Hi guys, I have enjoyed reading in this (sub) forum for a while now and decided to open my own thread. I will write about my chess studies, post some games and hope to get some interesting discussions as well as useful advice from more experienced players.

Background
My situation is probably a bit unusual, as I have not played much chess in my life except for the last year when I studied and improved a ton. As a child I played occasionally with my father or friends but didn't study at all. Actually, a year ago I couldn't name more than two names of chess players (Carlsen and Kasparov) and didn't know more theory than the first four moves of the Ruy Lopez. But then, I started to get really interested in the game (not surprisingly actually as I love all kind of games and even have played poker on a professional level). In this year, I have improved to around 1750 with a peak of 1830 on chess.com. This weekend I will be playing in an event of the Swiss Chess tour and it will be my first ever "real" chess tournament.

Goals
I don't really have a goal like becoming a master or something in that regard, but I guess reaching 2000 is a feasible midterm goal. More importantly, my goals are to improve my game.

Opening Repertoire: I want to have a repertoire where I am comfortable playing the first couple of moves and then have an idea about the upcoming middle game. As white, I play 1.e4 and as black I play the Dragon vs e4 and the KID vs d4 and the flank openings.

Endgame: I am reading Silmans Complete Endgame Course and will be happy once I have mastered everything up to the experts section.

Tactics: I do some tactics on chesstempo and read Artur Yusupov's series Build Your Chess, Boost Your Chess etc which has a lot of tactical chapters (currently on volume 2).

Positional play: Here, I have read How to Reassess your Chess as my very first chess book and am currently rereading some parts.

Well, that's it for now, I am not quite sure in which direction this thread will be going but I am looking forward to it and will definitely post the games of the swiss chess tour tournament this weekend.

Ooo, a log featuring Yusupov's series. While there certainly are plenty of tactical/calculation chapters, there are also plenty of more strategic ones. They are definitely the ones I struggle with the most even though I am not particularly great at tactics or calculation, lol.

When you say 1750 and 1830, what does that mean? Blitz rating on chess.com, standard, turn-based?

I assume the "swiss chess tour" is in Switzerland or are you referring to a swiss-style tournament somewhere else? I assume the former. I have no idea what rating system they are on in terms of how it might/kinda correspond to chess.com ratings...

Hi Yugo, nice to hear from you. I actually got the idea to start working with the Yusupov books from your thread

The rating is the standard rating on chess.com, I usually play 30min games. My blitz rating is only 1450, mainly because I lose very often on time.

And yeah the swiss chess tour is in Switzerland. It's an elo rated tournament, so I am wondering how the online rating will transpose to live, as I have heared that online ratings are inflated. On the other hand I feel that I am stronger with longer time controls, I have played some 45/45 games on chess.com and did well against stronger opponents.

I have no experience with the FIDE rating system myself but assume they have some sort of provisional period (like they do for United States rating system, chess.com, chesstempo, ICC, and every other rating system I've ever used, lol) until you've played enough games. Of course, if you can run hot enough you can just get a CM title and "retire" to play correspondence chess and coach like NL Loki, :P.

Ratings are tough unless you play frequently and plateau at a certain range, then you can be pretty damn sure that is your rating. But it's kind of tough if you are an improving player to get in enough games at multiple formats to be confident like that. OTOH, since you are improving, it is pretty moot since it probably should be a moving target as your rating projects to go up but may also dip as you assimilate new knowledge and practical skills.

I know I haven't updated my thread in a while but I probably will this week. I'm a bit over halfway through the 3rd book. I think they will be excellent for your skill level which seems maybe slightly below me. It will be interesting to see what you struggle with since that should really tell you a lot about what to train more.

I seem to be competent at everything, which sounds cool, but it would be nicer to be really good at a few things and bad at others so I could make quick gains at the things I suck at, lol. So it often feels like I "suck" at everything and/or am "solid" at everything and thus improving is tougher.

