This course has been created so that players can improve their opening play in a way that is rarely presented in the books. By going through positions featuring typical strategies and tactics the reader can develop an understanding of typical positions arising from the London System.
Learn about the most common book chess openings and their main ideas
Get an advantage in the first few moves
Understand what makes the most popular openings great
This is part 2 of a course about exploiting typical opening errors or inaccuracies, aimed for stronger players than the first one. A variety of openings, themes, both tactical and positional, are presented. You will deepen your understanding of opening strategy and the balance between black and white's ideas, and particularly improve your ability to deal with unusual moves, off-beat lines, moves played out of order, and opening errors.
This is the third part of my "Exploiting Opening Errors" Course. It is geared only for strong players who have already completed the first 2 easier courses-- You'll find no trivial problems here! And with that, I bid you good luck!
In this course, I will try to teach you how to react to a dubious looking move that you have never seen before in the opening. Theory is all fine and good, but you need to be able to punish early mistakes on your own as well!
White's space advantage and mobile pawns in the Sicilian often lead to devastating kingside attacks!
The Sicilian Dragon (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6) was so named partly because of its ferocity and partly because Black's battle formation may resemble a dragon. This course is designed to familiarize players with typical Dragon strategies and develop a feel for where the pieces belong.
This course advises on handling non-mainstream openings. You'll see simple solutions to countering unexpected replies in the opening. We will look at various White approaches and unusual defenses to 1.e4. I often refer to "the opening guidelines". By this, I mean the four rules which will generally get you through the openings 1. Place a pawn or two in the center 2. Castle! 3. Connect your rooks 4. Aim your rooks When you aren't sure what do do, think about those four goals.
This course contains positions that lead to checkmate. All the positions are from real games that ended quickly, less than 20 moves. Most of the games are from opening traps in which an opponent fell victim and quickly got checkmated. Look for the attacking patterns and tactics that lead to checkmate.
This course is designed to help players improve their opening play in a way that is rarely presented in the books. By going through positions featuring typical ideas it develops and understanding of typical Colle positions. With better PATTERN RECOGNITION players start to get a feel for where their pieces belong in the opening and what they should be trying to do.
This is a course on chess traps and miniatures. They are from actual chess games that have ended in 20 moves or less. In almost every game, errors are swiftly punished, and thus this course may be studied as a source of opening traps and lines to be avoided or take advantage of. This course provides an excellent opportunity to study tactical positions, attacks, combinations, and sacrifices.
A Kaleidoscope of Openings - Former US Champion John Grefe takes the novice and early intermediate level players on a guided tour of many popular openings.
This module with 100 challenges has something for everyone. FM Craig Mar includes some opening traps, endgames, combinations, and positional challenges. Many of the challenges are at the intermediate level (USCF or Elo ratings between 1300 and 2000) and many are at the expert and master (USCF or Elo rating above 2000) level. Mar chooses positions from many sources including his own games as well as GM's, IM's, and amateurs.
The Benoni is one of the sharpest defenses to 1.d4. Here we will see some of the typical tactics and strategic themes that result from this opening. This course is for players from 1400 to 2200.
