ROCK.

"Learning" from his videos would be like "learning" diet tips from a person as big as a piano.

But there is one thing I would say-

The following advice is from <Boomie> and this is really the only piece of chess learning advice that I think is universally agreed upon. It is also the most difficult to do. Everyone "knows" about this already, but who actually does it?

This advice covers all aspects of the game as well, including learning openings.

This post is from <Boomie>:

<

The bitter pill is guaranteed to help what ails you. As painful as it is, you need to go over your games.

First do it without an engine running. Take notes about where you OR your opponent could have done better.

How well was the opening played? Make a note of places where you have questions or are confused. For me, that means a lot of notes.

After this "dry run", subject the game to the rigors of the engine. Try to use it to answer your notes. Also look for places where you probably should have taken a note.

This takes a lot of time, I know, but there is no substitute for hard work in chess.

I have some advice to give on learning openings. It may not be particularly good advice - the idea is that if enough people give you advice you can pick the ideas that sound the most promising to you. (If you have trouble evaluating all the different tips, here's a good rule of thumb. If it doesn't involve much hard work it probably won't help you much. If it involves heaps of hard work you'll grow tired of it and quit.)

Step 1: Study endgames. This will prepare you for step 2.

Step 2: Study middlegames. If you don't know what the @#$% to do in a middlegame there's no point studying openings.

Step 3: Pick an opening to study. There are many game collections here at chessgames.com that will help you select one, such as Game Collection: OWEN DEFENSE - ENGLISH DEFENSE, Game Collection: Yudasgoat System, Game Collection: English Defense, Game Collection: The best 1...b6 games and of course Game Collection: Owen Defense

Step 4: Get a good book on your opening. Preferably, it should include both lots of variations for reference, and lots of games by strong masters.

Step 5: Analyse those games by strong masters (and any other games by strong masters in similar variations) to get a feeling for what kind of development plans are used in the opening and early middlegame and what kind of middlegame plans they tend to flow into.

Step 6: Play some 4000 games with your opening to hammer all this into your skull and skeleton. Preferably they should include all time controls, from very slow correspondence games which you analyse ever deeper until the opponent's positional prospects haunt your nightmares to very fast 1-minute games which will flow straight from the backbone all that opening-related knowledge has been hammered into.

<Anatoli>

<Mr. Owls> has kindly swooped in with some timely words of good advice.

Lest you think he might be insane= <Owen's Opening> is in fact real and it is the <Switching Owls for Thugs> house specialty.

I have heard other strong players say that analysing your defeats is the key to improvement, but is is tough to do for me.

Demoralising at times :-(

I must set aside some time to do it properly tho, becasue I would be a fool to postpone it forever it seems.

I do look at all my games a bit afterwards, but generally the worse it went, the quicker I move on -lol-

Have you been using this Chinese Torture Method yourself <Jess>? Does it get easier?

Maybe what's needed is a firm committment for me to analyse my next defeat properly...

Would you permit me to offer you some small advice too <Jess>? I just sensed a little, well I don't really know the right word, but fatalism maybe in the way you wrote that you thought I was a slightly stronger player than you therefore you could tell me nothing about chess.

I hope this was a joke, but in case you believe there is even a shred of credibility in such an idea I would like to make clear I know for certain it is baloney!

I have played opponents stronger than me who have put this idea forward, actually who seem to base their whole chess egos on it (they are frequently the ones who follow their rating to three decimal places) but it is a fallacy.

Up until a player reaches something like Master Level they have big strengths and big weaknesses. And even among GM's there are still big differences in opening knowledge/endgame knowledge and middle game assessment.

This means that a player who studies any aspect of the game (okay so the real patzer fish aren't included here -lol-) can always help teach another player something, even if they have a slightly lower rating or slightly worse results.

I have lost games against much stronger opponents where I <know> I got a better postion in the opening for example, but made a mistake later on.

Does this mean I can't tell tham anything about the opening? Of course not.

I hope that does not sound too preachy <Jess>, it isn't meant to be at all. The thing is there was one particular opponent I had in the past who used to beat me frequently, very arrogant, would not discuss the games and would just assume he won so therefor he was always winning.

The guy drove me nuts, made me feel bad even, and lessened my enjoyment of the game.

But I perservered and slowly it became apparent that all I was lacking was experience. (This was way back when I just took the game up 'seriously', like I was 18 or something). He wasn't vastly superior in all aspects of the game, like he assumed, just one.

