Been super busy at work, was assigned to start a case in the Supreme Court of Lithuania (my first time), so it was kinda stressful, but looks like it will be alright

Anyway, that meant terrible schedule sleep wise, but I managed to stay as healthy as possible during the period, even though I didn't lose weight, but also didn't gain any, which used to always happen during periods like this.

So now that this thing is out of the way, back to looking at chess Still waiting for my books, sadly, but on the other hand, I had a wall-bookcase installed at my home finally, and had a chance to take all the books from random bags and put them all neatly in there, which reminded me that I have some nice chess books that I can now read in the library-room at my leisure, which is cool

Doing a decent amount of tactics and puzzle rush - I still cannot break my early record of 39, but I am getting tantalizingly close often, so I think it's just a matter of time when 40 is broken. Also, it is quite encouraging, since puzzle rush definitely became harder compared to its early stages, so getting to 40 now would mean the form is improving.

On Saturday the Lithuanian league starts, so I will play my first classical game in ages. First round should mean some weaker opponent, which is always dangerous, but also a good training - just have to keep the right attitude. Second round will be played on Sunday and should we win the first match, we will get some stronger opponents there, so that should be a bigger test - we will see how I do. Will try to post the games on here ASAP with some light commentary.

Also, this place is still dead, but we shall revive it, yes?! I am still open for any questions on anything

Hit 39 with two misses and 15 seconds remaining and choked on the last one, UGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Won game 1 of the league as white vs 2060.

The game is here: https://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-gam....php?id=113763

Very happy with the game actually. Showed some good patience after he defended well from the initial attack, Nf1-Ne3 I thought was excellent, and he did not understand that all the resulting positions after the queen trade are just terrible for him. It would have obv taken some more time had he not had a brain-freeze with Rf7, but it's fairly hopeless for black IMO.

The critical mistake, apart from Rf7 of course, was his 16... c5. cxd5 looks a bit scary, giving me e4 square for the knight and such, but it was def a way to go in order to create some play for himself. After c5 it's just a one way street.

So a good start, we will see what tomorrow brings

In Round 2 won vs a 2157 as white in a very fun game (for me). As a team we clean swept a rather strong team that would always give us trouble in previous years, 5-0! Couldn't have asked for a better start, really.

The game is here: https://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-gam....php?id=113774

I urge you to not just replay it, but to work out the lines that weren't played. Especially the key one - what if 11... Na6? There is quite a lot of fun lines to calculate, so go at it!

Sadly, the game is tainted by his Be7 blunder, or else I'd call it one of my best. But I am very happy that I've calculated the entire game line till the end before playing 0-0, including the sidelines, and the engine confirmed pretty much all of it. Haven't calculated this well in a very long time I wish Prague was sooner, I'll probably lose this form before then...

Even Yugo is gone

I'm lurking here and I really appreciate the content. I never really post anything because I'm an amateur at chess and I don't have much substantive to add to the conversation. However, you are making a valuable contribution to this forum and I look forward to your progress and future posts.

You mentioned being open for questions. What is your current opening repertoire and how did you come upon it? Was it by chance or design? For example, I only played chess as a teenager and just came upon my openings by chance, but for someone on your level I'm assuming its a conscious decision to steer middlegames to familiar situations and imbalances (open games v closed, early trading off a bishop for a knight voluntarily, positional/slow/maneuvering sort of games vs dynamic/attacking games.)

Again, thank you for posting much needed content on this board. Best of luck, the lurkers are rooting for you!

Hey Kaeru, thank you very much for posting! It is great to know that someone reads it, as I wasn't sure about that

And your question is a very good one, and actually made me re-think some things!

Firstly, let me provide sort of a broad view of my main repertoire, as far as openings go:

1. d4 as white.