Looking forward to following.

I wouldn't pay any attention to your chess.com rating no matter what the time control. Playing live against serious players is an entirely different experience, so don't be surprised if you perform quite a bit worse than that rating (though I don't know you or how you play so maybe you can live up to it). There's also a very different pressure experience playing live against a serious opponent who is giving everything they've got instead of a guy who is checking facebook half the time and such.

If it goes great, great. Post your games here and review them critically. If it goes terribly, also great. Post your games here and review them critically. Focus on the process and not the result at this stage of your chess career.

So, I have just played my first otb game and it went really well. The tournament consists of five games, although I will only be able to play four of them. There are 20 players, including a GM, an IM and a WFM.

I was paired with the number 10, who has a CH-Elo of 1720 and a Fide-Elo of 1804 (not really sure how that works). Anyway, I played as white, here is the game.

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game....php?id=104001

I would like to give you the game with annotated moves, but I don't know what software is required or how to do it. So far, I will have to give my thoughts like this:

My preparation of the opening went up to move 10. I was quite happy with my position. He has the bishop pair, but I am ahead in development, can castle queenside and start a kingside attack while he cannot castle because the h7 pawn is attacked.

Then I thought about taking on h7 and giving my bishop for the three pawns. It looked like his king would get a really awkward position, but I thought I should get a more risk-free advantage by pushing my pawns.

After the exchange of the white bishops, I end up with the much more active minor piece. But I missed his response Rd8 after my d5 and if he took my pawn on the next move I would be down a pawn, although I still think I have some attacking possibilities. Luckily, he castled and I could keep my pawn and turn my knight into a monster.

At the end I found a nice tactic, really cool way to end my first otb game.

So please let me know what you think about the game. Will post game 2 here tomorrow

Played game two today, it was a lot tougher than the first one. I played as black, my opponent was rated CH-Elo 1844 and Fide-Elo 1760.

Here is the game http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game....php?id=104005

I didn't know much about this variation and he got a pretty strong attack out of the opening. However, I am quite happy with the way I defended the position, I think the decisive factor was that he allowed me to play e5 and lock away his light squared bishop. I ended up a pawn down, but with opposite colored bishops remaining we agreed to a draw.

Will skip today's afternoon game because I have a football match, but looking forward to playing two more games tomorrow. It is really completely different than playing online, the level of focus is much higher.

That's awesome! Keep grinding that tourny. Seems you are already better than me lol. Awesome. Maybe we should play some longer chess.com games some time.

nice smother mate. you rarely get to see that!

I don't understand the 2nd game. I'm assuming this isn't the game and if not so, it didn't end on move 33.

Thanks for the kind words, although I doubt that I am better, but yeah let's play some games sometime!

Well game 2 is correct, it ended on move 33, what don't you understand about it?

So, finished the tournament with 2.5/4 after todays games where I lost with black against a strong opponent (2080) and won with white against a 1680.

Game 1: http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game....php?id=104015

I was happy to get a fianchetto KID, it's the KID system I have studied the most. But then he surprised me with Qd2 and the early exchange of queens. At that point I thought that I had a very solid position, but very little counterplay and just have to defend very accurately. Well that didn't happen, I made a mistake that cost me a pawn and the position just fell apart as the game progressed.

Game 2: http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game....php?id=104016

Here I didn't know anything about the opening. But giving the knight for the two pawns gave me a very clear initiative and an easy win.

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game....php?id=104005

nvm game 2 was a draw. I thought you resigned for some reason.

in game 3 (kings indian) black looks very cramped. I'm not too sure of c6 in the opening, but I can imagine it being a line. Personally I think it cramps black's position because the knight on b8 is going to hinder black's development. I don't like the whole qa5-h5 plan as I think it is too obvious and white can easily counter it or focus on some other plan. Black does want to trade and I think getting in re8 and e5 is good. Afterwards black can get in d5 and open up everything.

