Openings

“What should I play today” is one of the most common questions among chess players.  Even if you have a clear repertoire, it always happens to find that one opponent who plays exactly the line you feel most uncomfortable with.

It would be ideal to be prepared for this kind of situation and have a back-up plan – an opening that you can play from time to time and take your opponent on your own ground. An opening that can bring the element of surprise at the board and get you on comfortable grounds.

Studying the pawn structures and understanding the typical plans in each one of them is one important step to improving your chess level.

It will help you find the best plans in the position easier, you will already know where the pieces go, what you should be looking for, what to avoid and what your opponent usually wants to do. This will, first of all, save you time on the clock, but will also give you a certain trust in the position and in the moves you are about to play.

The concept of weakness is the most basic part of positional chess. Weak squares and weak pawns are ideas that you must juggle with throughout the whole game. The choice of a correct plan is most of the time based on correctly identifying targets of attack in the opponent’s position.

One of the most important steps for a chess player is deciding on a reliable repertoire that will become their trusted weapon in future games. There are so many things to address – where to start, how do I know which opening is best and most suitable for me?

Also, do you want a solid opening choice or do you want an immediate open, aggressive game? All these questions play an important part in the selection process and you’ll need to answer them objectively.

The Tarrasch Defense is one of the most ambitious replies to white’s 1.d4 and usually arises after the moves 1.d4-d5 2.c4-e6 3.Nc3-c5, although the same set-up can be ultimately achieved from other move orders.

Black is fighting for the initiative right from the start by occupying the center, gaining space and harmoniously developing his pieces. It often results in positions with an isolated pawn, but its inventor, Dr. Siegbert Tarrasch, believed that the mobility black obtains in this opening is more than enough to compensate for it and achieve favorable positions.

For many years, the Catalan has been a rather exclusivist opening, being seen mostly in elite tournaments and very little at the amateur level. In the match between Garry Kasparov and Viktor Korchnoi in the Candidates Semifinal in 1983, five of the eleven games were Catalans.

In a time where the opening phase has become extremely important, every chess player must give this phase its due attention. With various good books available, the quantity of information on the internet and the powerful engines, it is no wonder that it is now very difficult to get a big advantage out of the opening, never mind winning a game out of it.

Catalan is one of the most common opening choices for white. If before it was mostly seen at the top level, its popularity has slowly increased and is nowadays one of the top choices at every level and is a usual guest at almost every tournament. The bishop on g2 is one of the key pieces in this opening, as it supports white’s main plans: the central break with e4 and the attack on the queenside.

In order to get better at chess, one needs to build up and polish a number of skills. All of them are important, but tactics are probably something you can’t do without. No matter how good you get at strategic play, it can all go away with one bad move that overlooks a tactical possibility. Tactics and strategy go hand in hand in chess and to increase your level you’ll need to improve both. First of all, you have to familiarize yourself with the simple tactical patterns, such as double attacks, pins, discovered attacks, elimination of defense, decoy, etc.

Having a well-developed, solid repertoire is an important step in improving your level as a chess player. Middlegame knowledge, endgame knowledge, tactics, and strategy are all very important too, but they all fail if you don’t manage to get a good, playable position out of the opening, where you can actually apply everything you’ve learned.