Author: Tord Romstad
Date: 09:58:41 08/04/05
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On August 04, 2005 at 05:32:40, Jorge Pichard wrote: > >I totally disagree, more chessplayers that don't have 2 hours to study openings >daily will become chess960 players. I would say that 90% of the average players >who have real jobs and return home after working 8 hours will be the potential >Chess960 lovers. I agree with Kurt and Uri here. Except for top GMs, who usually *do* have the opportunity to spend two hours per day on opening preparation, opening theory isn't an important factor for playing strength at all. In fact I am fairly sure that most club and tournament players below 2300 Elo would improve more quickly if they stopped using lots of time on opening theory, and spent their time studying tactics, analysing GM games, and improving their endgame technique. I think the main reason why opening books are so popular among average players is laziness. Memorising a few new lines in the Najdorf requires much less effort than solving an endgame study or analysing one of Alekhine's games. Admittedly it does happen that games between average players are decided by knowledge of opening theory, but only because both players allow it to happen. It is easy to play sound, but relatively unexplored sidelines early in the opening. It could be that 2. b3 in the Sicilian defence is very slightly inferior to 2. Nf3, but how many players below GM level are able to take advantage of this? The young Morozevich (OK, he's still young, but he has been part of the elite for so long that I'm beginning to think of him as a veteran) achieved a rating of 2700 or so while playing lots of totally obscure openings. When it works at that level, why shouldn't it work for you and me? Opening theory isn't really a theory at all, but just a huge body of tradition, fashion and loosely founded assumptions. The only phase of the game which is sufficiently well understood that the word "theory" makes sense, and the only phase of the game where exact memorisation really pays of for the average player, is the endgame, which ironically is exactly the same in FRC. During my years as a chess player, I remember many games where I saved a half point by having a detailed knowledge of KRP vs KR endgames, knowing the most important types of won positions with KRB vs KR, and similar stuff. I can count on one hand (even on one finger, if I recall correctly) the number of points I have lost because of a lack of opening knowledge, and of course I had only myself to blame. Tord
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