A Training System and A Question For Opening Specialists Out There

Alrighty!...Well I was skimming through Alburt's "Chess Openings For White, Explained" and Collin's "An Attacking Repertoire For White"...I can't seem to find a good gambit repertoire book though.

This is the most aggressive (and viable) I can find out there...Schiller's Gambit repertoire books are garbage according to reviews by masters and amateurs alike.

Anybody had a look at Davies's Gambits I and II??

And as for endgames...I think I'll have a look at Silman's endgame course...500+ pages can be overwhelming...Any method of going through that book you can suggest?

Actually, Silman's Complete Endgame Course is the best endgame book for beginners. Don't let the size fool you - it's not the least bit intimidating to read once you realize how it's formatted.

It's divided into chapters based on skill level, rather than by types of endgame like most books. So instead of overwhelming you with a whole bunch of rook and pawn vs rook endgames all at once, he just has two of the most basic of those endgames in one chapter, then slightly more complex ones in the next chapter, etc. I had already read Pandolfini's Endgame Course, and I understood everything as I was reading it, but I had a hard time remembering the difference between many similar positions once I was done. Silman's method makes it much easier to really remember what you learn, so you can apply it in your games.

--Fromper

'Another thing that I would like to ask of you guys: What gambit openings out there are aggressive but has a touch of soundness to it?

Any revisions you can make to the ff??
- King's Gambit: Bishop's Gambit
- Sicilian Defense: Smith-Morra Gambit
- Caro-Kann Defense: Milner-Barry Gambit
- French Defense: KIA (what gambit can you suggest?)

As for Black, I haven't come up with any ideas yet.

I need your help guys...any suggestion would be most welcome.'

Well, try also Evans' Gambit, and the Latvian, although it's considered to give White the best chances.

"Actually, Silman's Complete Endgame Course is the best endgame book for beginners."

Most people recognize that all three are solid books. And there's no general concensus as to which one is better. It depends on your personality.

Pandolfini (36 recommends on Amazon) teaches hundreds of positions by example--he's the same guy who trained Fischer, but many feel he should have added more explanations. Silman (20 recommends on Amazon) thoroughly examines a smaller set of key positions... but many think he doesn't provide enough examples or cover enough positions. Seirawan (24 recommends on Amazon) is a much stronger player than the other authors. I would say his take on endings falls somewhere in-between, but Seirawan definitely expects his readers to put in some effort.

No offense, likesforests, but have you actually looked at Silman's book? I know the biggest complaint is that he just teaches the concepts, but doesn't provide extra examples to drill with, but to say that he covers less material than Pandolfini is just inaccurate.

I'm a little less than half way through Silman's book so far, but I'd say it looks like he covers everything that Pandolfini does and then some, with one exception. Silman points out in his introduction that he intentionally left out the knight and bishop vs lone king endgame because he doesn't think it's worthwhile to study. I actually disagree with Silman's decision there. It should have been saved for the very end of the book with the non-essential material, but he should have included it. Overall though, Silman's book has well over twice as many diagrams as Pandolfini's (they're numbered, so it's easy to tell). Part of that is that Silman will use multiple diagrams to break down certain concepts into pieces, while Pandolfini just gives you one diagram and then the solution for how to play that position.

But as someone who has both books, I will say flat out that Silman's book is by far the better of the two. Silman explains things much better, and there are certain things that Silman explains in detail as key concepts while Pandolfini barely touches on them with a single example diagram with solution (outflanking!). Other than the KBN vs K endgame, it covers all the same material, but the explanations are better and the format is easier to learn from. And neither one has extra examples to drill with, so the most common complaint against Silman's book applies to Pandolfini's as well.

And about the number of reviews on amazon.com, bear in mind that Silman's book was published less than a year ago, while Pandolfini's book is decades old and Seirawan's book is also about 7 or 8 years old, I think. I can't comment on the quality of Seirawan's book, as I don't own it, but I know that his books are usually highly recommended. But as an intro to endgames for beginner and intermediate players, I can't imagine how it could possibly be any better than Silman's book.

--Fromper

I read Pandolfini's endgame book a long time ago, then moved onto the more advanced Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual. I only recently skimmed through Silman's book and found it lacking, for my needs, in terms of coverage. But perhaps I was less critical back when I read Pandolfini's book.

Hmm... how many King & Rook vs King & Pawns positions does Silman cover? Perhaps we could do a quick apples to apples comparison?  :)

I myselve don't favor training methods that place the point out to tactical training more than anything else, I don't belive tactics should be trained independent from studying complite chess games and opening repertoir and the reason for my position on this subject is that once you get used to look at chess from a tactical point of view, you are likely to become a rather unsound player who always looks for quick tactical winning plans even when there is not real chances for them, another thing that i would recommend for you to not include in your training is any kind of blindfold training, blindfold is something very independent from real tournament chess, keep in mind that once you get to a decent level you don't nessesarly need to see through a whole variation to play into it, sometimes you need your calculation plus intuition to find the right path, blindfold training will kill your intuition and you won be able to have the courage to play into good variations when you are not able to see all the way through, also blindfold training is not good for your mental health, some chess players are very good at blindfold visualisation but that doesn't nessesarily makes them into good tournament players, if that was the case George Kolstanovky would have been chess world champion, you shouldn't train by not looking at pieces and a chess board or chess diagrams, if later on you are not good at blindfold chess so be it, most people are not good at blindfold anything, that doesn't stop them from becoming chess GMs or whatever the case might be, I am able to calculate sometimes when I am not looking at the board you don't need to train blindfold for that to happen that comes natural, just like a baseball player don't have to see exactely where the ball is after it was pitched in a curveball at 95 milles per hour towards home play, he just develops kind of a six sence for where the ball is, kind of the same thing happens in chess

Hmmm...Lets settle the little disagreement here...What I mean by blindfold as you can see on one of my exercises was to learn how to play through variations without moving the pieces which I think simulates how real tourneys go. Sorry for the confusion on terms BTW.

As for its benefits...well what you said on the above post has more than a grain of truth in it. Being too dependent on calculaative abilities potentially will doi more harm than good especially for club players like us.

But a good combination of being able to calculate at a decent level and having enhanced intuition can do wonders especially for non-masters like me.

The idea came from LeMoir himself and other masters seem to agree.

The six sense thing? I agree with that. Hell yeah!

You sound like you are looking for tactical openings: so for Black I would recommend the Alekhine and the Benko. The Grunfeld is also good from that perspective, and requires a lot of study, so should suit you. If you are prepared to put the effort in, then you should be playing technical openings, as you are likely to be better prepared than your opponent.

If you want to improve your game in the long-term, then you need to look at more mainstream openings: such as the Ruy-Lopez, QG, and Sicilian. The Dragon or Szeshnikov should also suit you as Black.

https://www.amazon.com/Playing-1-e4-e5-Classical-Repertoire/dp/1784830143

https://www.amazon.com/Playing-1-d4-d5-Classical-Repertoire/dp/1784830429

https://www.amazon.com/Playing-French-Grandmaster-Guide-Aagaard/dp/1907982361

Good plan. Hope you have some lessons to practice blindfold chess because there are not much in the internet.

There is this youtube channel creatively develops chess board visualization skills and level by level improves the ability to play blindfold chess. Amazing collection of visualization exercise lessons. Please check this out, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlhC4BdoEbo