Nah, I never play 1. e4, I was just testing it. Italian isn't part of my main repertoire, but I know some nuances such as when to go a4 and h3 etc. My manoeuvres were kinda awkward and fxe3 was a weird decision but maybe not that bad. Engine said I was +1 until I kinda gave the game away, I think I just, in general, underestimate king safety and assume I can calculate my way out of trouble, and here, I missed something basically like 2 moves deep...\

4. Ng5 is critical (I think), but has alot of theory so I rather just practice my positional techniques.

Loki - Could you talk a little about your approach to adding an opening to your repertoire? At your level are you able to run through the database and figure out all of the ideas on your own or do you have to read through a bunch of literature in addition to the Chessbase work?

I mostly copy it from the Grandmaster Repertoire series or look through ChessBase videos and find the lines I'm most comfortable with (play it over in blitz a few times).

I'm nowhere at the level where I can figure out all the ideas on my own, these ideas are often the result of some genius like Aronian's inspiration or a super GM with a team of seconds helping him prepare so watching the most recent super GM games are mindboggling for an amateur such as myself. But I have help from my friends who are all like full-time 2300-2400+ professionals and I just ask them for advice and which lines to use. And one of my friend happens to be some GM who literally make a living writing opening theory, so that helps...

I always wondered how profitable that is. Do you have any insight into how many books are typically sold? Can a GM make a good living writing books or is this more a starving artist type of deal?

Alot chess professionals spend their entire life on chess, as such, often have a narrow skill set and subsequently not many career options.

From what I heard, they can get up to a few thousand for a book without royalties, but there might be better deals around too.

Exams about to start but I'm still fitting in some chess prep during this period.

Finished my caro, d4 sidelines, 1. e4 repertoires on my CPT, aiming to finish my modern lines, semi slav (done part of those already) and english lines (dumbed down version of marin lines)...

Once I got most of the lines down in my CPT, I can practice them over and over again daily in preparation for the tournaments I will likely play next year.

I've taken on a project at overhauling my repertoire. I have the GM Series for Pirc, English, d4 sidelines, and Gruenfeld.

When you're putting them into CPT are you putting in all the sidelines as well? Just paying attention to the bold moves? I'm not sure the best way to go about putting these in.

The best way to do it is to put it all in on chessable! Better yet, buy repertoires that exist so you don't have to do tons of tedious data entry, like I did/do, .

Josh, what is your rating approx? Sounds like some serious opening theory!

My last rating was 1600 uscf in 2013.

It's not so much that I'm planning on memorizing all the theory but more I wanted to have the best resources available for reference. I'm not planning on changing openings ever again basically.

I am also working through the Yusupov course books and the Kasparian 2545 endgame study book.

I've not played competitive chess since 2013. My current goal is to study and play in the National Open in Las Vegas next summer. With an overall goal of hitting NM at some point in the future.

My children (6 and 9) have become quite interested which has got my chess bug going again.

Awesome plan!

I'll be at the national open next week.

Although just got sick. Hopefully it clears up by then.

Lmk how the endgame study book is, my guess is that it may be very tough.

Also the yusupov, maybe hearing your progress will inspire me to continue and finish them!

Finally finished my exams. I will start logging my daily chess work soon!

Decided to be more efficient with the way I study, for example, I always spend time keying in my lines mindlessly before I study them later, but it's taking forever to key my whole repertoire in (not to mention it keeps changing) as well as making me feel disengaged. I decided to just key in the lines on my trainer as I study them so I can practice the memorisation process as I learn while keeping me more engaged this time...

Day 1

Slow start, but better than nothing.

Did a Yusupov chapter and 30 minutes of tactics trainer.

Day 2

30 min of tactics, decided I'm going to spend 2 days on the greek gift chapter in the Yusupov because it has actually quite abit of calculation.

Did you finish all of the orange books or did you start with the blue books?

nah I didn't actually do that many yusupov chapters

Day 3

Woke up really late but finished off the greek gift chapter, will try to catch up in the weekend.

Day 4

Did over 2 hours of tactics.

Day 5

Did a long positional chapter on the Yusupov books about evaluating the position.

Did 1 hour of tactics on tactics trainer.

Day 6

Only did around half an hour of tactics, need to catch up on sleep... as I went on another all nighter doing stuff.

Day 7

Over an hour of tactics on tactics trainer.

Day 8

Need to catch up on sleep

Day 9

Did some tactics and will finish off the chapter on planning (still have the exercises to do)

Gogogog

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Day 20

Sorry for the lack of updates some stuff been happening with my uni enrolment lately...