hehe, I was hoping no one would look at that, but I couldn't have a more well-meaning guy look at it! Sure, I'll do that tomorrow. And, yes, my opponent wasted no time in accepting that draw; he accepted it before I even realized I had offered a draw! 

I like your idea. Will do. 

@ aronchuck

I wasn't proposing a general theory discussion but merely to look at what is relevant here. Your points are well taken, if we went that way it would need a thread of its own. Somebodysson is using a very small repertoire, The Caro-Kann, The Stonewall Attack, Queens Gambit, maybe a couple of others. What I was proposing was to look at his opening choices as he posts his games & make sure that he has enough understanding of the main concepts. Once it is determined that he understands what his choice of opening is trying to achieve then the discussion is over & we move on. I should have been more specific in what my focus was.

The sort of thing I was intending could be demonstrated with the Grunfeld Defence. All a beginner may need to know is that Black allows White to take the centre & delays contesting the centre until he has some minor pieces developed to support it. He then launches an attack on the centre, usually on d4 supported by the DSB on g7. The 1^st few moves set it up. The move order is simple, & that may be all a beginner needs to know.

It doesn't need to be a full on theoretical discussion, just a basic understanding of what your chosen move sequence is trying to achieve.

frankly, I agree with aronchuck, for what my opinion is worth! I think I need to play my openings carefully, slowly, try to stick to some of those opening principles, and not fall prey to an obvious trap. I haven't lost any games right in the opening yet; I've lost them, however, in the transition to middlegame and esp in middlegame because I wasn't looking for weaknesses in my position. I think for the next year or so whatever I play in the opening won't matter in any big way as long as I don't do anything zany with a,h pawns I should be alright. I'll def read more on that stonewall, and the dragon, and the caro kan and the QG, but just to get me five moves or so in. And I'll play some KG, and some of that fun sicilian that TOJ posted, and some scandinavians cuz they seem so fun. And I'll start playing chess, asap into the opening, start looking for opponent's plan, weakensses, piece improvements. I will put the majority of my study into tactical patterns, and once I'm through the Lou Hays tactics book once or twice I'll start adding ending study. And I'm going to do the tactics as slow as possible, as thoroughly and deeply as possible. Not quickly the first time. Slowly.   

@Somebodysson

Good philosophy, I was just pointing out that a very basic understanding of an opening can help. Of your choices the Stonewall is probably the most difficult, the KG is a lot of fun & good to sharpen up your tactics & TOJ's Sicilian got me interested too. I guess what I was trying to convey was that openings do require some understanding but they are not the heart & soul of a beginners game, like any part of Chess you can't exclude them, the main thing is to get them in the right perspective to fit in with the rest of your game.

What does ... 

#$%^

stand for in the title?

It might stand for fugg.

So why did'nt he put that in the title.

I find most of the posts too long to read. 

Do these ppl not have anything else to do?

@ aronchuck

Yeah, I like that, we keep the games comming & use them as the basis for learning, whether it be tactics, strategy or openings & we keep it simple!!

yeah, I like it too. Analyzing games systematically asking the three questions is the best way for this thread's educational value to continue. Let's keep doing it. Focussing on the three questions will develop the weaker player's ability to 1. apply a systematic thinking method, 2. and to get help in spotting weaknesses and improve pieces and make choices. There will definitely be errors in opening's placement of bishop's pawn breaks etc., and by using a limited opening repertoire we will gradually learn correct opening moves with that limited repertoire. 

Aronchuck, the book is expected to arrive on Monday. I look forward to seeing it, and starting the exercises. I have chess club Monday night, and I'll post my game from there. 

And @QTKO, I'll post that drawn game when I get a chance, later today. Thanks everyone. 

I think we can continue this way for now. Just ignore trolls. We have already shown we're good at it. We're too serious and too focussed to be bothered by them. Earlier in the life of this thread there was a troll who hasn't been back. Don't worry about them. I'll deal with them. If they bother me I'll directly confront them. Don't you confront them; this will distract you, and you're too important to this discussion to get distracted.  

