The best way to convince a system player is looking up a strong antidote and use it against him/her. With a databse that's very easy these days. This way I cured a friend of mine (a better player than me) who had taken up the KIA (1.Nf3, 2.g3 ..... 7.e4 against everything).

I can't comment on the book itself, but I can partially relate to Laramonet's friend (mostly pick up an opening and don't over-analyse opponent's games).
First, it pays off to check our opponent's age(*) and openings with both colours, how he won against stronger players (blunder or pressure), what he plays when he wants a draw, whether he plays forcing or non-forcing openings, how he holds endings etc. Get a general feeling for the player. If you play in the same tournaments, check what's he's currently playing, it's the only case when you may want to prepare specifically.

(*)also: nationality. To mix stereotypes and observed opening practice, French/English/Spanish are on the loose side, German are well prepared, Greeks and Indians are over-prepared (strong trainers there), US players love systems & gambits (BDG, Morra, Colle etc), Eastern Europe players play basic openings (often white squares: French, Classical/Scheveningen sicilian, QGD, Nimzo...) but are very resilient.

Most players I know have well-defined repertoires with Black (say, their current and previous/mustwin opening against 1.e4, 1.d4, 1.c4), and are more flexible with White. To prepare with Black, we mostly check where/how our opponent interacts with our Black repertoire. To prepare with White, you can try to surprise him (e.g. specific or reversed Black opening) but don't base your preparation on the old games. Reversed opening -e.g. playing 1.f4 against an 1.e4 player - are the underhand serve of chess, they can often make Black uncomfortable. 

Finally, system openings tend to lock players into a comfort zone, they're stalled until they break out. One good combo to rely less on openings and improve as a chess player is to play solid with White (let Black err and drive the point home) and more chaotic with Black (my whole game led by confusion boats).

an ordinary chessplayer wrote on 01/02/23 at 18:45:44:


In the book of Markus, the very strong grandmaster David Navarra says that he often doesn't prepare more than half hour for his games. 

I believe this more or less hints that one should not start to do heavy analysis of openings during a preparation for an opponent. That sort of work should've been ready in advance. So I deduct that indeed preparation is mostly about selecting the opening and for the rest just freshing up the memory by e.g. clicking through the analysis already done before.

Now that is fine for a professional player. I hear from many that they are spending at least 5-6 hours averagely each day to update and expand their openings.

For an amateur like myself having a million duties outside chess, each preparation on an opponent (titled player) is an uphill battle to patch the gaps in my repertoire. I guess you belong also in that category so still having to work too much at the openings during preparation of an opponent.

It is a general problem with any book. Books seldom tell in advance for which type of player they really fit. I believe a promising teenager (+2200 fide) which is on route for IM or GM-title will get the most out of this book. I don't think either of us are such promising teenager.

brabo wrote on 01/02/23 at 07:08:18:

Yes and I gave him a high mark for his advice on selecting, but in English prepare is what you do *after* selecting the opening, at least how that is how I use the word. And select then prepare happens in at least two places: once when selecting a repertoire at home and then we prepare the lines in the repertoire; again when selecting a specific opening from the repertoire at the tournament and then we prepare the specific line we expect from our next opponent. To repeat myself, he has lots to say about selecting but the second preparing step was rather lacking in the book, and when he did give some advice, e.g. "click-through", I thought it was a low quality method.

Anyway the point is not whether I am right or wrong about this. It's his book to write. The point is the next person has a good idea what is in the book and whether they want it.

Having spent some time with this book, I give it the following marks:

• Relate author's experiences in various openings. 
  := A+
• Present considerations for how to choose an opening repertoire. 
  := A
• Present considerations for how to choose a specific opening in an individual game. 
  := A
• Analyze some interesting openings. 
  := A
• Explain how to study openings. 
  := B-
• Give advice on how to actually prepare openings. 
  := D-

Overall the book is good, but the title is terribly misleading. Maybe prepare means something different in Dutch than in English? As usual for just about all openings books, I found the Index of Openings to be inadequate, so I made my own. See the attachment. I made the lines long enough to indicate the contents, but short enough to not give away any author secrets. Explanation of the pgn index:

• Game 089 pg317 (102) 
  -- The game beginning on page 317 has approximately 102 ply following the last move in the pgn index. The ply count is a quick hand count and may not be wholly accurate, especially when the analysis runs to multiple pages.
• "Alekhine's Defence ...122,124,239" 
  -- Comments in quotes are verbatim from the book's own Index of Openings.
• (TR) 1...Nc6 pg188 
  -- The variation on page 188 transposes to 1...Nc6, e.g. 1.e4 Nc6 is implied.
• pg035(BT) 
  -- The variation mentioned on page 35 leads to the current variation by transposition.
• (sic) 
  -- I have some reservations (sometimes only a quibble) about something the author stated.