As played (after the queen swap), while white does have a space advantage, I don't think giving up a bishop pair is justifiable. White's bishop pair is just too strong when everything opens up.

I think instead of Bg4 Bxf3, I would have played h6 right away. The best square for white's bishop is probably f4 as the other squares hinders with his conquest for space advantage. Re8 with the plan of e5 looks interesting and I'm not sure whether black can equalize this or not. My plan is probably e5 then e4.

game 4 (latvian) looks very tactical. I'm not sure how 5.nxe5 fares as white gives up 2 knights for a rook. but it still seems very tactical and black has a lot of things to dodge. I like the knight sack a lot as black's king is in question. After qb4, I'm not sure if white's best option is just to grab the 3rd pawn and trade queens. It seems like c3 just wins. Black's queen has to goto b5 or b6. On qb6, qh5+ and black's lost I think. g6 qe5+ or kd8 qf3 forking b7 and f8. On qb5, a4 and the lines above repeat.

Ok, so after looking at all the games again I must say that game 2 (the dragon) was my favourite. It was really interesting and although white seemed to have a strong attack I felt quite confident and the engines also say that I was doing ok. Actually, there would have been a tactic where I go Qb6 on move 17 and if he grabs the knight I can exchange bishops and then go Ng4 and Nf2 with a crushing attack.

I am also happy with game 1 (the french) where I felt that I had an advantage all the time.

Game 3 (the KID) obviously didn't go well. But c6 was not the problem, that's the mainline, the idea is to restrict his bishop. Qa5 is theory as well. But after the exchange of queens I was not sure anymore if giving the bishop for the knight is still a good idea (as it is if he plays e4 instead of exchanging queens). Yes, I definitely have a cramped position, but my bishop is really strong and I think my position would be ok without the mistake that cost me the pawn. Afterwards, I made some more mistakes but I was already losing.

Game 4 (the latvian) was the only one I had no opening preparation to it. I was also wondering whether grabing the 3rd pawn was the best option, but then I thought if I can equalize in material and leave him with a very bad position (isolated pawns, bad king position) I should be much better. The engines say that it is equal though. Btw c3 seems to be equal as well, he can play Qe7 and I will take the pawn anyways with a similar position, although queens are still on the board. Not sure in which favour this is.

Nice games! I didn't look at the fourth game closely enough to start to figure out wtf was going on, lol.

It seemed weird how it ended, though, did your opponent just miss the end result of exchanging on f3 or did I miss stronger consequences of not exchanging on f3?

Apparently he just blundered by exchanging on f3

I would say we'd be a good match playing against each other but I have never smother mated anyone in my life, .

Yeah, would be great to play against each other. I am sallenko on chess.com and salenka on ICC, just send me a friend request and we can find a date.

Guess it's time to update this thread.

Right now I spend a lot of time building my opening repertoire and basically not working on other areas of my game at all. I know that is probably not ideal, but on the other hand openings are important and I enjoy it so I guess it's fine.

So let's see where I stand right now:

As White:

1.e4 - meaning I need to be able to play against:

-The Sicilians (I have worked through "Modernized: The Open Sicilian" so I feel that I have a good foundation including middle game plans)
-The Ruy Lopez (here I have not read anything yet (any recommendations?) I have simply played around with chess.com's game explorer and think that I got a decent understanding of the common positions)
-The Caro-Kann (I will finish the Caro-Kann chapter in Negi's Grandmaster Repertoire book this week)
-The French (The chapters about the French defense in Negi's Grandmaster Repertoire book are planned next)
-All the rarer openings where I have usually just looked at the first couple of moves in chess.com's game explorer and don't intend to spend too much time on them.

As Black:

-The dragon against 1. e4 (I have briefly looked at the anti-sicilians and am currently reading Gawain Jones Grandmaster Repertoire books on the dragon)
-The KID (I will probably read "Modernized: The KID" once I have finished the books mentioned above)

It is quite a lot of theory and work to go through it, but I am sure it is worth it. I guess it will take me approximately two more months to finish and then I can move on to something else (probably endgames).