Boy would I like to say I kicked his butt from then on, but that would not be accurate I'm afraid. But the games became much closer and neither of us dominated.

So the moral of the story is, firstly that I have waffled beyond all realms of sanity and decency in your forum and should not be given the chance to do so, and secondly that I would always be very eager to hear anything you want to tell me about chess becasue I am still learning all aspects of the game :-)

regards

The problem is that opening "theory" is really just years and years of master games thrown into the blender and systematized in books. What best helps you changes some with experience and strength. Very strong players can take raw PGNs from recent games and extract useful lessons. Weaker players often need more help in seeing what needs to be seen. That is, a higher words-to-moves ratio. Of course chess is a game of specific moves and move orders, and this is especially true of the opening. Even if you take something like John Watson's books on the openings (http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Che...), which are designed to look at general plans and common threads, there are still lots of specific move orders with which to contend.

I don't know if there <is> any easy answer, other than the bromide that you need to <understand> your opening more than <memorize> it.

You've got a wealth of response here, and now it's getting to work time.

Btw - I agree with you that Jess may on occasion underestimate her potential in - and educating at- chess.

Her posts range from highly intellectually challenging, to brutally honest and very very practical, especially on the psychology aspects.

As <malthrope> said: We all build on the shoulders of giants.

2 points:

1) You need to be a pre. member to use OE, but I think they have similar tools on other sites.

2) You have to be careful with OE. So OE shows that 11. Rb1 has a 49% win rate for white whereas 11.Re1 has only a 31% white victory rate, but if you move one move more you see that it actually looks worse than that based on the most popular moves.

Also, though, OE contains a wide variety of games both old and new. good and bad. The way to limit that problem is to look at the most recent games of the strongest players using the search database for the position feature.

Have you seen the fine BBC series Foyle's War? Michael Kitchen is spot on as a gumshoe during the Great WWII.

In my case, I mainly use <Benjinathan's> method with our own <Opening Explorer>.

I try to play (predict a good move) a move that will fit one of the main lines in the OE- and if I play a move that's not there, I try to figure out why it might not be such a good move, and then I plug it into my engine and let it play itself from that position to see if it can show me why it might not be such a good move.

This is a time consuming process.

<No shortcuts> to chess improvement in any area seems to be the cumulative watchword from our local experts.

<Anatoli> I urge you to shell out the modest fee for a preemy membership-

A: You support the site
B: You get full access to many learning resources
C: We get to spam your forum with fly fishing lore

Also yes I go over my losses- slowly and carefully- and yes it is torture and yes a player cannot improve much without doing this.

Otherwise you will keep making the same mistakes, or the same kind of mistakes, forever- like the giant crowd of 1400-1500 <youtube> players.

Here's a Morphy paraphrased quote about his opinion of Staunton and Morphy's definition of genius in chess. Remarkably this is similar to Spielmann's observation about Alekhine - "I can see the combinations he plays. I just can't create the positions to reach them."

"Mr. Staunton's knowledge of the theory of the game was no doubt complete; his powers as an analyst were of the very highest order, his coup d'oeil and judgment of position and his general experience of the chess board, great; but all these qualities which are essential to make a GREAT chess player do not make him a man of GENIUS. These must be supplemented by imagination and by a certain inventive or creative power, which conceives positions and brings them about. Of the faculty (he said) he saw no evidence in the published games of Mr. Staunton.

In a given position, where there is something to be done, no matter how recondite or difficult the idea, Mr. Staunton will detect it, and carry out the combination in as finished a style as any great player that ever lived, but he will have no agency in bringing about the position.

Therefore in his best day, Mr. Staunton in his opinion could not have made a successful fight against a man who had the same qualities as himself and who, besides, was possessed of the creative power above mentioned such as were Anderssen of Germany, McDonnell of England, and La Bourdonnais of France.

To all that had been said concerning Mr. Staunton personally, his brilliant conversational powers, etc. (he said) he could himself bear witness, as he had the frequent occasions to meet Mr. Staunton in social intercourse.

As a chess author, he thought, as everybody does, that Mr. Staunton's ability was of the very highest order, and that he had done more for the diffusion and propagation of chess than almost anyone else. As a commentater on games actually played, aside from the personalities, he was at times too prone to indulge in, he stood absolutely without a rival.

and i added a few meanderings at my place yesterday that spilled over to the next page.

Let's see how keen Mags is to crush the field from here.

Pogonina btw is <highly> critical of Topa and Leko's play. She's got ballz.

Fischer vs Pachman, 1960

Heh.