WEBVTT 00:01.690 --> 00:11.320 Hi there in this election, I want to touch on specific points and a little bit more depth, so choice 00:11.320 --> 00:13.930 of opening is one of them. 00:16.420 --> 00:23.290 Not pretending to be XPath or any other modern grandmother by imitating their initial moves, especially 00:24.790 --> 00:28.500 and understanding the purpose of movies and the general plans of the position. 00:28.510 --> 00:29.760 So we're going to look at these in depth. 00:30.190 --> 00:36.730 So first of all, choice of opening, believe it or not, there was a book called Chess for Tigers, 00:36.730 --> 00:39.880 which I found very, very interesting as a junior player. 00:40.450 --> 00:46.630 And I actually recommended looking at one's own opening statistics, the windrow losses of one's openings. 00:48.640 --> 00:54.910 And I looked at the openings that almost statistically, you know, winning for me. 00:55.990 --> 00:59.670 And I use those openings with great effect, two months. 00:59.680 --> 01:05.080 And in fact, that was one of the things which contributed to me winning the lowest back junior under 01:05.080 --> 01:11.730 18 tournament in 1999 was picking openings, which statistically I seem to have good results with. 01:13.030 --> 01:19.450 And when you do that, you're kind of finding openings that do align with your strengths, your current 01:19.450 --> 01:19.960 strengths. 01:20.860 --> 01:26.020 There is a kind of longer term potential learning downside, though, that you're not actually experienced 01:26.020 --> 01:33.040 in positions you're that weekend you might not have experience in playing against I'd queen spawns. 01:33.040 --> 01:38.190 You prefer to have the position closed in a build up attack instead. 01:39.280 --> 01:44.200 So sometimes you might miss out on learning opportunities for different pawn structures, different 01:44.200 --> 01:50.630 concepts in chess, which might help you become a more well-rounded player and against even stronger 01:50.630 --> 01:55.450 opposition later could help you, you know, scale up your results against even stronger and stronger 01:55.450 --> 01:56.050 opponents. 01:56.470 --> 01:59.200 So I would be a little bit wary about this method. 02:01.350 --> 02:08.850 However, you know, there's a kind of you can have also a learning mode and so of where you definitely 02:08.850 --> 02:11.600 want the performance both to maximize the results. 02:12.390 --> 02:20.400 So generally sticking with if the result really counts for, say, your team or or other reasons, then 02:20.400 --> 02:27.410 sticking to opening's, which simply statistically have worked well for you can can be a good thing. 02:29.780 --> 02:33.860 But you might need to factor in the opponent, might be aware of what you play because games are in 02:33.860 --> 02:37.030 databases nowadays, especially if you get stronger and stronger. 02:38.120 --> 02:40.110 So the opponents might be preparing for you as well. 02:40.130 --> 02:41.360 You got to factor that in as well. 02:41.990 --> 02:48.470 But generally, this principle of looking at your most successful openings, if you really are playing 02:48.470 --> 02:52.560 in those games, that really counts and not just learning kind of because you definitely don't want 02:52.560 --> 02:58.040 to treat them as learning because on occasion then, yeah, looking at the high probability, you know, 02:58.220 --> 03:01.550 the win probability essentially of the openings. 03:02.150 --> 03:10.670 And if you look statistically the statistical analysis, you're actually taking a peek into your current 03:10.670 --> 03:15.470 strengths, maybe your relative strengths anyway relative to your current opposition. 03:15.950 --> 03:22.850 It's a little bit of insight there from a kind of black box perspective, just from the results perspective. 03:24.900 --> 03:29.610 So, yeah, there's this big chest for Tigers', which also talks about handling specific types of opponents, 03:30.660 --> 03:35.700 if you're playing against someone that's much stronger than you, generally, you want to keep the positions 03:35.700 --> 03:37.710 complex and the opening's complex. 03:38.100 --> 03:46.020 You want to take those like Heffalump up into, you know, very complex territory where they might slip 03:46.020 --> 03:46.260 up. 03:46.260 --> 03:47.550 You don't want to simplify it for them. 03:48.210 --> 03:53.210 If you're playing against much weaker players, you want to generally keep it simple and straightforward. 03:54.060 --> 04:01.230 So this kind of randomization of position, that complexity randomisation can be factored in as well 04:01.230 --> 04:03.330 in your choice of openings. 04:04.200 --> 04:06.000 So you might have specific openings. 04:06.000 --> 04:08.610 You will play against much, much stronger opponents. 04:08.960 --> 04:11.900 Just try and create a world wide tactical game. 04:12.570 --> 04:17.010 And that's especially effective if you are becoming rapidly a tactical monster. 