chess club. advice needed.

Analyzing your games post mortem with an engine to find improvements is a good thing. Otherwise I'd say don't put yourself under too much pressure - just enjoy your games at the club!

lol Estragon, I guess your decades (if I remember correctly) of experience and 2400 chess.com rating just wont cut it for this guy

But seriously, if your opponents go into a "deep think early" after 2...c6 and 1.c5 then there's literally no way to prepare for your opponents... how can you prepare for an opponent that doesn't even know what he's going to play until right before he plays it!

When I prepare something for someone at my club it's when I know they heavily favor a variation and I seem to be having trouble with that variation.  I'll use an opening explorer and chessgames.com to get some ideas about what my options are and how play usually proceeds.

But Estragon's answer was better than this advice for the reasons he mentioned (also what I said about impossible anyway )

Before going into the club, try to do some tactical puzzles for about 10-20 minutes just to "warm up" your chess brain.  That can help make a difference in your first few games.  If someone opens the same way everytime and it gives you trouble, then you can prepare something (i.e. look up that opening).

When your opponents do not know openings, you cannot prepare openings to beat them. Even when they do, you still need tactics. Prepare there.

But, if you find an opponent who tends to play certain lines, then by all means find the strongest approach to those lines. Even a book like MCO can be be useful for the level of competition that you appear to run up against.

Do what they hate the most.

All right, I'll take a stab at it. Higher rated players will play over their opponents games and look for weaknesses to take advantage of. They will learn as much as they can about their opponents so as to take advantage of positions they are uncomfortable with. They will try to find out what things will upset their opponents off the board to capitalise on.

So to put it practically, let's say I play over my opponents games and find he doesn't play certain endgames well. I'll try to steer the game in that direction. I find out my opponent doesn't like a certain opening, I'll play that one. Then I learn my opponent only likes to play with his set, so when I have the Black pieces I will insist on using a set I know he doesn't like. That one I actually took advantage of, I played a strong Expert who brought his own set to the club because he didn't like the sets provided by the club. The look on his face when I said no to his set and forced him to play with a club set was priceless. He stressed the entire game and lost horribly.

Hope that is what you were looking for.

Hey you said that you win a huge portion of those games where you do force an endgame, and you said you get to those often,

"If it ain't broke don't fix it"

Hmmm, care to quote me where I said I "win a huge portion of those games" or where I "force an endgame" and where I said I "get to those often"?

Oh, you can't. Because what I said regarding endgames was "I'll try to steer the game in that direction." Not once did I use the words "force" "often" or "win".

"If you can't read, don't quote."

He's referring to the OP, catnapper, not you

PatzerKing wrote: I tend to win a lot of my games because everyone else plays the open game and doesn't know how to play when I build a big center and just take all the space on the board or play solid and force an endgame.

LOL, perhaps you can offer quoting lessons as well as chess, Ziryab. He posts six minutes after me and is referring to a post made hours earlier. I guess he expects us to read every thread and do some detective work to figure out which one he is referring to.

Hey jetfighter13, since you want to go back in time, try reading post #7. The OP is clearly asking what higher rated players do in his situation, to which e4Nf3 and I responded to. And to quote from post #4 which you are referring to: "I guess I was looking for someone more experienced to explain hom they prepare for opponents they have played before."

A suggestion, you can answer someone without quoting if you are the next post as it is obvious. If you want to go back several posts, make a reference. Thank you.

Ziryab, hope you don't have to take the car out today!

In all fairness, a post without quotes or a posters name reference is usually directed at the OP, as a lot of posters read the original post and reply to that directly and without quoting (as it would fill up the thread quickly with the same quotes). Also, often people write their posts during the posting of the previous, which can make it appear as if a direct reply, and then don't notice the post that ended up above. Just a thought, please don't rant at me too

Edit: I missed that he was refering to the 4th post. Oh... then a quote would have been preferred. Sorry, not had enough sleep

I think it's better at that level to spend all your time to tactics, basic endings, some basic strategy principles. Every hour spend at analysing your opponents game is lost study time. Although I suppose that if you know that your opponent always plays the same opening, you could look the opening up and see what the main ideas of the opening are and the things to avoid. But I wouldn't spent to much time at that.

Well, just another thought, reading only the original post (which isn't the case here) and commenting only on that one after several other posts have been made and the thread has taken on a new direction would be poor etiquette , don't you think? The question may have been answered or your point already made. Your second point is duly noted, that does occur, generally in a hot topic that is being responded to by several people. However in this case he'd have to be a very slow typist to take three hours allowing five posts to be inserted.

And to paraphrase a fifties song, it's my rant and I rant at who I want to.

See there, Monoceros snuck one in on me!

See there, you snuck an edit in on me!

Monoceros does not understand half of the discussion here. But does think that the topic should go back to its original topic. Also does she notice that wafflemaster already said part of the opening comment.

Further I think its an interesting discussion as I have partly the same situation .

What is the "original topic" then? The OP stated he was going to be playing the same players multiple times (small club?) and wanted to know how to prepare for meeting the same opponents over and over. Then he specifically asked what others do to prepare for "familiar opponents". Suggesting s/he spend time  studying "tactics, basic endings, some basic strategy principles." is good, don't get me wrong. But everyone should be doing that to increase their chess strength. But when you are preparing for a particular opponent, you need to study the opponent. Find out their strengths and weaknesses. Discover what personality quirks they have. It's more then just general chess knowledge and tactics, it's knowing the person and what gets under their skin. Top GMs don't just study tactics when preparing for a match, nor do they just book up on certain opening lines. They will get to know their opponents likes and dislikes and personality.