Hi,

I've got a query regarding opening theory. I've been keeping tabs on a couple of tournaments recently (via blogs), and the commentators state that the games are still in theory at move No "X", or the opening line has been proved a draw by theory, etc., my question is, how do the commentators keep track of all opening theory? How do they also spot a novelty?

To me, it seems that there are so many opening theories that the bloggers must use websites/books etc to help, I'm just wondering which ones they are?

Any advice would be appreciated, as I'm trying to expand my opening theory knowledge...

They use database of opening.

I don't think any openings have been proven draws -- they might be drawish, which means they tend to lead to a high proportion of draws at the highest level but a draw is definitely not certain even with best play.

What I'm thinking of are comments like this (from this year's Donostia page):

"Leader Nakamura took a DIY rest day in San Sebastian after running out to an incredible 4.5/5 start. He played a forced drawing line of the Najdorf against one of his two closest pursuers, Ruslan Ponomariov."

The article continues:

(Play can continue if White wants, but there is also a forced repetition they didn’t bother to play out.)

I would like to hope that there's no such thing as a drawing line either, but that doesn't seem to be the way

Here's the game in question:

I think that at the level you and I play any of those "drawish" openings are quite winnable.  I wouldn't worry too much about the analysis of how these games tend to come out at the top levels of the game.

Ha ha! How very true... I think the chances of me calling a draw 14 moves into a game are incredibly slim...

I think part of the answer is to use references like Chessbase (http://www.chessbase.com/shop/product.asp?pid=476).  For a mere 350 euros you get millions of games, frequent updates from the latest tournaments, etc.  I don't know when an opening line becomes formally classified as "theory", but perhaps it's when a sufficient number of top-level players have used it successfully.