Against KID: Saemisch with Bg5 instead of Be3.
Against 1...d5: 2. c4 and then:

1. vs Queens Gambit accepted: various, but usually something involving not trying to get the pawn back immediately.
2. Against Slav - various, currently I often play something offbeat like 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. cxd5 cxd5 5. f3 with crazy good scores, but also know most of the classical lines at least somewhat if needed.
3. against Queens gambit declined - depends, usually taking on d5 and going for the classical Bg5/Qc2/e3/Bd3 and either Nf3 (usually coupled with 0-0-0 at some point) or Ne2 (with a more standard 0-0/f3/e4 plan). However, currently I am venturing more and more in to Bf4 teritorry.
4. against Albin - 3. dxe5 d4 4. Nf3 Nc6 5. a3 Nge7 6. b4 Ng6 7. Bb2 etc. (I consider this to be almost 1-0, as long as white knows his theory)
5. against 2.. Nc6 - just cooking something up at the board (LEAK).

against Grunfeld : currently usually the Kruppa variation 4. cxd5 Nd5 5. Nc3 Nxc3 6. bxc3 Bg7 7. Bg5 (look it up, it's great!),but also know some other variations which I've employed previously with mixed success, namely the early h4 ones and 7. Bc4 with the classic Ne2/Be3 setup and an exchange sac on a1.
against 1.. Nf6 2 . c4 e6 - I used to never allow the Nimzo and play 3. Nf3, where I know a decent amount. However, currently I allow the Nimzo and usually play 4. Qc2 and then really there are too many possibilities to write down here, so if you wanna know what I play against concrete lines from black ask and I'll let you know.
against Benoni - again know several options, but usually either go for a hyper aggro 4. d5 exd5 5. exd5 d6 6. e4 g6 7. f4 Bg7 8. e5, or to a more standard 6. Nf3 --> Nd2.
against the Dutch - if I am feisty I go 2. h3 and 3. g4, if not... usually I am feisty.
against the Stonewall - setup with Nf3/Bf4/Qc2/e3/Bd3/0-0-0/g4.
against the Benko - I rarely allow it, but if I do allow it I play with g3/Bg2/Qc2/0-0 and then it all depends on what he does.
against their random bull**** - I respond with my own random bull****.

As black :

vs 1. e4 :

1. as a kid I started of with the French, which I can still play somewhat, but would definitely need a refresher to play it vs higher rated opposition.
2. Then I turned to Najdorf which I've played for about 10 years and knew it fairly well, but the problem with Najdorf is that you have to really keep up with the developments in theory or you might just not even reach the middle game. As I did not have the time to do this, I started to look for an alternative
3. that's when I found the Modern Tiger by Tiger Hillarp Persson. Sort of a main setup of which is for black g6, Bg7, d6, a6, b5, Nbd7, Bb7, c5. Of course white has a ton of different setups so it's no use trying to write it all down here. At the beginning the Tiger gave me absolutely ridiculous results and I basically scored my first IM norm largely on the back of it. Then people started preparing heavily vs me and I had a bit of a slump with it and kinda lost my love for it, but have recently regained it again after putting in a bit of reviewing of the lines, and will continue to play it again.

vs d4/Nf3/c4

I have tried pretty much everything there is. This is by far the biggest leak in my opening play, cause I sort of just prepare something for every single game instead of having something I can rely on. I can play the KID, the classical Dutch, the Benoni, Benko, Blumenfeld gambit (absolutely love it whenever someone allows me to play it), some sort of Hedgehog, the Chigorin, etc. I know something in all of them, but definitely not deep enough to keep up at a high level, unless I specifically prepare for a specific opponent for a specific game. Usually it's kind of rotating between the Dutch, the KID and some sort of other weird move orders which translate to something at some point.

So, the repertoire is as such. Now, as to your question, I guess the answer is mixed. Some of the openings I play I've learned in my early teens (for example the Saemisch I've been playing for maybe 20 years now), while the others I've picked up much later in my development. I picked those up in a variety of different sources, when I felt a need arise:

1. when my Najdord wasn't cutting it, my then-coach suggested a look at the Modern Tiger, and I fell in love with it.
2. when I felt that I am getting outplayed in many Grunfelds, I looked for alternatives and found the Kruppa variation in one of the Secrets of Opening surprises books
3. When I felt that I am getting further and further behind on developments in the Slav, I looked for an offbeat alternative and found the one with an exchange and 5. f3
4. When I felt that people have started to heavily prepare as black in Queens Indian, I started to venture into allowing the Nimzo and trying to out-prepare them there.

and so on and so on.

Basically I guess you could say that I've developed most of it by need.

