Hi,

Learning openintheory is rather new to me. I used to always play QGA against 1.d2-d4  2.c2-c4 however, because I realised that I also have to learn openingtheory to improve. I decided to try the Grunfeld this season. I've played it a couple of times OTB and thx to an online database I know the first 10 moves by heart now. How should I continue to improve on this opening?

For what it matter my OTB rating is 1950. Thx for the advice. 

ive took a shine to it as well, its all about the central pawn structure, from both white and blacks point of  view, i would just keep playing it, white and black, quoting a chess writer "grunfeld is a opening that illustrates that a central pawn majority can either be a target or battering ram"

As white I am actual an e4-player. 

Grunfeld is a huge opening which takes time a lot of time to learn well.

My favorite method of study when it comes to openings goes as follows...

I pick a line I want to play against all the most common variations and make sure I understand the ideas without looking to deeply into details. Usually with a database, but sometimes with a book if I happen to have one good enough.

Then I put everything I learned into a chessbase database.

Now I just start playing a bunch of games with the opening and add them to the database and looking up the theory gradually as I play.

This method takes a lot of time, but you get a lot of playing experience with the opening while having a much easier time remembering all the lines you learn.

It's also nice if you have chessbase and all the games you have played in a database. Because you will see exactly what variations are most commonly played on your level and in which variations you have good/bad results. Which shows what you need to train more at and what positions you have a difficuly time with, helping your chess overall.

It's not an opening I play very often, and I really don't know the theory, but whenever I have played it on occasion I have always gotten an advantage out of the opening.  I think alot of white players at my level don't like to go for the critical exchange variation because they assume that anyone who plays the Grunfeld will be better prepared than them in the mainlines, so I always end up with a relatively easy game.  Of course, if I actually did have the misfortune of playing it against someone who knew the opening I would probably be in big trouble. :)

My advice is to play games by top gm's (specially svidler) to get a feel for the opening. The thing that makes grunfeld difficult to play is that you always have to seek counterplay for the white center. If you fail to find counterplay (till far in the endgame) you lose.

Svidler is one of the best in getting counterplay in the grunfeld.

Thx all. Usefull advice. I will put the games I play in a database. And I will certainly check out Svidler's games. Also I found out Kasparov played the Grünfeld, so I guess I'll have a look at those as well .

Yesterday, my OTB opponent allowed the transposition from c4 into a Grunfeld, so I was pretty pleased. Here is the opening played: