Caro-Kann Two Knights Variation

I have played the Caro-Kann as my main opening with the black pieces almost since about 2 or 3 months after I first learned chess. I have gradually learned more lines and variations and my results have been reasonably good against players at the same rating as me.

At my OTB club I usually play against a guy who is about 300 points higher than me (about 1400 Elo). I would describe him as mostly a positional sort of club player. He usually plays Caro-Kann Two Knights variation with the white pieces. I have probably played that opening variation with him about 10 times over the last few months and lost every game. Some of the earlier games were due to opening blunders. I reviewed each game I lost and looked at different opening moves that I could have made. I am now able to at least survive the opening and reach an equal position going into the middlegame, however I am really not doing well in these middlegames.

According to the engine almost every single move that I made in the middlegame was a mistake. The eval bar jumps up and down with every move as if each player is trying to lose. I know that the engine is better than the World Champion and will always see things that humans cannot be expected to see, but it is still disheartening to see mistake after mistake after mistake when you had tried your best.

I am not sure whether this type of middlegame really suits me or whether I can ever get good at it. In other games, usually when I have the white pieces, I tend to get nicer middlegame positions and have better winning chances.

I have heard that many players often blame their losses on their opening and are always switching from one to the next in futile hopes of changing fortunes. So I don't want to fall into this trap, but after so many consecutive defeats with the same opening variation, I am wondering what I can do.

Well it is not the opening's fault that you missed basic tactics and don't seem to think that your h-pawn has any value.

It would be easier to help you if you posted your thoughts instead of computer analysis. In fact turn off the machine altogether until you can spot things like  11...Nxe5 12. dxe5 Qa5+ on your own. The incredible bouncing assessments are not helping, you all ready know that the problem is poor tactical vision. In order to fix that, you have to work on pattern recognition and calculation.

So, my advice is to do tactical puzzle after tactical puzzle for the foreseeable future.

Try to do an early transposition of opening, maybe 2. d4, as some openings are super sharp and full of potential for blunders. Sorry if this is bland advice, I'm really unexperienced in openings.

5....h5 was zany, and not typical caro kann, maybe not bad though. 5...Nb-d7, and developing with e6 and c5 maybe more typical.   The earlier poster was right though, need to work on calculation. It is the same for me, and many club players.

@1

"I have played the Caro-Kann" ++ Good.

"He usually plays Caro-Kann Two Knights variation with the white pieces." ++ Good.

"10 times over the last few months and lost every game" ++ Analyse those losses and learn.

"I am really not doing well in these middlegames." ++ Analyse and learn from your mistakes.

"it is still disheartening to see mistake after mistake after mistake when you had tried your best."
++ Chess is not an easy game. As long as you learn something from each loss you progress.

"whether this type of middlegame really suits me"
++ There are no suitable or unsuitable positions, only good and bad moves.

"when I have the white pieces, I tend to get nicer middlegame positions"
++ If black errs before you err, then it is easier.

"many players often blame their losses on their opening" ++ Wrongly so.

"switching from one to the next in futile hopes of changing fortunes" ++ And never improving.

"I don't want to fall into this trap" ++ Good.

"I am wondering what I can do." ++ Analyse.

10...Bd6? has no point. Trade 10...Nxe5 to remove his outpost. A passive Nd7 for an active Ne5.
11...Qb6?? has no point. Trade 11...Nxe5 to remove his outpost.
12...c5? helps white. Try to trade 12...Qb5.
How much time did you spend on moves 10, 11, 12?
How much time did you have available?

Too little, and much more than I used.

10...Bd6? was played mostly on general principles rather than calculation. White had a space advantage and more active pieces so it seemed to me that it was important to catch up in develop as soon as possible. I try to follow the general opening principle of not moving the same piece twice.

The bishop other squares for the bishop looked worse, Be7 is still passive and Bb5+ is just met with c3. Of course I saw that I trade knights but after Nxe5 dxe5 my other knight is attacked and I am moving two knights twice and it was not clear to me what I was achieving and why I should be leaving my bishop undeveloped on the back rank.

11...Qb6? was also an attempt to develop and attack pawns. I did not expect 13.Rd1 and thought that the c-file was likely to open up soon and thought my rook would be useful on the c-file.

So I followed the advice that I am always told, to develop all my pieces in the opening, not move any piece twice and get castled, and I quickly got into an awful mess.

5...h5 is the top engine move and after 6...Bg4 black is supposed to have equalized. However this means nothing if your opponent understands the position better.

@7
Yes 5...h5 was good to punish 5 Ng3? instead of the better 5 Nxf6.

@6
"10...Bd6? was played mostly on general principles rather than calculation."
++ General principles are good, but calculation is necessary. White has played 6 h4 and left a hole on g4. So after 10...Nxe5 11 dxe5 Ng4 you are good. General principles also say to eliminate strong outposts like Ne5 and to trade passive pieces Nd7 for active pieces Ne5. General principles also say to put knights in holes. Bd6 is logical development, but the bishop is not active as long as Ne5 stands on its outpost.

"White had a space advantage" ++ Yes, that is reason to trade Nd7 for Ne5.

"and more active pieces" ++ Reason to trade his active Ne5 for your passive Nd7.

"I try to follow the general opening principle of not moving the same piece twice."
++ White has moved Ne5 twice and you have moved Nd7 once, so that is a good trade.

"it was not clear to me what I was achieving" ++ You trade your passive Nd7 for his active Ne5. You eliminate his outpost Ne5. You occupy the hole he left at g4 with your knight.

