I peaked as a USCF A player. My opening prep consists of...well...pretty much nothing.
How many lines do you know?
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Dec 8, 2020
0
#3
IMBacon wrote:
I peaked as a USCF A player. My opening prep consists of...well...pretty much nothing.
Haven't played competitively in thirty years, but I used to know a lot of lines and had thousands (literally, thousands) of games memorized.
Here on chess.com, my big "opening prep" achievement was that Sicilian Najdorf that I keep showing around, in which my opponent resigned on move 32 in a position that had been on my analysis board during my opening prep. In other words, the whole game, right out past move 30, was home preparation.
Knife_Fork wrote:
@Bittrsweet I think you may be misunderstanding the term "line." A line is a specific order of moves. Every time you add a new move to that line or branch away from a given move order, you've created a new line. Theoretically, there are a seemingly infinite number of lines in chess. In terms of opening prep, GMs have far more than a few hundred lines memorized. Consider checking out the Chessable.com opening training courses to get a sense of what I mean. Most of these opening trainers are geared toward intermediate to advanced players. Some of the courses have you memorize upwards of 500 variations--for just one opening (e.g, Harikrishna's training course on beating French Defense)! I would venture to guess that GMs have thousands of lines memorized, but they also prepare specific ones for specific opponents.
Hello friend! Glad to see you. This is exactly what I meant. For example, in the Scotch opening, I have three lines prepared (and nothing past move 6).
500 lines for the French defense alone is simply crazy to me! That's 10 times all of my prep combined! XD
I never really thought about it! I’ve rarely ever memorized lines in much depth at all. I just play whatever move looks familiar and strong! I tend to play the same lines repeatedly for a good while, and then eventually switch when a losing streak hits. Lot of conscious and subconscious factors are usually involved in selecting a line, though I tend to stick with it for awhile.
LM_player wrote:
I never really thought about it! I’ve rarely ever memorized lines in much depth at all. I just play whatever move looks familiar and strong! I tend to play the same lines repeatedly for a good while, and then eventually switch when a losing streak hits. Lot of conscious and subconscious factors are usually involved in selecting a line, though I tend to stick with it for awhile.
Yep. I often play the same lines exclusively for a while, but then I get bored and switch it up.
Dec 9, 2020
0
#8
Bittrsweet wrote:
Knife_Fork wrote:
@Bittrsweet I think you may be misunderstanding the term "line." A line is a specific order of moves. Every time you add a new move to that line or branch away from a given move order, you've created a new line. Theoretically, there are a seemingly infinite number of lines in chess. In terms of opening prep, GMs have far more than a few hundred lines memorized. Consider checking out the Chessable.com opening training courses to get a sense of what I mean. Most of these opening trainers are geared toward intermediate to advanced players. Some of the courses have you memorize upwards of 500 variations--for just one opening (e.g, Harikrishna's training course on beating French Defense)! I would venture to guess that GMs have thousands of lines memorized, but they also prepare specific ones for specific opponents.
Hello friend! Glad to see you. This is exactly what I meant. For example, in the Scotch opening, I have three lines prepared (and nothing past move 6).
500 lines for the French defense alone is simply crazy to me! That's 10 times all of my prep combined! XD
It isn't about how many lines you know. If all you are doing is memorizing lines, you are doing it all wrong.
Once you start saying after 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3 Qb6 6.a3 Nh6 7 b4 cxd4 8.cxd4 Nf5 9.Bb2 Bd7 and now the passive 10.Be2 is played instead of the best move, 10.g4, it is not like you suddenly have a new line you need to know. You are still in the advance French. If you have any clue why 10.g4 is played after 9...Bd7 but not after 9...Be7, and not just memorize a bunch of "lines", you would understand that a Knight trade for Black of the one on f3 for the one on f5 would be highly desirable. 9...Be7 10.g4? Nh4! Gives Black just that. Because Black did not plug up the a4-e8 diagonal, he has 10.Bd3 since Black cannot take 3 times due to a discovered check. But with 9...Bd7, 10.Bd3? Simply loses a pawn, but 10.g5! Shoot the Knight away to a passive square before ...Be7 is played. Therefore, you ought to be able to understand that 10.Be2? Should be answered by 10...Be7 or 10...h5, not giving White another chance to shoo the Knight to a passive square.
Knowing the French is NOT about knowing "500 lines".
If all you know are lines and do not understand them, you just memorize them, you are completely wasting your time!
I know about 10 to 15 "lines" of the French
- Exchange
- Open Tarrasch
- Closed Tarrasch
- Winawer
- McCutchen
- Classical
- Alekhine-Chatard Attack
- Two Knights
- Advance
- Kings Indian Attack
- Chigorin (2.Qe2)
- Dubious lines like 2.c4 or various gambits, like the Winkelmann-Reimer or the Wing Gambit, just to name a couple.
You do not need to memorize 500 lines, you need to UNDERSTAND 15 or so of them!
what
Dec 9, 2020
0
#10
Nearly 50 years ago, there was a player in Canadian OTB tournaments who ALWAYS blitzed out his moves as if he was playing bullet. Naturally, he had a lot of lines memorized many moves deep.
