I've been playing online again, for a while I was just studying, now I'm doing both. I've been losing badly. And not even losing badly, usually winning and then allowing my opponent to mate me or otherwise hanging pieces. There have been some interesting games though. And a lot of the time I can recover from positions that are so ridiculously bad. I have also been letting myself sacrifice for little or nothing on pure intuition and it has been going rather well. Some very pretty stuff. I'll have to find a couple good positions.

I came across MSA Data (click the link) on Liquid Egg Product's blog. It's pretty cool. I found out that out of 271 rated USCF I have 159 wins, 96 losses, and 16 (!!) draws. Yeah I'm a risk taker... I think it's probably a bad thing. I also used to resign very early because I used to attach a lot of emotion to the game when I was young. Now I am seasoned. I show nothing. I feel nothing. I couldn't even remember what my last draw was!! But I looked it up and it was over a year ago, I was so mad when I offered a draw that I couldn't win the ending but then he refused and I couldn't believe it. Someone watching was telling me to calm down and I was like "fuck that I'm the only one with winning chances here..." and then I calmly walked away. While I'm writing this it occurs to me that this may be the last time I sacked an exchange and tried to win with the bishop. I think it contributed to my aversion to piece sacrifices even when I know they are good.

On that note I was going through a Maroczy database I have and there is a game in the line I'm preparing where Kramnik and Anand had drawn and Kramnik was trying the line with White again. (The line is 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 d4 cd 4 Nd4 g6 5 c4 Nf6 6 Nc3 d6 7 Be2 Nd4 8 Qd4 Bg7, they played a different move order though) Anand defends for a while and then matter of factly sacrifices the exchange and says (it was his annotations in Chessbase) now black is completely out of danger because the pawns are on one side. OK... really?? That's all it takes for you to decide to snap off a bishop for a rook...?? So a couple moves later Kramnik starts to really press and Anand says this is a mistake and the next move Kramnik offered a draw and Anand decides to keep playing and wins the game down the exchange with black. Now I should justify this by saying that this was back in 1996 when Kramnik was just a lowly 2775...

Anyways, work's over now so I'm going to just post this and go home, but the exchange sacrifice and the positional pawn sacrifice are definitely my two biggest areas of study right now. Let me know if there's anything I should look at...

I had mentioned in my last post that I had been doing well making databases that are opening specific. Shoemaker responded that he does not think of grouping "chess concepts" but rather makes databases for aesthetic value. When I want to see something of aesthetic value I pull out Kasparov's Greatest Games, Volume 2, I turn to a random page, and I try to sink in parts of the game. There's no way that I can begin to comprehend any of these games, but they are pleasing to look at. When I'm going through a database to work on my game, I will focus the database not on "chess concepts", but on specific opening lines. For instance with the Caro-Kann, I wanted to play a new line. I found that Kasparov had chosen predominantly the main line, I went over all the games in my database that Kasparov had played in that line, I would say I spent maybe 2 or 3 hours on creating the database and going over it a few times. Then I played it online a little bit. And then several months later I faced Grant Fleming and he played c6 and I decided to try it out:

1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Bf5 5.Ng3 Bg6 6.Nf3 Nf6 7.h4 h6 8.Ne5 Bh7 9.Bc4 e6 10.Qe2 Nd5 11.f4 Nd7 12.Bd2 Nxe5 13.fxe5 Qb6 14.0-0-0 0-0-0 15.Rhf1 Qxd4 16.Bg5 Qb6 17.Bxd8 Qxd8 18.Bxd5 cxd5 19.Rxf7 Bg6 20.Rf4 Be7 21.Qg4 Bxh4 22.Qxh4 Black Resigns 1-0

Now neither of us played very well, although we were both over 1800. But the first game against Parreira, in the Rough Day post is the only other time I have played this Caro-Kann main line in a tournament and I have been able to understand games in this line much better since going through this database. The most noticeable differential to me in between these games is the exchange of the bishop. It develops White's Queen for free and gets rid of the powerful albeit cornered black bishop, which has already moved 3 times and will now move a fourth. These are the things I look for when I study openings, it is impossible to play the middlegame without knowing what exchanges are beneficial and which are harmful. And it is true that there are other ways to evaluate this, and good players can find this information at the board. But where does such information come from. Study of endgames obviously helps in the later middlegame, but in the early middlegame oftentimes you can rely on empirical information, the games of very strong grandmasters in the same lines.

