>Note that I'm not recommending avoiding theory or main lines when I suggest you need to dive in and start playing. I'm suggesting you dive in and start playing main lines and learn as you go.
Yes, I understood that that was what you meant. And I guess I have to agree. It's a point I've been leaning towards. As much as I complain about opening theory I've been edging towards main lines for a while now, giving up other defenses for the more mainstream Caro and Slav for example. Maybe I'm headed back to e5 though, I'm not entirely sure yet.
I really enjoy playing things like the London. The plans are relatively simple, and play is straight forward, and often bloody, despite the London's boring reputation. But if I really want to do this right in the good years I have left, then I suppose it's time to give up the openings of youth and pick up the main lines.
>Yermolinsky says the same thing in The Road to Chess Improvement.
I remember hearing about this book, I'll look into ordering a copy.
>Pawn Structure Chess by Soltis
Reading that now. There's also a series of pawn structure lectures at Chess.com where IM Daniel Rensch recommends the book and covers much of the same material. Those have been interesting. It's passive learning, but entertaining.
He makes an interesting point and one that echoes what you said about understanding. He reiterates the truism that pawns are the soul of the game, and the backbone of how opening theory is created and changed. He goes on to say lots more about why pawn structure is important and how to play various structures. It's good stuff.
I also remember an old Chess Life column by Soltis where he talks about how he first came up with his opening repertoire. Rather than study openings he first studied pawn structures, IQP, caro-slav, etc. (I'm assuming that study lead to writing Pawn Structure Chess) and then based his openings on what he learned about pawn structure. He picked openings that lead to IQP positions for example, though I don't remember which side he was looking at it from. I'm probably wrong on the details as this was decades ago, but that's basically right.
>I honestly wonder about people who want to avoid opening theory--do they also want to avoid endgame theory? Why not? It's all the same in principle, isn't it?
Same in principle, but not the same in practice, as I see it. Endgames (and I do work on those also) are basically a known quantity at this point, fixed in place forever and unchanging (not entirely true, but mostly). Openings are completely the opposite. Openings change constantly, moving in and out of fashion as play and theory evolve. This has created an enormous body of sometimes contradictory theory that is in a constant state of flux. That can be both intimidating and frustrating (there's just so damn much of it). Right now Lasker's Defense to the QG seems to have hit an uptick in popularity. I played Lasker's 30 years ago in my local league but had it dismissed as passive trash by higher rated players, so I gave it up. Now here it is decades later, and it's being played at a very high level. Maybe I'm just too easily influenced.
I'll stop rambling here except to say that if pawns truly are the soul of the game and the basis for play then it makes sense, as Soltis and Reinch say, to study pawn structures and how to play them first, and only then decide what lines I'm going to play. Which, I would suppose, leads me right back to main line openings, where I'm guessing pawn structures and their play are most clearly expressed.
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Openings for adult class players (Read 182579 times)
