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Chessville
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The Study of the Opening - Part 3 by Diego Acosta and Tony Hahn
In the first two parts of this article we discussed the importance of gathering games from top-level practice to learn the ideas about your repertoire openings. Here, we will systematize the repertoire by taking into consideration the ECO codes. Alright then, in the meantime you have a nice collection of games by your hero or specialist in the opening of your choice. Study them in a relaxed fashion taking light notes for future reference. Here we must warn you that how you study your games is entirely up to you. Some people would much rather print the games, go to a nice place, grab a cup of coffee, and use a real chess set instead of staring at the screen of a computer. Either way works. For one, the fellow at Borders will actually calculate himself the variations and force his brain to work. In front of the computer, one might be more efficient as one can edit comments, check analyses, save time etc. The drawback for the fellow at Borders is that he might make an inaccurate analysis and miss important tactics. The guy in front of the computer might rely too heavily on the engine to do his calculation of variations, missing an important part of the process: the use of his brain! Be aware of these pros and cons when working on your openings. Is that all in regards to the collection of games? Nope, it is not. Look around your personal library… Ah! So you have an MCO 12th edition, or a BCO from the 80’s, or an NCO from last week? Get them here! You will use them. We know that you buy chess books to let them collect dust. Let that happen no more! Bring them here with a couple of highlighters please. Oh! What is that book over there under the leg of your desk? Are we spotting “The complete chess-player” by Reinfeld? You miscreant! Bring it here please… Yes, it is basic but we are going to use it! What’s the point of using old manuals of openings and elemental books of chess? The point is that we will cover every possible source of information available at home. Even if there are outdated analyses or lines we will be able to spot those inaccuracies by using engines and our keen eye in case we choose to play an obscure line from an old book. Also, those little manuals that nobody reads contain a wealth of traps that few people bother to learn… Relax for now, we will not ask you to memorize anything yet. The aim is to gather all possible sources of information. Remember also the following:
The opening lines that you craft yourself, carefully making notes of your understanding, engine annotations, and comments, are far more beneficial than endless opening manuals. An example with the Danish gambit (which we'll show you in Part Four of this article) will show a neatly organized opening recipe with notes, variations, principles, etc. Now that we have found some books and sources of information we need to sift through all these mountains of data in a systematic manner. Please don’t panic, because we are about to see: The use of ECO codes to tackle the task of learning openings. Openings have been catalogued by codes by the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings (ECO). The codes are straightforward and that is the first place that you need to look in order to anticipate what White (Black) might do and plan how to pursue your study of the opening. An ECO is readily available right here at Chessville. The whole ECO is humongous but the basic structure is here:
We will climb further into the branches of the ECO tree to find the openings that we are studying. For the time being we are looking for 1. e4 e5 because that’s what our friend decided to do with his Petroff. This roughly narrows the issue to studying the “C” section of the ECO, which contains the following:
Intimidated? Don’t be! We know for a fact that our friend will not play the French and that he will not respond to 2. Nf3 with Nc6 so that we can narrow the study lines highlighted in blue and avoid studying the remaining sections of the code. In short, we will confine our study to the lines that apply to our repertoire. As it can be seen the student narrowed the study of his defense against 1.e4 into digestible chunks. Let us say for example that someone wants to prepare the Berlin defense of the Ruy Lopez. Such an approach is entirely valid but you have to consider that the lines to be prepared will increase accordingly (i.e., Italian and Scotch openings among the many will be possible for White) and you will have to keep that in mind when pursuing such a demanding undertaking. Be that as it may be, there is no denying that the study of certain openings will reduce the amount of theory and deviations a lot and will be more approachable for the student while some others will be more demanding. We can only remind you of our disclaimer: We are not suggesting that anyone play a particular opening against 1.e4, or imitate blindly Karpov or any other chess master. Our aim is to show how to systematically study openings. In that sense, some people would like to work on 1… c6 others more violently inclined would try 1…c5, a degenerate soul would do 1…Nf6 (just kidding!) or something else… In any instance, Black needs to work each system individually just as our fellow that chose 1 …e5 to try to emulate his hero. The call of which openings to study is yours alone… Chess, after all, is not easy… Is there any merit in studying an opening that demands a huge amount of preparation because of the latent possibilities by either side? Or conversely, is there any merit in studying an opening that requires little or no preparation because of its rather simplistic character? Only the person attempting to craft a repertoire can answer such questions. Luckily for us and chess, we all have different opinions as to how to play chess and there are going to be plenty of fanatics inclined to play a Sicilian with all its inherent possibilities and complicated lines, connoisseurs of the a French defense with convoluted schemes of development, scientifically inclined people honing the Ruy Lopez with its vast amount of paths, and many, many more. Who is right? Does it matter? Prepare your opening with diligent study, play your games trying to better yourself, learn from your mistakes, make adjustments and repeat the process.
Things, after all, are complicated and straight paths in openings are just a dream. We can guarantee that the unsuspecting amateur will be bound to see that chess-players pursue different paths and that opinions in regards to openings differ vastly. As he could see, even in the French defense there are options from as early as the second or third move that mesh with the personality of the players accordingly. For instance, French player #1a is a violently inclined individual who likes to seek complications and chances from the very beginning and not caring about pawn structure considerations. French player #1b is a more evolved version of #1a since he is not willing to give up any weaknesses lightly while seeking promising positions. French player #2 is a practical person that tries to earn an equal game and to minimize the amount of theory to be remembered. The other two players are classically inclined but while #3a tries to pursue lines that are analyzed profusely, #3b retorts to those forgotten lines that few people expect to see over the board. So what was the point of this story? Was
it to encourage you to play the French defense? No, it would be
un-ethical for us to point you towards a particular direction. The
point of this discussion was to show you that at the end of the day it is
your personal choice that must shape your repertoire. You alone know whether
the positions resulting from the Scandinavian “I need a refill.” - Tony. Refreshed? On to Part Four |
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