04:17.730 --> 04:21.440 So you might want to make the games more complicated tactically. 04:22.890 --> 04:31.440 So the choice of openings which suit your style generally do give you the best results in practice at 04:31.440 --> 04:33.000 that time in your evolution. 04:33.270 --> 04:37.860 But if you want future evolution, sometimes you just want to play. 04:37.860 --> 04:41.070 I think you're really bad at and find out the underlying reasons and causes. 04:41.070 --> 04:44.130 There could be something you really don't understand about certain types of position. 04:46.380 --> 04:51.810 So it's good to find those things out if there are fundamental causes of bad at certain times of recession. 04:54.420 --> 04:58.410 So another key point is not pretending to be gospel. 04:58.500 --> 05:04.680 So gospel and all future grandmasters are playing very high tech openings sometimes, which you actually 05:04.680 --> 05:12.270 it will be very difficult for you to kind of understand the actual plans employed, the middle game 05:12.270 --> 05:14.700 plans, etc. It can be very, very complicated. 05:14.970 --> 05:19.080 So sometimes you can get a lot more of this from the old Masters if you truly understand games. 05:19.080 --> 05:28.170 And and so, yeah, Morphy, Capablanca, Fascher up and up until Fascher, all the Masters up until 05:28.380 --> 05:33.120 you can learn so much more, you can look at the games end to end and really get a good idea of really 05:33.120 --> 05:39.030 what's going on without reference to very, very strong chess engines. 05:39.940 --> 05:45.960 So if you're going to have that kind of understanding, that linkage, understanding between opening 05:45.960 --> 05:49.380 little game and game, you're not just imitating just a little bit. 05:49.830 --> 05:56.910 It's like in companies, if they think, oh, they've got an amazing microdevices architecture and the 05:56.910 --> 05:58.080 little company tries to copy that. 05:58.080 --> 06:03.000 Actually, you know, unless you're a gigantic company, you can't actually make use of these technologies. 06:03.000 --> 06:09.240 You can't quite often transplant from one context to another without knowing the whole workings. 06:09.240 --> 06:10.800 The whole context needs to be there. 06:11.340 --> 06:17.880 And in the same way, you can't transplant just the initial moves of trendy Grandmaster X, Y and Z 06:18.300 --> 06:20.820 without really understanding the whole context. 06:21.450 --> 06:22.560 But there's a track. 06:22.680 --> 06:29.370 You just pick the old Masters first, especially in your early development, pick the old masters for 06:29.370 --> 06:33.500 the romance era and slightly beyond. 06:33.870 --> 06:37.320 So Morphy, Paul, Morphy, Alfonsin. 06:38.190 --> 06:45.630 And then, you know, Capablanca is great for positional play and Fisher is great as a sort of mix between 06:46.120 --> 06:47.220 Blank and Morphy. 06:48.870 --> 06:54.330 Astana's is kind of amalgam, but anything beyond that, it's going to be difficult actually to pick 06:54.330 --> 06:55.640 up games end to end. 06:56.610 --> 06:59.490 And in my view, so. 07:01.720 --> 07:08.680 If you can really understand the purpose of moves and the general plans of positions, this really helps. 07:10.000 --> 07:17.650 So not just reams of to memorize because, OK, you might play the role of has you put your bishop in 07:17.650 --> 07:20.410 seats, you might want to have ideas. 07:20.420 --> 07:23.140 Why why do I do this? 07:23.140 --> 07:25.330 And you're in the same boat as thousands of other people. 07:25.330 --> 07:27.470 Just about having a clue why? 07:28.030 --> 07:32.300 Well, you know, one reason it keeps the tension in possession is an exchange of early on C6. 07:32.350 --> 07:33.340 You've kept the tension. 07:33.640 --> 07:36.010 You might want to liberate that bishop later on Dayglo. 07:36.190 --> 07:40.300 You might have a whole wealth of plans based on liberating the bishop that you've just touched in on 07:40.300 --> 07:40.840 Seeta. 07:41.230 --> 07:47.050 So these kind of Milgrim ambitions and things to be aware of kind of justify the whole thing playing 07:47.050 --> 07:47.850 in such a manner. 07:48.580 --> 07:55.390 However, it might be more easy for you to pick up systems and gambits, you know, because the initial 07:55.390 --> 08:00.970 stages, you're weeks and months of chess player becoming a tactical monster is a far higher priority 08:01.330 --> 08:03.360 than in the first 20 minutes of royal past. 08:03.940 --> 08:05.310 And the thing is, the royal has. 08:06.370 --> 08:11.530 Is the most analyzed opening going, it's got tons of different variations, you could spend a whole 08:11.530 --> 08:15.190 lifetime just learning all these variations, it'll be a waste. 08:15.190 --> 08:17.070 You really need to know the fundamentals of chess. 