#aronchuck, I just read over your post and your suggestion that we could spawn off similar threads for openings or endgames. I can't wait to spawn off a similar thread for endgames. But I think I don't get to endgames often, since I so often lose in middlegame. But I think that will change soon  because I'm already doing things quite differently with your questions. Would you propose that the endgame material comes from actual games we play, like we do here? That we'd analyze and annotate and learn from endgame play? That would be awesome. I would certainly volunteer to do what I'm doing here on this thread, i.e. start the thread, and manage the different personalities, as I've been doing behind the scenes here.  Just tell me, jojojopo, QTKO, aronchuck, if you want it done, and I'll start the thread. Are we ready for this already? What do you think?

thank you aronchuck. sounds good about the theoretical endgames. 

Wow, there's a lot going on here. I'll try to reply to a few things:

1) @SBS, could you explain a little more what this "stoyko" approach is? Or point to a resource about it? It sounds like an important idea to complement board vision. And this is very related with the "3 questions" approach that we've been applying, since the basis of all this is to generate a consistent method of thinking that will help see what's happening on the board with detail and allowing better decision making. This to the point where it starts to become instinctive, which is achieved by the consistent application of the methods.

2) Regarding opening study, I think that it'll be better to learn it as we are doing now, that is, as the games and the analysis require it. And I'm also happy to hear that SBS is interested in trying some other openings with time to try out different approaches to the game. But I agree that tactics and board vision are the main focus right now and are the things that will generate the most improvement.

3) I'm happy with the idea of creating a group. But when the need arises. That will probably be when we start to discuss other concepts that make managing a coherent conversation inside a single thread confusing, or when trolls start to infestate this thread so that we can continue our activities without being bothered.

@QTK, I hope you recover quickly! That sounds like a big injury :/

Besides all this, there have been a lot of interesting activity here and a lot of things I'll need to review more carefully. By the way, I loved the Smith Morra Gambit, and it fits well with what I'm trying to do with my opening, so I'll experiment with it when I get the chance to play it. And, more importantly, it was a really good lesson on the importance of opening lines to attack, which is something I'm having some trouble with.

I think that what you can learn without having to spend too much time and will improve your pattern recognition, are a few mating patterns, mainly: KRvK, KQvK and KBBvK. At least that really helped me with the tactics, specially the rook mating technique.

@jojojopo: here's where I read about it. There's a lot on it there. Check it out. http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/stokyo-exercises

Briefly, it is 1. looking at a well-annotated position,  usually from a game annotated by a very detailed annotator.  2. Looking at it for as long as you need to. 3. With a pencil and paper writing out all the candidate moves, all the variations, all the possible moves you see, all your analysis. 4. Choosing your move, writing out all of your analysis. And then 5. comparing your analysis to the annotation. It is super slow 'guess the move', or, to take QueenTakesKnightOops correction  it is super slow 'calculate the move'. the key thing is doing it with a heavily annotated position, not opening, but usually middle game position. And writing out all the moves and all the variations. It is desgined to be much slower than otb play. 

Some interesting comments while I've been AFK. Regards spawning off other threads I don't think we should rush into that but it may become necessary as SBS progresses. At the moment I think Somebodysson needs more games not more reading material. However I have set myself a little project that may work as a test run for a seperate thread on openings.

I'm going to try and write an article on the Stonewall. It will be based on what we are doing now & will consist of very basic positions & diagrams & most importantly which bits need to be memorized & why. The target audience will be beginners who have heard about the Stonewall & want to give it a try but have no idea how to get started or why you would want to play the Stonewall.

I'll publish it either in my old Stonewall thread or a new thread. Then if it seems to be of value we can look at doing the same for each opening Somebodysson plays & needs help with.

As far as endgames go thats a bit of a dilemma. Engame study is very valuable & gives a deeper understanding of the peices & their abilities but at lower levels you don't play many endgames. So at the most I would suggest an hour or so a week with a good book & just start picking up the basics. Once you hit a tight engame then we can work on it in more depth as we analyse the game.

Nice QueenTakesKnightOops! thanks. By the way, besides the bit of reading and messing around I do on these threads, I am doing no other chess reading. I am focussing on tactics study. Period. But I look forward to your article on the stonewall. It seems almost like a gambit opening in that it creates traditional weaknesses (e.g. early f4, hole on e3...) with initiative as compensation. I still wonder what to do when Black fianchettos that kingside bishop; I don't see why that isn't the refutation of the stonewall, but you already know ALL of the experience I have with the stonewall, so my opinion is worth far far less than yours.

aronchuck and QTKO and I agree on endgame study. We'll get there.