However, there are certainly certain filters that I look at when thinking about an opening. I don't much care about the evaluation (as long as it's not lost by force obv) at all - I look for complex positions, with both sides. It does not have to be super dynamic necessarily, but a complex position with many chances for both sides. Usually more closed than open. I enjoy chess the most in those types of positions and that's why I am trying to get to them. If the opening leads me to a +0.2 forced endgame, I will usually shun it away in favor of a complex, yet balanced opening line which does not necessarily promise me any advantage right out of the gate.

Another thing to have in mind is that at around 2300+ level having just one opening/opening line usually just is not going to cut it. The good thing is that over the many many years of playing, players of that and higher caliber have seen and/or tried themselves pretty much most of the openings that are there, so they have at least some understanding of many many different types of structures, which allows them to play several different openings without necessarily having super deep knowledge of them, by choosing specific lines of those openings that they have an idea about. So the opening choice per se starts to mean less, because it becomes much more about specific lines in those openings - for example, the French does not suit me that well anymore as a whole, but there are certain pet lines that I have that are exactly what I am looking for, and if I see during my preparation that it is possible for me to get those lines vs a certain opponent, I might go for it (of course, gambling that he won't deviate - but if he does deviate, it usually means he also does not know it very well). I've won plenty of games using ideas from Secrets of Opening Surprises series, by playing openings I've in general know very little about, but seeing that my opponent usually goes for a specific line that I have a trick up my sleeve against. Now that I think about it, I do gamble quite a lot of my opening choices lol.

So a longer answer to your question would in general be yes, most of my opening/opening line choices are conscious decisions to steer the game towards "my type" of positions, even if those lines don't necessarily offer an advantage if played well by the other side.

Thanks again for the question and I hope that you will enjoy the answer. If you wanna know anything else, fire away!

I don't have much to say but I at least still keep enough of an eye on the forum to read what you post

I navigate 2p2 mostly through my "Subscribed Threads" page and rarely check the front page of the Chess subforum. Now that I'm here, though, I'm subscribed and will be reading and rooting for you!

For Yugo, regarding endgame studies, the essential things have been said by YKW, already, but on the off-chance that you haven't already (or have forgotten most of it) I highly encourage you to (re)listen to Perpetual Chess Podcast episode 76 with guest Andrzej Krzywda.

As for myself, doing (even though actually solving very few) endgame studies has already helped me a tremendous amount at my club player level. It's a bit similar to YKW losing weight rather quickly. When you're incredibly bad at something, initial gains (or losses in his case) happen rather quickly when you first make an honest effort at improving. I've calculated lines in middle games that I'm positive I wouldn't have been able to calculate even a year ago, and I'm fairly certain that doing endgame studies plays no small part in that newfound ability of mine.

So, as YKW already said better than I could. Don't care too much about solving them. Trying to solve them and failing is already beneficial.

This was a very nice series of finishing moves (though I feel like it's just shining up what was going to be a win no matter what).

I am here - I've been travelling and don't 2p2 on my phone anymore.

And, yes, I'm familiar with that podcast and episode. I even talked directly to the man about studies .

I posted this in my log but then realized that you are the main one who should see it .

"Right now the compositions I'm doing are from a "random" file my coach sent me - mainly studies by a very early composer named Kaminer. Some of them are definitely wrong.

I have the new Afek studies book coming some time in February but in the meantime anyone think it's worth it for me to do these studies instead: https://www.chessable.com/studies-fo.../course/19170?

I probably am just looking for an excuse to buy stuff...

Also, I am interested in possibly trying out the Trompowsky - I had a lesson with this guy and his book looks good too - https://www.chessable.com/break-the-.../course/19063/. Any thoughts on that?"

Looked like a smooth game to me, he never really seemed to have anything going or even obvious chances to really fight back even if perhaps it was "even" for much of the game.

How much of this game is theory? It really is wild at the beginning!

I have nothing to add but just wanted to say I read your thread multiple times over. I am quite bad at chess so I don't post anything but love reading your thread and hope you're not discouraged by the lack of activity, I think you are just a victim of being the strongest player on this forum by quite a bit so it's hard to critique your games or thoughts or really add anything to what you say! We are all reading every word intently though haha

I definitely agree with you that it was winning or close to winning in several different ways.

