Markovich wrote on 12/03/10 at 14:23:04:

Style is a limiting notion, agreed, but in adults it is also a conscious, or deep unconscious, response to their self-knowledge. Of course, tactics are king, and I am not arguing that stultifying openings are not terrible for your development; but all things in moderation. I am often shocked by how differently human beings manage to do what is apparently the same thing, in many fields.  Really, when you're looking at another person, it's a different planet in there.  If Timman said he sees certain moves when he has the initative, but misses them when he doesn't, but Lasker could not have said the same, I don't see why such distinctions should not also be found in class players, and why they shouldn't be able to adjust their openings accordingly. A glance at the statistics on a database search for players under 1800 provides reassurance that this is not too damaging.  There is a difference between telling a child who can't find knight forks not to play the Stonewall and telling an adult 1800 player that he should not play the Sicilian.  But then I tend to see chess more on the model of art than of mathematics. While technique is certainly a paramount concern among artists, there the idea that style is only for the advanced is absurd on its face. 

Secondly, I think we forget that while in retrospect progress from a given rating level to our own seems like something we could have anticipated, to the person trying to improve it is not clear if he will ever be able to reach a given level or not. Should an adult rated 1700 or 1900, depending on where we place the threshold, abstain from enjoying much of the intellectual content of the game in the hope of improving their results against group x of opponents from 0.36 to 0.50?! But then many people would die before they had ever enjoyed the positional content of chess. All our floundering around probably looks silly to a super-GM, and the only reason the world champions' play does not look ridiculous to someone is that in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king.

I suppose a principle I would endorse for adult class players instead of "only play open games," is "only think about plans which you have a reasonable chance of carrying off and which would meaningfully increase your chance to win the game at your level"--and, as a corollary, "do not play openings that commit you to plans that are too subtle to use." 

But even that is a little brutal.  It reminds me of the fellow who said "my idea of beauty in chess is a one next to my name."  Granted it looks ridiculous to me to see a player trying to play a minority attack if he has little chance of bringing a one-pawn advantage to fruition without dropping a piece.  But if that player does not overvalue pawn weaknesses, and if he yet succeed at  winning the c-pawn (even if he drops a piece before winning), that's something in itself to him, even if the game looks silly to me. And I pause when I reflect that I would certainly advise that same player to try to control the center, even if he often dropped pieces after winning the center, because it is a good foundation for the future and because playing correctly is of value in itself.

How To Beat Your Son would have been more appropriate.

Good discussion here. For me the big advantage young players have over adults is their complete lack of fear, they are not damaged by years of accumulating "experience" which often just leaves most of us damaged goods when it calls for a bit of adventurous bravery over the board. As Lasker said he spent most of his career trying to forget what he had already learnt. Just wish I could do the same.

MNb wrote on 12/03/10 at 10:23:26:


With the demands on elite-level play it's necessary to be well rounded. Variations in "style" are less noticeable at you go higher up, I've noticed.

Obviously a WC like Spassky, or Karpov, will be tactically able.

I do know what Dvoretsky is talking about in regards to intuitive versus analytical. I am a heavily intuitive player, hence why I do extraordinary amounts of analysis - I have to, otherwise I don't have the discipline to minimize flaws in my plans.

Markovich wrote on 12/02/10 at 21:03:41:

Dvoretsky (in Secrets of Chess Tactics) divides players into intuitive and logical/analytic types. Intuitive players have a quick grasp of important tactical and/or positional features; analytic players have the ability to work things out systematically, devising logical schemes. Dvoretsky's axis is  independent (conceptually, not statistically) of the traditional positional/tactical axis. According to Dvoretsky, Tal was intuitive while Korchnoi and Polugaevsky were analytic; among positional players Karpov was intuitive while Rubinstein was analytic.

My impression, which I do not want to set forth as  fact, is that players who learned at a later age tend to have a more analytic style in Dvoretsky's sense than players who learned early (Capablanca and Karpov learned at age four, and Tal at eight; Botvinnik at 12, Korchnoi at 14 and Rubinstein, as is well known, at 16. . Adult students I think tend toward the analytic side of Dvoretsky's axis.

If this impression is correct then I believe that certain openings that exercise "architectural" and logical skill, though not necessarily of a super-refined kind, and where piece placements can seem counterintuitive, may be more suitable for adults than for children at a certain (intermediate) rating level. The French comes to mind. The list of famous French players is, I think,  rather slanted toward the analytic side. Perhaps this helps explain Stigma's personal experience with improving faster in semiopen games than in open ones.

I offer this idea simply to give an idea of what a reason of the sort Markovich was wondering about might look like in practice, not to argue too hard for it as fact, for I am all too aware that I have no evidence. 

Markovich wrote on 09/30/09 at 20:11:35:

Well, open positions are fundamental, in the same sense that endgames are--if by that we mean that closed positions eventually become open, while the reverse is not true. But the open games are not the same as open positions, and the above argument cuts both ways, as it shows that any opening will afford practice in open positions.

Similarly regarding the analogy between open games and algebra: I would suggest that it is tactics as such, not open games, that actually play the role of algebra, in other words that constitute an essential substratum of everything advanced; and that once again open games are here standing proxy for more general phenomena.

Markovich wrote on 11/06/09 at 14:59:01:

How about the Marshall, using Pavlovic as a guide? I'm slightly puzzled by Silman's review, where he says that "players under 1800 should go with the more positional lines, which are easy to learn and both safe and instructive". I'm around 1800 and rather fancy the Marshall, whereas I would be completely lost in the more positional lines.

(Sorry for the extremely belated response: it's taken me all this time to accept that 1...e5 really is the way to go.)

Hi All,

I thought I better post something before I get culled by Tony Kosten as he has threatened to do so in order to reach that magical 300 members  (see the other thread http://www.chesspub.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1290523139)

But seriously, I spent quite some time looking for an appropriate thread to make this post on opening repertoire as I did not want to start a new one (there are already too many). Came across this one and remembered this is a really nice thread. So I thought I will resurrect it. (I was actually looking for TN's two threads on constructing opening repertoires but could not locate it!)

In any event, just came across this website where a Bulgarian IM has posted his opening White repertoire with "extensive" analysis online free to download: see here http://online-chess.eu/. (Scroll down and download the .cbv file (click on "chess analysis"))  I am probably not qualified to look at this and make a pronouncement.

However, GM Dejan Bojkov has blogged about this  (here: http://dejanbojkov.blogspot.com/2010/11/bulgarian-international-master-kalin.htm...) and that was where I actually came across this.

BTW, GM Bojkov's blog is really good with excellent  annotations to selected games.

So, ChessPubbers, have a look and let the discussion commence ......

@Jupp

Very interesting. I realize that I need to refresh my knowledge on the psychology behind the different theories of chess skill. Could the scandinavian you mention be Finnish researcher and FM Pertti Saariluoma? A couple of relatively recent papers from him I found on the web:

http://control.hut.fi/hyotyniemi/publications/99_pelit.pdf

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.18.5701&rep=rep1&type=p...

Particularly the first one (from 1999) refers to whether positions are typical or not as a factor influencing chunk size and recall differently on different skill levels.