I like it, .

I kinda want to go back to my opening repertoire but I always get kinda super into some sort of minutiae and then get burned out and barely remember the line I looked at and recorded, lol.

Made good progress in my openings. I have completed the Caro-Kann chapters and feel confident in both the 4...Bf5 and the 4...Nd7 lines now. Before reading Negi's book where the 3. Nd2 line is recommended I have played the advance variation, but never liked the positions I got. It was the opening that I felt least confident, so it is nice to have something solid now.

I have also studied the Dragon vs different Yugoslav Attacking setups (mainly 9. 0-0-0). Jones books on the dragon are great, but I would have liked him to play the chinese dragon instead of the Topalov variation. I think I have won every game in the chinese dragon so far, so I am going to keep it in my repertoire and do some investigation on my own.

Next week I am still going to finish the dragon with the classical variation but then plan to do a little break before tackling the remaining openings (French, Ruy Lopez and Kings Indian).

I think after having learned a lot of new theory in quite a short time, it is probably better to let it sink in a bit and deepen some of the things I have learned before moving on to new stuff.

As a pretty experienced sicilian player, I would advise you budget a huge amount of time to anti sicilians as opposed to the standard open sicilians.

Definitely agree to this. I used to play the Najdorf for about 10 years, spent a massive amount of time studying all the critical lines and knew it at a really high level, where I felt I can go on equal footing versus any GM. The reason I quit playing Sicilian is because I never got to use any of those lines, because every game was either 2. c3, 3. Bb5+, Grand Prix or some other shenanigan. Drove me nuts

So, it has been quite a long time since my last update. I have continued studying and playing chess a lot, just didn't feel like updating the blog here. Anyway, so I decided to continue and first of all I wanted to thank you guys for the advice. I spent some time on the anti-sicilians and feel like I get decent positions in all of them, but as the lines are less sharp I didn't study them in as much detail as the dragon.

Also, I studied Bologan's chessbase dvd's on the ruy lopez, it took a lot of time but I feel really good about this opening system now (except for the Berlin, where I didn't look at the Berlin endgame but just play the d3 anti-berlin).

That means I have now studied the sicilians, ruy lopez, caro-kann and philidor for my white repertoire, leaving the french and some of the rarer openings.

More importantly though I really have been struggling with the KID. It is such a complicated opening that it seems to me that you can't just learn some lines and principles and then continue playing by common sense. Even the dragon which is sharp as well strikes me as much more logical and also you often can go into an equal endgame. So I decided to give up on the KID and start learning the Semi-Slav, which seems to have a good balance between fighting lines and soundness.

Besides openings, I have also started to read Dvoretsky's endgame manual. I like the idea of having blue colour for the must-know stuff and black colour for additional infos, so in my first read I just focus on the blue stuff.

So that's basically my learning strategy right now: just studying openings and endgames. Finishing my opening repertoire and the endgame manual will probably keep me busy for another 2-3 months and then I should probably do some more tactics and calculations (this is probably my biggest weakness right now).

I would say this is a good idea; the dragon and the KID aren't really what I would think of as "sister" openings. In the dragon, the center is open, kings are usually on opposite sides, and there is wide open piece play that generally decides the game. The KID is more often seen with a blocked center and revolves around a kingside piece attack versus a queenside space/penetration attack. The SemiSlav is more piece play, and certainly if you like sharp lines, the botvinik is right up your alley.

Exactly, in one of the first videos I have seen the instructor said that the Dragon and the KID are a good pair of openings, as both have the fianchetto bishop etc. But as you said, the play is completely different and the bishop is mostly blocked in the KID. What's kind of funny is that even though I like the Dragon, I don't like lines that are too crazy otherwise. So for the moment, I am not going to learn the Botvinik and instead focus on Moscow and Anti-Moscow.