#110
Opening books being old means absolutely nothing to anyone under 2700.
A “refutation” found by Stockfish in 2019 doesn’t mean you will have any less success with this “refuted” line from 1991, unless you play MVL and Magnus. There is almost zero chance this “refutation” is known to your opponents, and even if it is, they can’t follow it up properly. Because they are not Stockfish, nor MVL nor Magnus.
The point behind Ginger GM is that he explains stuff, Middlegame, plans, pawn structures, typical patterns etc. This is a lot better than looking up empty moves on some database.
Alburt doesn’t say GMs know 50 positions. You are probably referring to his observation that Masters (FM, IM) know 50 King and Pawn positions.
Kukosla if you argue that way, what will books help if people dont play like in the book. One deviation can change everything. And even ginger talks only about plans as in theory. Alburt might have said that. Also why do gms unbalance games, probably also bcuz book knowledge will be useless. And if you dont understan plans from a database, why would you be good enough to need books or ginger?
And even the logic to do evereything all weak players do and expecting a different outcome. Why not just buy a get rich book and fly to the Bahamas as gzillionaire? Who needs chess.
#112
Your opponents don’t have to play like in the book, since you will have learned plans of what to do regardless, if you studied the good sources that explain structures and ideas that you should aim for regardless of specific moves (Alburt, Ginger GM, Moret etc.)
Let me give you a quick example, in Albin Counter you actually don’t need to know every move, if you know this one idea it will guide you thru many lines: hold on to the d4 pawn, attack the e5 pawn with Nge7-Ng6. This concept alone can be applied VS many lines and moves in the Albin. Once you know a dozen such ideas you will be surprised that you can play the opening totally fine VS 2100-2300 rated opponents.
I guess database use is personal preference. I see zero point in looking up moves people played. Who cares? I’d rather learn a line and understand typical plans and ideas behind it. Perhaps database becomes useful after 2300, but at this point I see it as useless. Maybe I’m not advanced enough to understand why people use databases. It’s like ok Karpov played h5 here while 3 other GMs played g4. Ummm.... ok... so what??? You know what I mean?
Kusokosla lets say you play you openeing like ginger gm. Your opponent plays h5. I think with millions of different variation of a liky positions even the grandiose ginger gm cant cover every idea. You cant figure out the idea in a database, despite being able to look at how all games with that move played out. So at that point all information will be useless. Because you have no plan on how to continue.
I am a fan of GingerGM. I don't see how his only explanation is how to attack with the h pawn. I admit he's overly infatuated with that pawn, but he has good explanations of most of his opening theory. Even the 1. d4 rep is pretty good up to 2200 no matter what anyone thinks. I have noticed there is a lot more "fronting" when it comes to online. Probably because people pull out their engines to help them decide what they are going to argue on. Not that I care really. Online forums I guess are best suited to double check analysis. I think that is why I like OTB analysis. Less fronting in that format. Either way the analysis is certainly fine up to certain levels and some of it is higher. I played his London for about a year and had plus score through 2100. Even did the h4 plans.
Lol. Anyhow i think its useless. But you are stronger player and You have my cookies so you must be correct.
@Kusokosla Not everything is in books. I once had a 150 pages book full of 1.d4 mainlines. The budapest gambit was handled in a odds and end section with round about 10 moves and a +=. Easy stuff.
In a otb game i played that and wondered what to do. With a stronger teammate we looked into that game later. The line was okay, simply some games like
and also a karpov game from the chessbase online database answered all my questions about that budapest middlegame.
Between computers best move and a practical handling of position there is sometimes a difference, the grandmasters could show you the way. Therefore i often look into the masters games here on lichess to absorb something.
#115
When your white opponent plays 1 h5 Ginger GM opening prep is very useful, because you know many set-ups of how to develop and what to aim for, the fact that no specific line is given VS 1 h5 means that 1 h5 isn’t a move that needs such serious attention, you are already equal as black before you even made your first reply. It’s much more dangerous to face an opponent who plays a good move instead of a terrible move 1 h5, and not only does the opponent play a good first move but he also knows what to do after that move, that is the real problem, thus you will need to know what to do VS good moves.
Really anytime you are equal as black you may as well finish the opening analysis.
see #67.
Played this game three days later and i had no problem "memorizing" all moves. My opp managed to find a move i had not on my agenda - 12...b6? but this turned out to be just bad because of the double attack Qd5.
I had no problem finding 14. b4, because i had analyzed that motif and i had included it in my notes.
I also analyzed this game and verbalized my findings.
Meanwhile i do not write my findings into the notes entry in liches, but i save it as a game in a database in Scid. That way i can refind it better.
lichess.org/forum/lichess-feedback/how-to-open-the-last-game-played-on-lichess-in-your-chess-softwareI use this script to open the last played game in Scid.
Ok, looking forward to terrific opening battles with you.
