IM Andras Toth’s conflicting advice

IM Andras Toth’s recommends mainline openings (Ruy, Open Sicilian) for amateurs in this video ( https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mRgJ_rX9bCI&feature=youtu.be ) and rails against shortcut openings such as the London System.

But then he creates a Beginner’s Opening Repertoire course 1.e4 on Chessable in which he does exactly what he accuses amateurs of doing … taking shortcuts. For instance, you won’t see the Ruy Lopez or Open Sicilian in his course because that is “too much theory”.

Seriously?! Can someone help me understand?

Sounds a bit hypocritical alright. However, you could have a happy medium between going straight into mainlines and saying screw it with opening theory. Maybe he advocates for openings like the Italian game, which you can learn a lot of opening theory about but still don't have to know anywhere near the level of theory as for the Ruy Lopez mainlines.

It's the Evans Gambit (!) (and Alapin Sicilan) -- hardly a shortcut. He also has a beginner's 1.d4 repertoire with the Queen's Gambit. As he says himself on the 1.d4 Chessable page "Without cutting corners."

It's possible Andras' views have evolved a bit as I'm certain he's gotten quite a lot of pushback from people who take issues with the views he expressed in his video. More likely people have not taken the video into context. All his recommendations are rating based (he thinks the French is bad for beginners, but fine for experts). I think it's safe to say his videos are targeted to an improver demographic that aren't up to the expert level yet, but also aren't total beginners. His recommendation for beginners may be a bit different. 

I see another poster state he recommends the Evans Gambit and the Alapin Sicilian. I've seen him remark for players that don't want to dive into the Open Sicilian quite yet he recommends the Alapin, so it tracks he would recommend that for beginners. The Evans gambit also seems to fit in stylistically with his brand of aggressive chess. 

 

Yeah, I was simply disappointed that he didn’t take on the task of attempting to create a “simpler” club player repertoire that still uses the Ruy Lopez and Open Sicilian, and teaches and applies the criteria he preaches for long term learning, without major shortcuts, and gives good exposure to the variety of pawn structures he says are necessary for long-term development.

I think this is something that chess authors should strongly consider, because I would say there is just about no book that I know of does this to my knowledge.

For instance, the famous mainline tabiyas of the Ruy Lopez begin on move 9 … rather than dive into what happens after move 9, for which there are plenty of books and before which amateur games often diverge anyway, why not create a sound repertoire that takes an amateur to the mainline tabiyas, while teaching and explaining sound general principles more comprehensively up until move 9, and then stop there?

It is impossible to make a beginner repertoire in the main openings. But the two approaches can be combined. As a beginner you take his (or another) beginner repertoire and learn it. Then you in one variation shift to a more principal line - and try to learn that, while you in other variations play according to the repertoire. In that way you will both have a repertoire (wich is an advantage regarding your practical results) and you will improve the most as a player. And you will in the end have learned two opening in any main line, wich is a huge advantage.

“Memorization of variations could be even worse
than playing in a tournament without looking in the books at all.” - Botvinnik

I was surprised when I first saw his course release as well. But honestly I hope his ideas about how beginners should improve are just changing, although it's certainly possible that chessable pitched him the idea of a 1.e4 sideline repertoire and Andras agreed even though it's everything he disagrees with. 

If you ask me though, I like the look of his new repertoire and think that beginners will certainly do better playing his suggestions (Alapin+Evans) rather than the main line Open Sicilian with both colours, which Andras used to suggest everyone play.

I disagree with basically everything Andras said about the opening, and how people should only ever play the main lines, which is why one of the biggest highlights of my career was beating the sh!t out of him with a dodgy/unorthodox opening.

 

I don't think there's a contradiction... there are two different things.

1) General advice (especially from a titled player) is going to be geared towards OTB tournament play where it's better to not take shortcuts (so to speak).

Main lines are solid, and lead to interesting ideas... both of these things can be bad for speed chess since there's no time to properly milk interesting ideas, and solid is disadvantageous because speed chess is more about spotting a lot of relatively simple tactics (like in steven's game).

2) Chessable is for money, not advice, so it's reasonable to make whatever's selling.

Beating the sh!t = being worse all game long then executing a beginner level tactic / attack in time pressure.

Ok, sure.

You just described every famous KID attacking game in history. My game vs. Toth was a textbook kings indian pawn storm, I don't give a flying hoot what the engine thinks of my moves.

You'd care a little more about the strength of your position in a long game

Pretty sure IMs know how pins (and classic KID attacks) work.

That's a fair point, but the difference is that his new course is marketed with things like "learn openings the right way", "cut down on theory" and is supposed to be a course geared towards improvement OTB.

And this guy has made so many youtube rants where he says just the opposite. "Cutting down on theory is the wrong way to improve" "everyone should play main lines etc." I don't think there's any reason to believe his youtube advice vs. chessable advice should be focusing on different time controls from one another.

Crap, it took me 3 posts before I realized who I'm talking to. 🤦‍♂️ I'm getting worse at this

Ok, I didn't know that. Sounds like he wanted to make some money then.

It's too much work to be anonymous. Luckily I think most people don't pay much attention.

Something IM Toth said in a video piqued my interest…

He said something along the lines of there being twenty-some-odd main pawn structures that every player needs to learn.

My question then is why didn’t he —or any other chess author, for that matter— take the opportunity to create the simplest possible opening repertoire for a beginner or club player that actually leads to these important structures?

Maybe there is a simpler way for a beginner or club player to get good exposure to these pawn structures using properly applied good general opening principles, without going down the main lines of the Ruy Lopez, Open Sicilian, Slav, or Nimzo-Indian?

Nearly all openings do lead to one of these structures... I'm not sure you understand what those structures are.

It's not so much that there are 20 structures a player needs to learn as there are 20 structures in chess period. That's (more or less) all of them.

There are authors that cover these structures. Here's an overview:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawn_structure

HAHAHAHAHA!

 

@nMsALpg,
Okay, so there are that many pawn structures in total, fine … Why is it impossible to get a straight answer as to what the simplest opening choices would be for an amateur to adopt to get exposure to all or as many of these structures as possible?

(Are there any chess coaches out there who want my $$$ ?!?)

@Optimissed,
Nothing wrong with someone using their lifelong skillset to earn a living. I am willing to exchange my hard-earned $$$ for these coaches’ expertise if they provide the service I am asking for, which also seems to be considered the proper way to play and learn chess. Yet it is insanely shocking to me that ZERO chess authors seemed to have approach publishing an amateur opening repertoire with the goal of exposure to a wide variety of structures in spite of frequently hearing how such an approach is the best for long-term learning.