Actually about 'sitting duck' repitoires - I think you're very much overestimating what it takes to use them at club level.

There's plenty of people I can think of who have very bullet porous sitting duck repitoires but get on entirely happily at club level despite this. 

It does of course get a little bit different once you're on databases etc with opponents having time to prepare.

The alternative of course would be to eliminate opening theory almost totally from your games by just picking a random main line to play before every game. If super GM's give up preparing for say Ivanchuk due to this then what would a club level player be likely to do?!!?

One of the goals of many chess players is to make it more attractive so that more players will play it; this would make it more financially attractive so that GM's and other writers can make a living at it. One format that hasn't been tried is consultation games either human versus human or human versus computer, but not human/computer versus human/computer. 

One great consultation team would be Garry Kasparov and Judit Polgar. As the highest rated male player in his day and the strongest female player they often play the same openings and have somewhat similar styles e.g. each often play the King's Indian and the Sicilian with Black.

What makes chess so difficult for a viewing audience at slow time limits as far as the spectator is concerned is that there is too much "dead" time between moves that has to be filled in by commentators.

With consultation games we could have the players think "out loud" i.e. a premium should be given to those players who are best at explaining what they are thinking when they decide to play certain continuations. Just put the players in separate rooms if it is a human versus human consultation game or the same room if it is a computer versus human contest.

What would be great in a human consultation team versus a computer is that it would be like the Perils of Pauline where the human players might consider some losing tactics which the spectators with their own computers could see; their "heroes" might be stepping into a trap and the spectators will "will" them to avoid it!

One player would make all the moves so there would be no question who is in charge, but they would agree, for example, in the opening, "Let's play the Najdorf"

One of the players might be a chess teacher like GM Lev Alburt or other teacher/GM's who could talk to the announcer and explain things that a class player might ask. The announcer would have to be careful not to ask questions that might impact on the play.

This format would be far more spectator friendly and might appeal to a larger audience.

MartinC wrote on 09/06/12 at 15:22:12:

To build up a more or less solid 'sitting duck repertoire' takes many years. This requires not only playing lots of games but also working hard at home to do often repairings or even more serious adaptations. On top you must possess a pretty good memory as it can take years before you can use some prepared lines. 1 example from last season: http://schaken-brabo.blogspot.be/2012/03/de-boemerang.html
I fully agree with you that this studying/working method is not achievable for most (club)players.

Ok

For me if someone has found chess to be getting stale due to openings, then they should play a bit of one of the multiple other really good games out there. There's quite enough of them, several at least on a level with chess depth wise. 

Fisher random vs orthochess I'm not totally sure about. Chess allowing for free buying of custom designed pieces can be a lot of fun. (Things like a bishop/3,1/2,1 leaper combination vs a queen, or the more extreme versions possible.).

I think we'd gone way off topic already

It's interesting because I probably do do that. I do have a routine repitoire for the unknown, albiet one I vary a bit. For repeat games I'm much more likely to do something different. Mostly out of interest instead of points mind

'Sitting duck' repitoires are probably not as serious as one might think at club level. Certainly my (rare) experiences of trying to use non trivial amounts of computer backed preparation have been that it's really not easy to subsequently switch back into playing 'real' chess.

It takes some practice I think, which most UK club players don't get.

MartinC wrote on 09/06/12 at 11:39:25:

One of my conclusions of my study was exactly that below 2000 elo the influence of studying theory diminishes. Another reason for the average clubplayer first to work on other aspects of the game instead of the opening.

I agree that if you don't know your opponents in advance that it is difficult to prepare concrete lines. However you can shortcut this problem by playing always the same lines so after some time you will get on the board what you've played/studied before. The big disadvantage of course of this method is that your opponents can prepare very well on you if they know the pairings in advance.

MartinC wrote on 09/06/12 at 09:19:35:


Selecting a certain setup from which you are able to play rational moves to get a sensible position, is the way Magnus Carlsen today mainly plays. He is not interested in theoretical debates but prefers to outplay the opponent later. This requires a minimum of studying opening theory compared to the powerplay-method which was the last decades considered as the only correct studymethod. 

I don't deny that some study is needed to select the setups like Carlsen does but it is not included in my study as Carlsens method is mainly used to avoid the openingknowledge of the opponents instead of trying to overpower the openingknowledge of the opponents.