You can find them trying your idea and see the best opposition at the same time and I think that this is important. At least knowing what the best tries are, I oftentimes will dumb down my line because I don't think that my opponent will be able to keep up, but I usually know the game I'm giving up too. I think that in order to actually find the openings that I want to play I have to find the middlegame positions that I'm getting myself into and either get to know them or find an alternative. That's how I've built the repertoire that I've been playing and I have no holes. The English has been a catastrophe of late I will admit but I have a line. The Maroczy also I have several lines. I am closing holes before you can even find them, stacking up two or three alternatives in case we play a few times and I want to jump around, discuss a different topic. And if you find one, please believe you will never find me there again, and if we are going down the same path, walk slow and carry a very big stick.

I haven't posted for a week for a reason, I've been looking at more games and I was in Vegas for work Tuesday through Thursday with limited access to the internet (I didn't feel like paying $12/day when I know things to do in Vegas...). So yesterday was game day at the club and it was an interesting one, although I failed to bring actual effort into the building (perhaps a result of the fact that my flight to Reno landed at 6:50; I was 25 minutes late; I caught up on move 12 or 13). I had been looking at the games of Botvinnik on Saturday (Sometimes I just decide to look at a random book that I have, in this case Botvinnik's 100 Selected Games; definitely a great read as it is written by Botvinnik himself; his reign is almost as impressive as Kasparov's). Anyways, this led to me reading Botvinnik-Tal 1961 while I was in Vegas. There is a very interesting history during Botvinnik's reign of the chess realm. There was a rule in effect that said that he was entitled to a rematch one year later if he lost the championship. This rule helped him regain the championship twice, he lost in 1957 to Smyslov, and then lost in 1960 to Tal (he had almost lost in 1954 to Bronstein and there is some speculation that Bronstein threw the match, although Bronstein denies this in several sources); regaining the title the following year in the return match. I haven't actually read Botvinnik-Tal until this point and I was looking at the games and much like the first time these two met, nearly every game that Tal played white was a Caro-Kann.

So when I arrive I am due to play David Parreira who I murdered the last time we met in a Caro-Kann:



I decided to play e4 and go into the Caro-Kann again, but then I decided to play a more exciting line from the Advance Variation:



There is some explanation necessary here. Filipas-Garingo had just ended in a draw and so I was going over some lines because I could not believe that there was a draw there. I was spending very little time at the board because I had a crushing position and he was spending a long time at the board. Then I went to play Bc5 and had already grabbed the Knight when I realized that the f3 square was covered by that pawn and I was mated. Another advantage of the earlier Bb5 tells as the f1 square would have prevented the embarassing mate.

After this Nathaniel and I decided to play a 10 game match with G/40 time controls. I won the first game with a mate however he had a very large advantage when this happened. I'll post this game later as these two games took some work. At least something came out of my poor performance.

My last couple years of high school I basically stopped playing, then when I was a freshman in school in Chicago I started playing a lot of blitz cause there are places to play (North Avenue usually has some good players hanging around). So then I started playing again and I really didn't know what openings to play. I had played the Accelerated Dragon for a long time (I still do) so I didn't need any help against e4. But I had no idea what to play for white or what to play against d4. I had played both e4 and d4 at different times in my youth and against d4 I had played the Benko and I had also played the KID, enjoying good success with both. But I was in the mood for a change so I started looking around. Then I found a complete repertoire book from Larry Kaufman called The Chess Advantage in Black and White. Now I would never buy a book like this now, but back when I had limited knowledge of theory it was a very useful find. He sets up a repertoire for white based on e4 with the Spanish Exchange, the Bb5 Sicilian, the French Tarrasch, the Caro-Kann Short System, and the Be3 Pirc. These systems share the fact that the theory is relatively easy to learn and they are all highly respected systems. For Black he recommended e5, which I ignored, and the Semi-Slav, which is a system that I like playing a lot. So I read the book and started playing these systems. But I found that with white I wanted more than these lines gave me, so I gradually made substitutes.

