Antillian wrote on 03/01/12 at 21:37:41:


Sorry about that, I simply forgot. And the West Indies are not that bad. They should have won against India in the 1st Test in Delhi easily last November. They should have also won in the strange tied 3rd Test in Bombay. 

Also, just to add about playing 1. e4 e5, when I played it from when I first started chess until I was approximately 1400. Why the Breyer is not recommended for my level is not clear to me. When I played 1. e4 e5, my stock defence was the Chigorin Defence (9...Na5 in the Closed Spanish). It was not that difficult to play, even when I was a novice. The Chigorin and Breyer are not that dissimilar in terms of strategic understanding.

ErictheRed wrote on 03/01/12 at 20:33:52:


Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans, Zimbabweans, Kenyans, Namibians, Irish? Another analogy is telling a beginning guitarist to play major chords and strumming because classical guitar is "too difficult". Or telling a maths student to study only ordinary differential equations because advancing to partial differential equations is too difficult.

Come on, Gilchrist.  While I essentially agree with you, does anyone outside of jolly ole England and the Indian subcontinent even know what a cover drive is?  I sure don't.

Markovich wrote on 03/01/12 at 18:44:11:


That depends entirely on who has been coaching the kids your students faced. I've never had a student that had an equal or negative score against it, and that's in light of the outstanding popularity it enjoys at the scholastic level.

Competent chess coaches are going to teach kids about IQPs early on - for and against. You know this yourself due to recommendation of the Tarrasch. You get to teach them the tactics and initiative that holding the IQP brings with it while also demonstrating how black goes about steadily netrualizing it.

Personally, even as a scholastic player, my score against the 4.c4 Exchange was very good (to date, OTB, it is +0 =0 -5 against me, and every game occurred during scholastic years). All it took was reading My System by A. Nimzowitsch. It's a position that is so crystal clear that scholastic players should be able to play either side just fine.

I don't know whether U-1800s have a style, but I will say they have no style that should in any way guide their studies.  You have to understand how to play open positions, first and foremost.  If you don't, I frankly don't care if you think that the Pirc or Alekhine's really suits your style; you shouldn't play that way.

Someone said that he would have given up chess if he'd had to play 1..e5 until reaching 2000.  Personally, if he wasn't willing to play 1...e5, I would have commended such a decision. 

Just by way of a coaching example, I always told my young players to meet the French with 3.exd5 exd5 4.c4.  White gets an open position, and as we discovered, young players who were being taught to play the French usually couldn't handle Black's side of it.  Open positions plus tactics is about 90% of what you need to know up to Elo 2000 or so.

But is Kaufman's book supposed to be for young and developing players?  Judging from what I've heard about it, I don't think it's well suited to that purpose.

I some time ago presented my choice for my students (elo 1600-1900). It has developed to this:

White:
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 and 4.d3 
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6...5.Nc3
1.-c5 2.c3
1.-e6 2.d4 d5 3.ed ed 4.c4
1.-c6 2.c4
1.-d6/1.-g6 Be3-system
1.-Nf6 exchange
1.-d5 early Ne5-system

Black: 
1.e4 Petroff 
1.d4, 1.c4, 1.Nf3 Tarrash/Lasker QG 

I think this is simple, consistent and active enough collection

Well said, hicetnunc! 

As students, we all wish we'd been treated more as individuals, but as teachers, it's easier to be dictatorial. We as teachers should remember why we're there.

There are times when I wish I had been more "dictatorial" with the opening choices of my students, for example by insisting on the Markovich doctrine. I would still have had to learn some 1.e4 e5 and the basics of the Tarrasch Defence, but I could recycle it with each new student. As it is now I find myself spending lots of time learning openings I'm not really interested in playing myself, just because one of my students really wants to work on it. Currently I'm even studying up on the Alekhine, and finding it very hard to understand why people willingly play such a difficult defence! I hardly find time to work on my own repertoire...

A friend of mine just shows off all his best games to his students, and as if by magic they all want to play the openings he already knows. An amazing time-saver! But I don't know, I would feel like a show-off if i focused on my own imperfect games instead of those of the great world champions and grandmasters.