Thanks for the replies everyone.

So what do you think in general?  Does a student benefit from playing openings like the Maroczy Bind, mainline French as White as a relative beginner?  Is playing these openings the most effective way to gain the sophistication in order to play them well?  Or is it more efficient to play openings that one intuitively understands and slowly graduate up to more sophisticated openings.

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I'm 30.  I'd say my ICC rating is generally around 1600 and I feel like I'm giving up about 100 rating points playing the repertoire that I am.  I don't think that 2000 ICC is such an unrealistic goal over a period of a few years.

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Yeah I could definitely use some help understanding the Tarrasch.  I like to play gambits and I like to attack, and actually looking through my games I identified that as a bit of a weakness -- if there's a kingside attack I play very well, if there isn't I don't play well at all -- usually I just attack anyway and it fails.  In the Tarrasch I have a real hard time putting together an attack, it feels like my pieces are bogged down defending d5.  In particular I don't understand the point of "freeing" Bc8 if it just ends up acting as a pawn on e6.  I feel like I need some initiative on the kingside in order to justify the weakness on d5, otherwise I'm just stuck defending.

Actually I have only played ONE game in the Schlecter line, so that's not even the problem.  

Hello everyone,

My name is Sandman and I'm an openings addict. And I need help. 

As I read the OP’s message this morning inquiring about openings and improvement I found that his frustrations really hit home which prompted this request for help as well.  I tend to bounce around openings. I play one for a while and then jump to something else which I will play for a tourney or two and then off to a different opening.  I would like to rectify this problem for the New Year! However, how do I choose and what shall it be?  My competition is all below master. 

In my area, as I've stated before, the colle/caro-kann/slav are the dominant openings played. 2 of the experts play this as their rep and of course, they have lots of followers.  Among others the KIA, KID, english, pirc and french are popular - - get the picture?    Over the last couple weeks I have even thought of playing the colle, accelerated dragon and tarrasch per Purdy's action chess recommendations as simple structures to just play chess. However, I'm reluctant to pull the trigger........ I want something to get my pieces into play and not sit back in a corner and wait.  

Over the last couple years or so I played (or attempted to play) the open spanish (as black) although I never got it and I tried to play the Scotch (as white) and never got it, etc. So, alas, what is a club player to do? Join the mindmeld and play slow formational systems as mentioned above or stick to playing openings I rarely get? I'm still considering the Scotch or maybe the Bishop's opening as white along with exchange French, exchange Caro-kann, sicilian chekhover, and I like Austrian or Byrne var against the Pirc. With black I'm considering the benko, albin or tarrasch and e5 (2knights and open Spanish).  Should I go with this (any other suggestions or recommended changes) although I may rarely get them and have to prepare for multiple defenses or should I simply play colle, accelerated dragon and tarrasch which seems to pretty much cover everything.......  

Which would help me to reach the expert level - -keeping in mind I do not live in New York, New Jersey or any of the other chess Mecca’s. I am in my 40's and currently in the 1700's.  In my last 20 games with expert level opponents I have scored 7-13. Of course, when I happen to beat an expert I then turn around and lose to a 1200.       

Thank you for listening to my ramblings.

Happy New year to all.   

How do White's prospects in this line against the French compare to the Panov vs. the Caro-Kann?

I completely agree with the IQP statement, BTW.

Markovich wrote on 12/30/09 at 11:23:19:


If you have played these openings for two years but got stuck at the 1500-1600 level I am inclined to think that you have studied the wrong way. So I second this advise of Markovich: whatever opening you choose to play, make some serious effort to understand how to play them.
An idea is to narrow your focus. Concentrate on your repertoire as Black and on the Open Sicilian and Open Games as White. Play sidelines against the rest, eg 2.b3 against the French indeed and for instance 3.f3 or 3.exd5 cxd5 4.Bd3 against the Caro-Kann.
If you want to abandon the Tarrasch (it did not work for me when I was 1400-1500) I recommend the Benkö Gambit. If White accepts Black's strategy is very simple: watch out for e4-e5 and plant a knight on d3. On higher levels things are more complicated of course, but up to 1800 this is really all you need to understand. The Benkö is considered a bit dubious these days, but your opponents will not be able to prove that. Quite a lot will refuse to play d4-d5 anyway, so you will meet a big variety of positions.

just a question, how old are you?
If you are not that young it won't be easy to gain 600 rating points, unless you do fulltime chess.

as our esteemed friend Markovich would probably tell you, if you're 1500-1600, you should be less concerned about understanding pawn chains in closed positions than about understanding tactics in open positions. 

if you like the open games as black, awesome. i started playing the tarrasch as black in an attempt to get to open positions, but the problem with the tarrasch is that everyone from 1200-2200 has memorized the rubinstein plan with g3, etc, and bangs out those moves instantly, getting into a low risk position. instead, you can try something like the albin, which i think is good for an attacking player, or the tartakower, which was once a main weapon for attacking players like spassky and kasparov.

the maroczy is a very positional opening. if you like to attack, probably not the greatest choice. big difference between attacking the king and trying to keep your c4 pawn alive. there are many more tactical ways to approach the sicilian.

there are lots of nice attacking options against the french and caro. respectable mainlines against both give white an initiative, and there are other options like the alekhine-chatard, milner-barry, etc, etc. i like the panov-botvinnik against the caro, and i also like to play exd5, c4, against the french, even though maybe it's not as objectively strong as main lines. i always thought that it was pretty easy for white to get an attacking position against the french, especially against the 1500-1600 crowd, it's not the easiest defense to play. just peek in a database or a collection and see if you can find something you like.

our friend Markovich would also point out that if you have no intention of seriously improving your play and are happy playing for fun, you can play anything, play the hippo, play 1.a3, whatever. but if you are trying to improve your play, you should strive for tactical open positions, and choose openings that lead to those types of positions.

once you can occasionally outplay a master-strength player in an open position, then it's time to concern yourself with positional niceties. until then, tactics is your first name, tactics is your middle name, tactics is your last name. breakfast, lunch, dinner. and the best way to learn tactics is in open positions.

Markovich has seriously gotten into my head...

Is it worth playing openings you hate, or score very poorly with, in order to improve your chess?

I started out playing the Open Games and Tarrasch as Black with this in mind, and later expanded it to the Open Sicilian, Nc3 vs French/Caro, 4 Pawns vs Alekhine, and Austrian vs Modern/Pirc as White.  I've played this whole repertoire for about two years now, spending little time studying the openings.

I've been a bit frustrated with my performance lately and so I did some analysis.  It didn't take long to find the major problems:  I score 27% in the Tarrasch, and about 35% against the French and Caro.  I also score about 40% in the Sicilian Maroczy Bind as White.  Everything else is at least respectable.

I do have a mind to keep playing mainline French, as I think it's important to learn how to play pawn chains.  And I can appreciate the point of learning the Tarrasch.  But I'm starting to question how much benefit I'm really deriving from some of these repertoire choices.  If the focal point of my chess career was a tournament six months from now, I'd switch to the Grunfeld/KID and play 2.b3 vs the French, no question.  These just fit my personality better (I like to attack) and I think are much more practical.  I would strongly consider ditching the Maroczy Bind as well.

My goal is to get to 2000 ICC, I've been plateauing at 1500-1600 for a while now.