However, I can also assure you that I was not looking strictly for beauty, so to speak (except in the very end of the line, where I saw other winning moves, but thought Bh6 is the nicest), but rather for the cleanest way to end the game. It just so happened, that in this case those two kinda went hand-in-hand.

Since I calculated this line well in advance, my plan was to re-check my calculations every step of the way, and therefore the fact that I always had a safety-net with something like exd7, or e7 and exf8 definitely helped to remain calm and be able to calculate deeply. However, I also felt that even though the position after exd7 or e7+exf8 was definitely very nice for white, maybe something in the range of +1.5-2 or so, but it also felt that it would be a rather big dissapointment if I only managed to get that kind of advantage from that kind of position. It's a nice advantage, but it is also far from game-ending. I've blown far bigger advantages before (and won from far bigger holes), so I really wanted to seize the chance and try to end the game without letting him of the hook. Happy that it worked out

For some reason neither of the links work for me, so can't really comment

It is theory (albeit, no the main lines, but still theory I'd say) up until black's Be7, which is just a very big error, allowing d6.

However, I feel like if white does not play energetically afterwards (for example does not pull a trigger with Nd5, or simply develops for a couple moves without posing any problems for black), then Black can sort of wriggle out of it and have just a slightly worse position. If black get's to develop the bishop to g7, castle, play a6, one knight to d7 and the other to c6, suddenly even though the pawns on d6 and e5 look very pleasant visually, but they are blockaded and e5 is actually attacked many times, and it is not that clear anymore. Though with good play obviously white is still very much on top, but it's not a short game anymore

Thank you very much Do not hesitate to post and ask questions, though - questions get me to think about stuff and while doing that I sometimes realize things that are not really even related to the initial question, but are very useful for me

Here is the trompowsky one: https://www.chessable.com/break-the-.../course/19063/

Here is the studies one: https://www.chessable.com/studies-fo.../course/19170/

I bought both, btw.

The second one should be pretty good IMO, the first one is I guess sort of hit and miss depending on the author - I don't know much about him, so cannot comment. All I can say is that facing Trompowsky as black is always annoying to me, I feel like it is definitely a viable option for white to take the game to his own turf and reduce the amount of preparation needed. Lemme know how it is as you progress with it!

So, the first preliminary list of the Open that I'll play in March in Prague is finally up.

http://www.czechtour.net/files/PICHF-C.pdf

There is still over a month left so I expect a lot more entries, but even at this point it is clear that there will be norm opportunities (if playing well, of course).

Kinda funny is that at the current amount of participants, my first round opponent would be... My wife's brother! My wife is right behind him in the list, so there is also a chance to meet her in R1... Either of those two pairings would be bull-****, but oh well, let's just expect many more people to register

Well, I guess the good news is that your pairing will likely change, but, yeah, definitely annoying that it seems it could be one of them.

Well, the author has been 2nding Kamil Dragun I believe, who obv had an amazing Olympiad - and it seems somewhat Duda. Probably one of the guys helping throughout the Olympiad. I had a lesson with him and it went well, although I went with a different coach b/c that coach was less $ and just had really good energy. However, my lesson with Plitchta was probably better.

I think they can avoid pairing players from the same federation in early rounds to increase norm possibilities.

The starting list for the Open has not been updated yet, but the organizers have revealed the starting lineups for the Masters tournament and the Challengers tournament.

The Masters:

David Navara
2738
Richard Rapport
2735
Jan-Krzysztof Duda
2731
Samuel Shankland
2731
Harikrishna Pentala
2726
Radoslaw Wojtaszek
2722
Nikita Vitiugov
2720
Vidit Gujarathi
2711
Viktor Láznička
2670
Boris Gelfand
2699

The Challengers:

Alexei Shirov
2657
David Paravyan
2627
Mateusz Bartel
2606
Jiří Štoček
2588
Wenjun Ju
2575
Peter Michalík
2567
Jan Krejčí
2558
Van Nguyen
2542
Praggnanandhaa
2532
[One spot still open].

So, I guess even if play like crap, at least I will see some super GMs and upcoming talents, which is also cool

Ooo, I really like those lineups!

Be careful not to get caught in Shankland's death stare if you walk past his board.