08:17.320 --> 08:24.520 So stick sticking to maybe easy systems or gambits have at least got more broader holistic points there. 08:24.520 --> 08:29.980 If you're trying to focus on your tactical mastery fast and playing opening systems that you know the 08:29.980 --> 08:34.750 basic plan as well of or you play a game is that, you know, going to lead to open more open tactical 08:34.750 --> 08:35.260 positions. 08:35.560 --> 08:39.430 You know, you've got a point with the openings rather than just trying to demonstrate they can just 08:39.430 --> 08:40.180 be a parrot. 08:42.250 --> 08:52.420 You're not in my courses, I don't treat you like a parrot and rest in peace. 08:52.470 --> 08:54.100 Polly, I didn't have a parents call. 08:54.100 --> 08:55.850 Polly rest in peace. 08:55.870 --> 09:01.450 Yes, parents are, by the way, very, very nice pets to have in general. 09:02.820 --> 09:06.400 Not flying around, biting people's ears off yet. 09:06.400 --> 09:12.610 So as an aside, anyway, I don't want you to be an opening parrot basically in this cause. 09:12.620 --> 09:15.730 You want to understand the moves, the intentions, the wider implications. 09:15.940 --> 09:17.680 It can't just be imitating. 09:17.680 --> 09:20.770 It's bad reason just to imitate Bob that he played this. 09:21.160 --> 09:26.070 He's backed up by tons of technology because Bob was one of the pioneers of chest space. 09:26.350 --> 09:29.320 He knew exactly what he was doing, certain opponents. 09:29.320 --> 09:37.540 He'd have recipes made, you know, indef preparation, world class preparation, which, you know, 09:37.540 --> 09:38.290 any any more. 09:38.290 --> 09:42.480 The grandmasters also they're now leveraging things like chess space. 09:42.490 --> 09:46.240 The professionals use chess space, huge engines on the task. 09:46.570 --> 09:49.090 And we're talking about INDEF engine. 09:49.290 --> 09:51.580 It's not even the engineers you get online. 09:51.880 --> 09:57.070 We're talking about major indef powerful engine analysis of these openings. 09:57.640 --> 10:03.040 So if you think you're imitating sports, you are you just being a para only for that tiny little subset 10:03.040 --> 10:05.560 of game to get the benefits. 10:05.560 --> 10:10.570 Really you need to understand games and ends and it's up up until Fisher. 10:10.570 --> 10:14.470 Maybe you'd benefit from quite a few of the most as I've mentioned. 10:14.650 --> 10:17.560 But beyond that, beware of what you're getting into. 10:18.190 --> 10:19.660 It's not what it seems. 10:20.770 --> 10:25.540 Technology has a massive impact on chess and the way it's played. 10:27.730 --> 10:33.310 So we're talking very, very detailed preparation sometimes in some of these Kasparov wins. 10:33.730 --> 10:35.230 I used to think like that. 10:35.230 --> 10:39.070 I'll go through Kasparov's wins and learn something. 10:40.120 --> 10:41.470 I'll save you a lot of time. 10:42.490 --> 10:44.580 Use Fishermans that most efficient. 10:44.580 --> 10:48.700 Instead, computers weren't so dominant in the Fisher era. 10:49.780 --> 10:56.550 Capablanca instead morphine's that most of those free players, in fact, Morphy, Capablanca and Fisher, 10:56.560 --> 11:03.220 who's like a revision basically of morphing like combines those free players and you'll see good improvements 11:03.220 --> 11:06.280 in my view, get annotations. 11:07.610 --> 11:14.930 Of those three players understand the link between the opening the MG and even the endgames holistic 11:15.530 --> 11:22.610 perspective, and there's no weird mysteries that you're not saying because it's all being like actually 11:22.610 --> 11:30.260 computer generated sequences that exhaustively prepared for certain opponents and a certain tournament 11:30.260 --> 11:31.360 at a certain time. 11:31.850 --> 11:33.530 The more and more advanced you get. 11:33.540 --> 11:40.660 Yeah, the more and more specific preparation will be to to the extent it's like a specific opponent, 11:40.660 --> 11:42.020 a specific time. 11:43.990 --> 11:51.100 But as you start your journey, it's more about the fundamental circle's to get right and the end to 11:51.520 --> 11:57.100 end and integration of the opening will go to anger and you'll get that from the classic monsters. 11:57.370 --> 12:00.940 In fact, there's a book, unfortunately, it might still be in the script. 12:00.950 --> 12:02.950 So hopefully they've translated it to algebraic. 12:02.950 --> 12:05.710 But there's also, you know, 500 lost games of chess. 12:06.010 --> 12:08.070 There's China's most destructive games of chess. 12:08.290 --> 12:09.070 Look at these games. 12:09.070 --> 12:11.520 And to end, this is pre computer era stuff. 12:11.740 --> 12:12.850 It's got a lot going for it. 12:12.850 --> 12:14.820 It's much easier to understand the games. 12:15.100 --> 12:16.720 And so that's my point. 12:17.620 --> 12:19.660 OK, thanks so much.