The first line to go was the Spanish Exchange, I learned the Scotch exclusively from a database and was getting good results with it online but I don't think I ever had to play it in a tournament. Throughout this whole period I was not playing tournament chess during the year as Chicago unfortunately does not have a good club (actually did not while I was there). Next I began experimenting with other Caro-Kann systems (also from a database), the advance with Nc3 and g4, and the main line. I am confident that in tournament play I could play any of these three systems at will although I have not looked at the advance Caro-Kann for a long time. Next to go was the Sicilian, from another repertoire book incidentally by Jacob Aagaard (and others) called Experts vs. the Sicilian. If you want to learn the Open Sicilian I would start with this book, it gives you a very strong introduction to the lines. Then I switched from the Tarrasch (or Trash as I like to call it (only because of my style, it is a very solid opening)) to the French Main Line, with help from Lev Psakhis in two texts from his four volume survey of the French. I have only read the two focusing on Nc3 (one is on 3 Nc3 Bb4 exclusively and the other is the rest of 3 Nc3) but assuming the other two are of similar quality this series is indispensable if you play the French. So that's how I built the repertoire I have now. You'll notice I am mostly drawn to the main lines, this has been a gift and a curse. These lines are very theory intensive, if you cannot learn theory easily then this is not a repertoire for you. What draws me to these lines is that the ensuing games are extremely fascinating. I used to think the French was boring and dull, but now I've played several Winawers and Alekhine-Chatards and I realize that this is far from the truth. The problem with playing main lines is that you are biting your opponents pet line. When you are learning the Open Sicilian you have to prepare to meet many systems (Najdorf, Dragon, Classical, Sveshnikov, Kalashnikov, Four Knights, Kan/Taimanov, Scheveningen, etc.), your opponents on the other hand only have to be prepared to face a few lines within each system. For instance I know when my opponent plays the open sicilian against me that I will only have to face the Main Line or the Maroczy Bind, but at that point (1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3.d4) my opponent must be ready to play against the Kan/Taimanov, the Classical, the Four Knights, or my Accelerated Dragon. This used to be very frightening when playing the Open Sicilian, especially when I knew I could play Bb5 and get a comfortable game. And the lines are usually at least 10 moves long, in the 4th round of the WSO I played a game in the Dragon that followed a well-known game until my opponent deviated on move 25! (we had played each other the year before and we could tell we were playing each other so we both hit the databases hard in between rounds). However, the strategic and tactical themes are surprisingly similar throughout all of these systems, so once you start to pick up on these it makes it much easier to be confident in facing c5 with the Open Sicilian. My conclusion from learning main lines is that they are a lot of fun but they are very difficult. The primary reason that I learned the main lines is that I feel that they are essential if you want to be able to play to win at a higher level. This is obviously a controversial statement and there are of course other systems that afford White good practical chances. But the fact remains that these are main lines for a reason and against a seasoned player it is very difficult to gain any sort of an advantage in the opening with a side line.

Now that I have a good hold on the main lines of e4, I would like to broaden my repertoire further to include d4, primarily to give myself experience in different types of positions. I played d4 three times last year, once after losing three straight games, it was a nice win against a weaker player. I also played d4 in two out of my three games with white in the 2006 National Open and both were very impressive wins. So I'm sure that I can be successful with d4 but I am not sure where to start, but I have a repertoire book about 1. d4 on my computer so looks like I will repeat the process with which I built my current repertoire. If anyone has suggestions as to books or systems I would appreciate it.

The title of this blog should be a clue that I know how to have a good time. I've been known to go out 5-7 days a week. The week before the WSO, still going out every night, I would study 2-3 hours every day to be prepared, it paid off. This has me wondering what would happen if I kept up the habit for a month. Or a year. I hear from a lot of people that they don't have time to study. That's bullshit. When you get to a certain level it becomes very hard to actually study. What do I learn next? Should I learn new openings? Should I study a particular player's games? And as you look into these things it's difficult to assess how much you are actually helping your game. Certainly spending 2 hours a day (a mere 15 hours a week) on chess is worthless if you don't feel like you're getting anything out of it. But consider this, spending any time, at a board, with a titled player's commentary, helps your chess. There is no way that you are going to gain insight on a position from playing a blitz game online in that position, when you feel that you don't understand a position, find a much stronger player that has played that position and try to understand his explanation of it. If you're serious about being a competitive chess player, then you should spend at least 10 hours a week on your chess. I am guilty of putting off studying for days on end as I'm sure everyone else is, but when I do sit down to work, I work hard. If chess is simply a hobby and you want to put your time elsewhere, that's great too, but don't complain about not having time to study. There is always time.