Back then, there was no digital clock, we used ordinary mechanical clocks to regulate the time control, and the Tournament Director would set the clocks at one minute before the hour at the start of the game... so that nobody could complain that they hadn't been given the full two hours thinking time.
This "speed freak" player once beat an IM in a tournament game before the flag had fallen to signal the START of his allocated two hours of playing time.
Dec 9, 2020
0
#11
blueemu wrote:
Nearly 50 years ago, there was a player in Canadian OTB tournaments who ALWAYS blitzed out his moves as if he was playing bullet. Naturally, he had a lot of lines memorized many moves deep.
Back then, there was no digital clock, we used ordinary mechanical clocks to regulate the time control, and the Tournament Director would set the clocks at one minute before the hour at the start of the game... so that nobody could complain that they hadn't been given the full two hours thinking time.
This "speed freak" player once beat an IM in a tournament game before the flag had fallen to signal the START of his allocated two hours of playing time.
That strategy does not always work.
Case in Point. I played in the Atlanta Class Championship in October 2019. I was on board 2 in the final round. If I win on my board and Black wins on board 1, I get clear first (the small size lead to weird scenarios because of who had already played each other by round 5).
I had won my first 2 games, both on the White side of the Sicilian Prins Variation. I lost a Kings Indian Defense round 3 that I was totally winning but got in severe time trouble, and beat the London System round 4. So I had White in the final round and the guy I played spent no more than about 5 minutes on his clock in any game. I knew he moved fast.
A book had just come out that July on the Elshad for White. Knowing that he moves way too fast, I decided to throw it against him. The time control was 40/90, SD/30, d/10, and he was moving rapidly until he was dead lost in the endgame and only then he spent 6 minutes on a move.
Here is a link to that game, annotated.
http://charlottechesscenter.blogspot.com/2019/12/game-analysis-atlanta-class_17.html?m=0
Not sure how to count them but I know my main Caro-Kann quite well. Always room for improvement though.
Dec 10, 2020
0
#13
complexanalysis1 wrote:
ThrillerFan wrote:
blueemu wrote:
Nearly 50 years ago, there was a player in Canadian OTB tournaments who ALWAYS blitzed out his moves as if he was playing bullet. Naturally, he had a lot of lines memorized many moves deep.
Back then, there was no digital clock, we used ordinary mechanical clocks to regulate the time control, and the Tournament Director would set the clocks at one minute before the hour at the start of the game... so that nobody could complain that they hadn't been given the full two hours thinking time.
This "speed freak" player once beat an IM in a tournament game before the flag had fallen to signal the START of his allocated two hours of playing time.
That strategy does not always work.
Case in Point. I played in the Atlanta Class Championship in October 2019. I was on board 2 in the final round. If I win on my board and Black wins on board 1, I get clear first (the small size lead to weird scenarios because of who had already played each other by round 5).
I had won my first 2 games, both on the White side of the Sicilian Prins Variation. I lost a Kings Indian Defense round 3 that I was totally winning but got in severe time trouble, and beat the London System round 4. So I had White in the final round and the guy I played spent no more than about 5 minutes on his clock in any game. I knew he moved fast.
A book had just come out that July on the Elshad for White. Knowing that he moves way too fast, I decided to throw it against him. The time control was 40/90, SD/30, d/10, and he was moving rapidly until he was dead lost in the endgame and only then he spent 6 minutes on a move.
Here is a link to that game, annotated.
http://charlottechesscenter.blogspot.com/2019/12/game-analysis-atlanta-class_17.html?m=0
Hearing thrillerfan's brilliant strategies makes me wonder how he's not a master
For the same reason that I am terrible at bullet, bad at blitz, and stronger at correspondence.
Time!
The shorter the time control, the worse I am.
I would have to go back and figure it all out, but if you took every game that I played with a total time of 2 1/2 hours or longer per player, whether 35/90, SD/60, or 40/2, SD/30, or 40/2, SD/1, etc, and removed all the game in 30, game in 60, game in 90, and game in 120 games, I likely would be a master.
There is no time limit on coming up with long term ideas and posting them on chess.com.
I played in an over the board game this past Tuesday barely scraping a draw against a player 200 lower because I had barely a minute left, spending 20 minutes on 1 move in a G/60 event.
Just a case in point in my horrible time management skills. And I do not scramble well in time pressure.
Dec 10, 2020
0
#14
Even more evidence that time is my biggest issue. This correspondence game just ended this morning:
As far as over the board events, long time control tournaments, like the 2002 US Open, 2002 World Open, 2008 US Open, 2005 World Open, 2013 Chicago Open, 2014 US Open, etc, you will see far better results from me than say, the 3 round local G/75 tournament on a Saturday where I go 1 for 3 facing 3 lower rated players.
So it seems like lots of you don't have a good idea of how many lines you know. How do you practice your openings? Do you not need to practice them?
Dec 11, 2020
0
#16
IMBacon wrote:
I peaked as a USCF A player. My opening prep consists of...well...pretty much nothing.
I am technically a USCF B player all I do is prep openings (it does help get me good positions).
