MNb wrote on 04/28/21 at 05:04:33:


3.a6 aproach is certainly covered. Lubbe is a strong IM who drew with Caruana:
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1886131

He and his wife are well known for their training course on Chess 24 (Middlegames and Endgames). On Monday (03-05-2021) part 228 of their course will be broadcasted.

Am I the only one who thinks IM Lubbe's marketing strategy rather misleading? From the link in the OT:

"Der rudimentäre Plan war einfach: Wir bauen uns immer gleich auf, rochieren lang und stürmen mit den Bauern am Königsflügel vor."

"The rudimentary plan was simple: we always build up the same way, castle queenside and initiate a pawn storm on the king's wing."

Unfortunately this requires Black's cooperation in the form of playing ...Bf5. It doesn't work after 3...a6 4.e3 e6 and ...c5. From the table of content of the video course I conclude that IM Lubbe too wants White to castle kingside with a slow positional game.
On the positive side the sharp lines can be played via the Accelerated London 1.d4 Nf6 3.Bf4 d5 3.e3 Bf5 only now 4.Nc3 e6 5.f3. However I'm not sure who needs this video course to study this line.

Hi.

cathexis wrote on 04/27/21 at 15:02:00:


I feel where he is coming from. The chess arms race is very much a thing. With the invention of strong AI engines anybody can basically do meaningful opening work. In almost any line now as well due to strength and especially speed of engines. The whole process of good play being determined, played and eventually put in books or videos is, especially in theory, faster than ever.

What I tend to find is that high levels of general preparation can often frustrate attempts to reach strategic positions even if I'm playing an opening that opens up for many strategic positions. Openings that are strategic but where the opposing side has realistically no big idea of how to make the game less strategic are quite valuable overall. 

Have a nice day.

Every player needs to do their own math. Quality openings require more Time. Stronger opposition requires better openings. So it's an arithmetic problem: result of the opening = Q*T/S. What opening result are you satisfied with? If your opponent is weak enough, any junk opening can win. If your opponent is too strong, preparing like Kasparov won't be enough. In the middle, is where judgment enters the picture. 

I think a good example to look at is Gata Kamsky. When he was trying to win the world championship, he played the sharpest and best openings. Now that he is trying to win open tournaments, he has switched back to routine openings. He is clearly capable of playing better openings, and if he still did that then his *opening* results might be a little better. But his overall results would not be enough better to be worth the extra time.

The opening is complicated enough that it's not possible, in an *average* position, to calculate the best move. Even the top engines need an opening book for the early moves. So as Alekhine said, the objective is to make the opponent think for himself. That's when he will make a mistake. But it's not a good idea to accomplish this by making a mistake yourself first.

Keep in mind that "winning" the opening battle is not the same as winning the game, there remains the middlegame and the endgame to navigate. See for example today's game Nakamura - Jones, New in Chess Classic Prelims (11) 2021 https://en.chessbase.com/post/new-in-chess-classic-carlsen-wins-preliminaries. Jones was fine out of the opening and was outplayed in the endgame. Without making any outright bad move he was "suddenly" losing a pawn. But I don't know, it might still be classified as an "opening" victory for Nakamura. It all depends on when both players were on their own...

Bibs wrote on 04/27/21 at 09:17:17:


Differnt variations from Williams "Jobava London System" (prefers Nb5 in the 1 d4 d5 2 Nc3 Nf6 3 Bf4 e6 variation). Its in German.

Repertoire based on 1.d4 2.Sc3 3.Lf4

https://www.chessemy.com/shop/eroeffnung/bertramisch/