Now for those of you who don't know how to study I have been in your shoes. Back when I was in C and even in my early days in B I had no idea what these titled players were talking about. The variations they give end and you have no idea how they came up with the evalution they did or why they give the advantage to one side. Because they give one side a slight advantage you start to try to find concrete variations that will win for that side and there's nothing there. Then you discard the evaluation as premature and "grandmaster voodoo" and you start to lose hope that you will ever be able to look at a similar position and arrive at a similar conclusion. DO NOT LOSE HOPE! It is at times like this that you are struggling with a new concept that you have not come across on a chess board before. It is easy to apply concepts that you have already learned and integrated to a position. But to apply a concept that stronger players have learned is not easy, it takes a good author to get this concept across in a clear way. For players in the middle classes I would look to authors like Silman, Soltis, VUKOVIC, Chernev, Fine, and maybe Nimzo or Capablanca. You'll notice that all of these authors with the exception of Silman and Soltis (who tend to cater to a lower rated crowd) all wrote over 40 years ago. The theory that we all take for granted today has been built steadily beginning with Steinitz over 100 years ago. Older games are simpler, a book like Capablanca's Best Chess Endings will teach you how Capablanca dominated his generation (essentially by exchanging pieces on squares that were favorable to him). Since Capablanca everyone realizes the importance of using discretion when exchanging so this is just one thing that you have to learn if you are going to compete. One series that I really enjoy is Kasparov's My Great Predecessors. By going through each time period individually and slowly moving forward you see how the openings developed and why certain variations are preferred over others as well as how middlegame theory and technique developed and how players in different time periods approached similar positions. This will help you understand why in 2007 we can rule out so many positions as bad. I will provide more book recommendations in the future but if you want some ask me in the comments and I will be more than happy to talk with you about it (I have a very extensive library also if anyone in Reno wants to borrow something).

But I started this post to detail what I am reading now and what I want to commit to until my next tournament (which may end up being the Far West Open, unfortunately). So here it is.

As the title implies, I want to spend 2-3 hours a day, or 15-20 hours a week. When I was at school I used to just wake up Saturday and read for 5-6 hours (assuming my head felt alright :) ). That is a habit I have long since forgotten but one that I would like to start bringing back. 5-6 hours really gives you a chance to get in depth with an opening or get a good chunk out of a book, or both.

As far as the focus of my studies, for this week I want to work on Chess Strategy in Action by John Watson. For those of you unfamiliar with Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy, his first book that was not focused on openings, I suggest that if you are over 1700 you buy it right now. Seriously, forget this post, buy that book and come back to read this later. This is the single best book on chess I have ever read, period. I was in a deep slump coming off of my star summer in 2005 and I really didn't know how to progress and I read that book and broke out of it completely. This book will help you focus on what's important on the chess board. This is also the book that instilled in me a love of studying, it hasn't felt like a chore since. Then there's this other book, Chess Strategy in Action, a much, much more difficult text. Targeted at players of at least 2000 strength the issues seemed trivial to me when I first attempted to read it after SOMCS but when I picked it up to prepare for the Western States I realized that I am now ready to embark on this text. But I rarely read only one book at a time, also this week is Anatoly Karpov Engame Virtuoso, which features Karpov's refined endgame skill in great detail (I would recommend this if you are 1800+); and probably some Spassky from Kasparov's My Great Predecessors Volume III.

The bigger project is switching from e4 to d4, or rather learning d4 so that I can choose which of my opponent's openings I will face. I started to write about it in this post but I think that there will be another post to follow shortly in which I will detail how I built my healthy repertoire over the last 3 years.

I've been playing chess as long as I can remember, my dad taught me on a plane when I was very young. However there have been several lapses in my career. I would say that I really became serious as a student of the game in fall of 2005 when at school. I had just broken through 1700 (now I have just broken through 1900) with a superb performance throughout the summer and I was basically buying two or three books a month from Amazon and just tearing through them.

I am, as Eric Shoemaker pointed out, primarily an attacking player, although I have won many games with positional finesse. I think that the reason that I am drawn to attack is that I have a good feel for the initiative. I am also extremely good at finding concrete lines and evaluating them. I have often been criticized for playing too quickly or pursuing plans (usually sacrifices or other significant changes in the position) when I could have simply improved my position or when it is speculative. I generally like positions that are very unbalanced, it gives me a good chance to be creative and it usually guarantees winning chances. The positions that I dread, not because I will lose them but because it is hard to win them, are positions that have the same pawn structure on both sides.

Anyways that's just a brief summary of my experience. I think that I will post a lot of games on here, study habits, results, rants, etc. It seems like fun.