Author: Francesco Di Tolla
Date: 04:08:34 10/01/04
Go up one level in this thread
My suggestions: - BookUp is a good propgram to build a repertoire, not to start to study, and I don't particularly like the interface (and the price), a cheaper alternative is BookBuilder. - both ChessBase and Convekta have beginners programs on CD, they are similar in the spirit to R.Fine book. If you prefer a book there is a better option in my opininon, which is the less famous "Basic Chess Openings" by Kallay. I don't know your ELO but I doubt this is what you're really looking for. - ChessBase CD Opening: they have a lot o nice monographs. The quality depends on the specific author, but they tend to present the staff in a good way. They are not very different from monographic books though. It depends if you prefer to study at the screen or on the paper. - Informant has monographs that present material in the ECO format, only more deep. The last thing to have, after you have seriously done all the rest. - Convekta had some openings CD with an approach similar to Infonmant. I haven't seen any new product, but from the home page you can get an idea here: http://www.chessassistance.com/News/French_Defense_Kalinin.html and http://www.convekta.com/softscho/l1/KingsIndianEn.htm - NIC yearbook: New In Chess has some excellent stuff, but it is way to technical. It is usefull at internantional level or corr. - ChessAcademy has not yet much on the openings ---- My plan would be: 1 - study games first, not opening books: at the beginning I spent a lot of time looking, relatively rapidly, many different games, now I play more or less any opening in an acceptable way. This is done very well with a PC and ligtly commented games (even informant style). Go explore opening you never looked at! 2 - try some of them with a PC using his opening book to help you and try to understand why some moves are good or not good. You can even play out of book moves you like, but if you loose you understand where you started to play "off-bea" and why you went down. Try to "feel" the positions you get in the middelgame. 3 - once you have found openings, you feel confortable with, try to select a repertoire with at least to variants against each main move: only now decide what to play, get monographies (you have mainly to choose between systematic treaties and "repertoire" style books). At the beginning a repertoire-style book is better, later you'll need the other type. Here you can use a database (ChessBase, Chess Assistant and Chess Academy all have tools for that) to practice, by having to find the moves in given positions. 4 - (much later) refine it: study transpoitions how to bring your opponent to variations you like, how to avoid him to do the opposite, how to avoid opening switches, or else study the opening you can end up in after some unuasual move order. E.g. my comp likes a lot to play 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 and now 4.Nf3. This is a sideline that is little studied and is rather shift in strategy in the Nizmoindian. Altenratives Steps 1-2 can be replaced with: - a good teacher - reading troughout a book like Fine's or Kallai book. Step 3: you can start also with old books (say from the 70's) instead of a "repertoire" style. Why on erath buy an outdated opening book? Well: they were on average better done and since they had a lot less stuff to present, they could presnet more strategic ideas in less space. And for much less money, since often you find them used or very cheap. Later when you get a newer complete monography you'll have to study some new staff, but you'll know why people developed this new lines. And sometime you'll be able to judge yourself why and onld line is still playable aginst most of your opponents. And onld solid line giving equality could be much better then the up-to-date line where you could get a += and risk to hit a novelty where you are worst.
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