A more general strategic insight is that against significantly lower-rated opponents, if you have a more imbalancing opening repertoire, you probably will have greater chance of success. I don't think that's a reason to give up playing solid openings like the Caro-Kann if you are higher rated, but it is a consideration if you want to create more obvious winning chances.
An examination of training and practical concepts for the improving chessplayer
03 December 2018
Annotated Game #203: Small advantages are hard
This next tournament game illustrates the difficulty of doing meaningful things with small deviations from theory which, while not best, aren't bad in themselves. My opponent clearly did not have a familiarity with the Caro-Kann, so I easily achieve equality and perhaps a slight positional edge, but no more. Some patient re-deployment of my pieces was likely the best strategy, but instead I let my opponent gain a slight initiative on the queenside and then achieve a nice positional plus in an imbalanced position. However, he did not see the critical continuation on move 27, which would have involved shifting his queen to attack my bare kingside, and we ended up in a repetition of moves. He played well, so I have no regrets about the result, despite the large rating gap.
A more general strategic insight is that against significantly lower-rated opponents, if you have a more imbalancing opening repertoire, you probably will have greater chance of success. I don't think that's a reason to give up playing solid openings like the Caro-Kann if you are higher rated, but it is a consideration if you want to create more obvious winning chances.
A more general strategic insight is that against significantly lower-rated opponents, if you have a more imbalancing opening repertoire, you probably will have greater chance of success. I don't think that's a reason to give up playing solid openings like the Caro-Kann if you are higher rated, but it is a consideration if you want to create more obvious winning chances.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Your comments and ideas on chess training and this site are welcomed.
Please note that moderation is turned on as an anti-spam measure; your comment will be published as soon as possible, if it is not spam.