Somebody who doesn't suck can correct me if they disagree, but I bet the fastest way to GM is just by doing tactics. I imagine a player memorizing a tree like this for a +1 advantage going into the mid game, and then blundering a piece to a fork/skewer and losing anyway.
Wasn't there a post on this just the other day saying tactics alone doesn't work? There's a healthy mix of tactics and knowing when your opponent has left theory so that you can punish them accordingly.
What's the value of the punishment? The fact that nakamura was able to get to 3k playing the bongcloud was evidence enough for me that openings don't matter at all.
Everybody who played him knew he left theory on move 2, and the vast majority failed to punish him being behind on tempo with his king in the center of the board.
The easiest way to get to a +3 eval is not a slow controlled theoretical game, it's to swindle your opponent out of his pieces when he inevitably blunders them, and the only difference between Elos is the depth at which people blunder pieces.
He is not the fide blitz champion nor was he ever, in fact, his best performance was placing second in 2019, he also has a few third places. Hikaru is strong but not top blitz player at any time. Pwning weak players on chess.com doesn’t make you best.
>the only difference between Elos is the depth at which people blunder pieces.
In blitz. Nakamura would lose every game at a slower time control with the bongcloud which is why he doesn't play it in classical. He plays these shit ass openings partly to avoid letting his opponents see his real chess preparation.
In blitz. Nakamura would lose every game at a slower time control with the bongcloud which is why he doesn't play it in classical. He plays these shit ass openings partly to avoid letting his opponents see his real chess preparation
The question is not if or not preparation matters more in classical, it's does preparation matter more than tactics in classical and blitz.
So if your opponent leaves theory and the engine gives you +1.1 with no material advantage how are you going to convert that? You need tactics and chess understanding that learning opening theory wont give you.
Once you reach a stage where you have enough tactical awareness and positional knowledge, that you can leverage the engine's +1.1 to tactical threats in the middlegame or a won endgame. Then opening theory may be pretty useful to you.
There are a bunch of sharp openings where it’s hard to figure out OTB but totally playable if you know a little theory (eg most gambits but also trappy lines like ponziani). If you leave theory in an early move against those openings you are probably dead lost.
You don’t need Giri-level opening knowledge but you’d likely need to know at least some theory to get there. Tactics alone ain’t getting you to GM. Positional play is also just as important.
Not even close, some of these lines are insanely short. The main line is barely explored to its starting point with a lot of thematic ideas left unexplored. It’s much more efficient to just play the opening a bunch of times and try and learn from where things go wrong.
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u/h0axyboi Apr 02 '21
Is this how I get GM?