On another note, I needed a break from tactics tonight, so I was working on my thinking process, because the tactics puzzles don't really give me training in 1. my opponents plan, or 2. improving a piece. Knowing there is material to win (usually) in the puzzle skews the thinking a LOT. So I relaxed by reading a Dan Heisman article, and sort of put together a composite of aronchuck's and heisman's thinking process. It is still essentially aronchuck's really, since aronchuck's is, to my mind, the most inclusive, simple, and elegant of them all. But I wrote some things to flesh out the questions, and to address some of my particular weaknesses. My main weaknesses are 1. not looking wide enough, 2. not falsifying, and 3. not blunder checking.

Here they are. We don't have to get too detailed into discussing them, because its more improtant to put them into practice than discuss them, but I'm posting them here because I'd like to save them, and saving them to desktop just isn't the same as saving to this thread anymore. This thread is my textbook.

1. My opponent’s move: What is my opponent’s plan? What does the move he just made make possible that was not possible before the move he just made? What can he do on his next move if I make no move now, i.e. what is his threat? Do I have a weakness that he threatens to exploit?

2. My move: Gather contenders: Look wide. Where are the weaknesses, in my position, in his position. In considering my move, falsify. Can he respond with a capture, check, or threat? If I cannot respond to his check capture or threat with an effective response I must discard the candidate; it has become falsified. If he can respond with a move that sets up a subsequent move that takes advantage of a weakness of mine it is also falsified. Look wide. Find more candidates that are connected to weaknesses. Compare the contenders. Except in a forced situation you should have several contenders, or you haven’t looked wide enough.  

3.  My move: To improve a piece look at a piece that is doing the least, make it do something. Put it to work.

The goal is to increase my activity or to restrict my opponent’s activity. Do I have a piece that is relatively inactive? Does my opponent have a piece that I wish to restrict?

Remember: you are not looking for a reasonable move. It is not enough to be satisfied with a reasonable move. A reasonable move could have you lose initiative, or could open you up to a threat in another move or two. The goal is to bring a move into the forefront, as unfalsified, and then to see if you can go one better, by comparing it and finding it superior to other unflasified moves.

4. Do a sanity check. Is it crazy. Is it a blunder? Am I missing something? Ok, now move.

3 things:

1. I realized tonight that I never posted my analysis for my game with incredible tactic which I had lost, but as QTKO said something like 'I lost, but I wasn't destroyed', or something to that effect. I don't have my notes with me this afternoon or tonight, so I'll post it on Tuesday. 

2. I've been doing lots of tactics today  on the TT here, in anticipation of receiving the new tactics book in the mail tomorrow (Lou HAys Winning Tactics for Juniors) and I gained almost a hundred rating points today, after stagnating for about three weeks. So I'm really glad about that. The main difference accounting for the increase is ...thinking more, i.e. looking wider for the move, not picking the first move that lloks reasonable, and continuing to look until I find a winning move. But I still make a particular thinking error. I'm getting better at looking for a move I can make that will get my opponent into a pickle, i.e. that will win material, that takes advantage of a weakness in my opponent's position, but I'm still not good at predicting the best move my opponent will make. I have to get better at that, predicting the best move my opponent can make. 

3. I have chess club tomorrow night, and I'll post my game. There is a backlog of work I have to do on here. I have to post my analysis from the game with Incredible Tactic. I have to study the game aronchuck posted. I have to study the game TOJ posted, and the game QTKO posted. I look forward to it all. I will have time on tues Weds and Thurs to get up to speed with the thread. 

I'm really relieved to see that my TT rating has gone up. I was starting to wonder. It got lower first, because I was focussing on accuracy, and you lose points for taking lots of time on the trainer here; but I wanted to focus on accuracy, so I paid no mind to the time. So now I'm especailly glad, becuase my accuracy has obviously increased to the point where taking more time has not handicapped my score, which is great. 

 thanks aronchuck. 

 @aronchuck  thanks for posting Esserman vs Van Wely game.  I confess Qe2 was a  robotic move during my game.  Just goes to show that  'standard procedure' can be a fallacy.