Dec 11, 2020
0
#17
Bittrsweet wrote:
I'm sure this has been asked before.
I practice my openings with Lucas chess. I have 29 lines i practice with white and 27 lines I practice with black (the lines very in depth, about 2-7 moves deep). All are lines that I see fairly regularly. I don't see the point in practicing for rare lines. I am rated about 1480 rapid 1290 blitz on this site.
I was watching Eric Rosen's videos on Youtube and he had a 'must know' line of the Ponziani. I checked my prep, and found I had no prep for the Ponziani at all. Which I am ok with.
I'm constantly in awe of IMs and GMs that have multiple lines (like 1.e4, 1.d4, they can play lots of different openings and their resulting positions) stored up there. It clearly must be over 100 lines for both white and black pieces.
What I would like to do in this thread is ask you to share your rating on this site, along with the number of lines you know/practice.
Thanks
I have a book called "Understanding the chess openings" (Collins, 2015). I pick my repertoire from there, and after trying out the opening a few times in online games I might buy a book or two. Books I've bought for openings consist of Bird's opening (2x), Colle system (2x), Alekhine's defense, Budapest Gambit, Czech Benoni, and a couple others I think. However, I also study the common middlegame plans/themes so that I know which maneuvers work, which ones don't, how to punish inaccuracies, etc.
After reading up a lot, I play a lot. Slowly build up my repertoire to have more opening moves in it to be more consistent and to leave me more time for the middlegame.
B1ZMARK wrote:
IMBacon wrote:
I peaked as a USCF A player. My opening prep consists of...well...pretty much nothing.
I am technically a USCF B player all I do is prep openings (it does help get me good positions).
Do you mean you don't practice tactics at all?
Dec 12, 2020
0
#19
Bittrsweet wrote:
So it seems like lots of you don't have a good idea of how many lines you know. How do you practice your openings? Do you not need to practice them?
There is no reason to keep track of how many lines we know. Again, it is all about understanding, not memorization, or line count.
Memorization of lines do not do you jack the moment a player deviates. You need to UNDERSTAND THE POSITION AS A WHOLE!
After 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3 Qb6, you need to understand that Black is looking to put immediate pressure on White's d4-pawn and center in general. You calculate that White has no time to castle by seeing that 6.Be2 cxd4 7.cxd4 Nh6 8.O-O Nf5 and there is no good way to avoid dropping material.
Now, why Nh6 and not Nge7? (Has to do with Na3 possibilities)
Why is 4...cxd4 or 5...cxd4 too early and omitting 6...cxd4 a mistake?
What if White plays 6.Bd3 or 6.a3 instead?
Now, the real reason why knowing "lines" is crap. What is wrong with 6.b3? Why, in words, not moves, is that move REALLY REALLY BAD?
What is the point behind a3?
If you cannot answer these questions, I do not care how many "lines" you think you know. You do not know jack bleep about the Advance French.
For example, what if I told you that 6.a3 was to be able to defend d4? Would you think I was crazy? Guess what? That is the point behind 6.a3!
If 6...c4, stopping b4, all pressure is now off of d4 and the focus is on White's Kingside Attack, Black's Queenside Attack, and potential piece sacrifices on c4 and d5.
If another move is played, like 6...Nh6, the White gets in 7.b4!, and after 7...cxd4 8.cxd4 Nf5, the b2-square is available to the White Bishop to cover both critical central squares, d4 and e5.
If Black tries to stop b4 and keep pressure on d4 with 6...a5?, he has seriously weakened b5, and now the Milner-Barry Gambit works with 7.Bd3! The difference between the Black pawn being on a6 vs a5 is the difference between almost lost and a huge advantage for White!
This is what is important. Now how many stupid lines it is. You need to understand the big picture. White wants to get his King and d4-pawn to safety. To save the d4-pawn requires immediate action. Castling must wait or else the center falls apart. If Black spends a single move that has no influence on d4 early on, White castles to safety with no disruption to his center!
Dec 12, 2020
0
#20
Yeah - agreed, I don’t see much value in reviewing lines in isolation. It’s more useful to learn them organically (such as on the back of an OTB match) where your experience will make the nuances stick much better as you’ve already given it a lot of thought at the board.
The strong players you may be watching may appear to know a lot (and they do) but it’s on the back of tons of practical experience, not just deeper memorising.
I'm sure this has been asked before.
I practice my openings with Lucas chess. I have 29 lines i practice with white and 27 lines I practice with black (the lines very in depth, about 2-7 moves deep). All are lines that I see fairly regularly. I don't see the point in practicing for rare lines. I am rated about 1480 rapid 1290 blitz on this site.
I was watching Eric Rosen's videos on Youtube and he had a 'must know' line of the Ponziani. I checked my prep, and found I had no prep for the Ponziani at all. Which I am ok with.
I'm constantly in awe of IMs and GMs that have multiple lines (like 1.e4, 1.d4, they can play lots of different openings and their resulting positions) stored up there. It clearly must be over 100 lines for both white and black pieces.
What I would like to do in this thread is ask you to share your rating on this site, along with the number of lines you know/practice.
Thanks