Friday, December 23, 2011

Odds and Year-end

I am currently deep into the innards of the Neo-Grunfeld without much in the way of a guide. Avrukh vol II has two chapters of variations, but his book has no games. I am stuck with a bunch of "obviously white/black stands better" positions for which I have not a clue. I have unannotated games from the databases, but I do not know which are thematic and which are not. There are a few annotated complete games in RD Keene's Flank Openings, but the book is old. I was hoping the Neo-Grunfeld would have been in Wojo's Weapons II, but that book is only King's Indian. Neo-Grunfeld is one of the things that Wojo's Weapons III should cover according to a post by Hilton on the Chess Publishing  forums. It definitely looks like a line with which one would like years of experience.

I think, using Chess Tactics Server for finding new (to me) tactical patterns is working. My CTS rating is stuck around 1450, which keeps showing me the simple problems I need. My rating is kept down, by the many problems with  rich situations, where the obvious move is the solution (I take too much time fully understanding the postion). I will find out in the coming tournament cycle how much this is helping.

I am travelling for the Holidays. I hope to analyze/memorize another game from Chernev's Most Instructive Games of Chess for January and post it as my next post on 1/6/2012. Another post on the Neo-Grunfeld should follow later in January.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for mentioning Wojo's Weapons--just to let you know, the third Wojo book (on the Grunfeld and other openings) is finally done! It is being typeset now and should be in print ASAP.

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    Replies
    1. That is good news! I am looking forward to it.

      Wojo's opening choices for white are exactly what I need at this point to force me to grow as a player.

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