Gambits
We're all familiar with opening gambits - one side or other
happily gives up a pawn early on, hoping for rapid development and an
overwhelming position in return. Many of these gambits are so potent that it is
wise to decline them, and I've seen many of our members happily playing gambits
as part of their opening repertoire.
But there's something else I've noticed in many games I've
observed (or participated in) at our club - a reluctance/unwillingness to
gambit pawns during the middlegame and endgame.
Often when our opponent attacks a pawn, our natural instinct
is to protect it - and many times that's absolutely the right thing to do.
However, sometimes protecting the attacked pawn is the very
worst option. It can lead to our pieces becoming horribly passive and
uncoordinated, and our opponent suddenly seems to be overwhelming our position
whilst our rooks and Queen are tied down defending a weak b pawn.
When faced with an attack on a pawn, always imagine what the position will be like if you devote valuable resources to defending
it. Is your Rook better off dominating an open file, rather than clinging onto the
pawn? If your opponent takes the pawn with their Queen, will you be able to
gain valuable time (tempi) attacking their Queen with your minor pieces to
build a huge attack?
Once you start realising that piece mobility is often more
important than material advantage, and that the opportunity to gambit pawns
isn't confined to just the opening couple of moves, you end up in fewer stodgy
and drawish positions, you start to enjoy welding the coordinated power of your
army and a whole world of exciting tactical opportunity starts to open up.
In short, you really start to play chess.
Openings
When I'm learning a new opening, here are the steps I always
go through. Following these steps will hopefully make your own opening
preparation quicker, easier and more efficient.
1. Decide what sort of opening you wish to learn -
solid/defensive or wild/attacking or something with potential for both. Be
honest with yourself - is your chess good enough to handle a knife-edge
position that requires tactical mastery to stop it falling apart?
2. Avoid weird/rare openings that rely on an unsound trap or
your opponent being surprised and not knowing what they're doing. Learn these
openings by all means, but only so you know what to do when facing them.
There's a reason they're rare - there are far better openings available. It's
far better to surprise your opponent with your thorough knowledge and
understanding of a respectable/good opening.
3. Once you've decided upon an opening to study, really get
to understand what the whole point of the opening is.
Is it about rapid development? Is it playing on the
Queenside? Maybe it's about allowing your opponent to build a big centre before
destroying it in the middlegame. There are lots of great openings with all
sorts of ideas, but remember - a good opening is about central control and
piece development.
It's vital to carry on the rest of the game in the spirit of
whatever opening you choose - for example, don't attempt to attack on the
Kingside if your opening pawn structure is designed for Queenside play.
4. My favourite step. Go on YouTube and search for all the
tricks and traps in your opening. Concentrate mostly on all the traps that are
most naturally fallen into. Take special notice of traps your opponent could
set that you must avoid.
5. Look on YouTube for videos that your opponent will most
likely have watched to beat your opening.
Videos by popular streamers entitled "Destroy the Caro
Kann in 10 moves" or "Rare line to kill the French Defense" are
good to watch. You are more likely to face these sorts of lines than you are a
main line as many players understandably don't wish to learn masses of theory
of an opening they don't often face.
6. Learn the main lines of your opening. Don't try to do
this all in one go - learn a few moves, ensure you thoroughly understand why
they are the best moves, then delve deeper. Understanding why the book moves
are the best allows you to punish your opponent when they inevitably wander
'out of book'.
7. Play your opening. Don't get discouraged if you lose -
find out why you lost and rectify it for next time. Persevere.
8. Keep on studying your opening. Just like a musician keeps
having to practice a piece of music, so a chess player must practice their
opening.
Good luck!
