The advice might have been given to make the student reevaluate his opening repertoire. This does not necessarily involve memorizing specific lines. The first questions might simply be:
- Am I using respectable openings?
- Should I have a "backup opening"?
- Is there a better line in the opening I am using? etc.
No, it would be not a cost-effective way to use your time. Too many lines(which you will mostly discard anyway when finally choosing your repertoire), too little explanation. Of course you would learn something bud reading a book on pawn structures and a basic introduction to opening play (say FCO) would take you further in less time.
To me, the "idea" behind reading MCO would be that you would have a much clearer understanding "at-a-glance" about what openings lead to what pawn structures.
Again, I have no intention of doing this. The books I read are game collections, RYC, The Amatuers Mind, endgame books, etc.
Sometimes when I want to beat my head against the wall while reminding myself that practically all middlegame positions have more to them than meets the eye I'll read a page or two of Dvoretsky's Analytical Manual...I will admit that I don't come close to "truly" understanding what I'm looking at, but it's a great reminder that most positions require a lot more analysis trees than most club players will admit to.
I read a post the other day that had a (probably apocryphal) story that someone once asked Bobby Fischer for a lesson and he said "Read MCO" for the lesson.
That got me wondering...is there a value in doing so. Not so much just to learn opening variations, etc, but to really start digging in to pawn structures, etc.
Or would this simply be overkill?
Thoughts?