"11...Qb6? was also an attempt to develop and attack pawns."
++ You do not need to attack pawns, you win a pawn with ...Nxe5 and ...Qa5+

"So I followed the advice that I am always told, to develop all my pieces in the opening, not move any piece twice and get castled, and I quickly got into an awful mess."
++ The advice is good, but other advice:

• eliminate outposts in the center
• trade your passive piece for his active piece
• install a knight in a hole left by your opponent
• when you can take a pawn without risk, do so

Personally I think good opening play is playing positions were moves you find natural, are good moves. I can't argue objectively that 5...h5 isn't a good move, but you mentioned played several games against same opponent, and if you had checked software to play h5, I don't think was a good idea.

A few years ago there was a case 6NxN better than 6Ng3, but black is supposed to be ok these days after either 6...exN or 6....gxN , 7d4.

Anyway the opening wasn;t really the problem.

Yes this is what I was trying to convey. It is not that there is any wrong with the Caro-Kann objectively, it is just that I am generally comfortable in most variations but not in the Two Knights variation. I guess one part of it is this variation is played much less often than advanced and classical variations, so I am not as experienced, however I generally find the middlegame positions difficult and best moves often don't feel natural to me.

In a previous game I played 5...e6 which felt like the natural move to me but again it felt like I was well behind in development and playing standard developing moves just wasn't good enough.

Actually I could have gotten a draw in that game if I hadn't messed up the endgame, but only due to mistakes made by my opponent, not from great play on my part.

Again the problem is your tactical vision. Take the knight sacrifice that should have taken place on the 13 move. Did you not see the idea? If you didn't see the idea, why did you think your opponent put his bishop on the a2-g8 diagonal and his queen on e2? Actually, since he didn't go through with the sacrifice, I want to ask him what he was doing playing those moves.

You simply can't blunt force chess by treating the whole game as the opening.

uh-oh, I have accidentally upset an aggressive sociopath. I didn't see that move either ☺️

I have been playing chess for less than 2 years, and over the board for only one year. I've had a couple of free trial lessons but never had a real coach. My puzzle rating is 2400. I have made gradual improvement since I started, but I know I still have a long way to go.

The problem has nothing to do with the opening.
The Caro-Kann is sublime.
You just can't see it. You can't see the system yet, so you don't know what the CK is beyond a few opening moves. You have to occupy the right lines, intersection points, and tension zones, and occupy them within the available tempi so as to infiltrate enemy territory as a coherent organization.

So the problem is your mind and you need to train it to be able to see deeper into the position, beyond a few mere piece exchanges, and along multiple lines.
Anyway, it was an interesting game. Keep it up.

Your not making me mad. But what are you trying to learn here?

These games are being decided, or should be decided, by tactical blunders and you keep talking about the opening.

Objectively after black plays pxp, Nxp Nf6, white doesn't have better than playing d4 at some point, leading to well-known open caro-kann positions. You can see some model games there with Kasparov v Karpov.

I think currently you will have problems in all lively open positions were there are tactics, and lines to calculate. This is similar for most inexperienced players. It is good for your long term development though to play these type of games

Good Positional Chess, Planning & Strategy Books for Beginners and Beyond...

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/introduction-to-positional-chess-planning-strategy

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=caro-kann+two+knights

@10
"so I am not as experienced"
++ That is the point: by playing the same opening all the time you accumulate experience.

In the game @1 you came out winning if you had won the pawn 11...Nxe5.

Thanks for this. I have read Weapons of Chess and Winning Chess Strategies.

I am near the end of Silman's The Amateurs's Mind. With both The Amateur's Mind and a book not on the list but I think deserves a place, Weeramantry's Best Lessons of a Chess Coach, the information is really good but I feel some disconnect with the moves and games in the books at the level that I am currently able to play at. So far, looking at the imbalances in the positions is not usually leading to any great insights or ideas from me.

I also have Silman's Reassess Your Chess but haven't read much of it because I heard it is more advanced than The Amateur's Mind and should only be read after that.

One thing that I do recommend to players around 1000 to 1500 level is the intermediate tactics lessons https://www.chess.com/lessons/intermediate-tactics I first did these about a year ago and the solutions seemed alien to me. I have come back to them again and they know longer seem alien but neither are they obvious or instinctual. So going over those tactics more than once is helpful.

Going over tactics more than once is the understatement of the century. When I had my biggest jump in playing strength was after wearing out a few tactics books. Going through them so much that I could instantly see the answer to every problem. And if I'm being honest with you I shouldn't have stopped there, I should have just kept adding more and more tactics books to that list because tactical blunders are still responsible for 90% of my wins and losses if not 99%. Learning positional concepts is nice but it doesn't matter if you can't find the tactics that lead from a superior position. Many times, if you can't find the correct idea (that will usually be steeped in tactics) the opponent will consolidate and you will lose. This is very easy to see with mating attacks and sacrificial play in general. Because attacking the king is actually a positional concept as the most important concept in positional chess is king safety but you won't be able to cash in if you don't know mating patterns and keep missing easy tactics.

Edit: I also think it's better to work with relatively small sets of tactics problems, specifically to ingrain them into your memory. The tactics trainer here can be nice but if you just use it as is, it's more of a test to see how good you are at tactics, not an actual trainer. Although, there are options to limit the set of problems, so using it correctly (imo) can be a substitute for tactics books.