Spoiled opening preparation

[Joey Stewart]

Does anyone else find that every time you try to prepare an opening against a specific opponent they ruin all the work you have done by deviating from their usual line. I am starting to find it is almost not worth bothering anymore, certainly in 4Ncl (where it should be quite possible to look somebody up before the game) lots of people play totally different openings every season!

[David Robertson]

I agree. Opponents should be far more obliging, and play straight into your prep

[Andrew Bak]

Does anyone else find that every time you try to prepare an opening against a specific opponent they ruin all the work you have done by deviating from their usual line. I am starting to find it is almost not worth bothering anymore, certainly in 4Ncl (where it should be quite possible to look somebody up before the game) lots of people play totally different openings every season!

I like to do opening preparation before games when I can, particularly in the 4NCL. I think it's narrow-minded to say that it's been wasted if your opponent plays something different. I can think of the following benefits that preparation brings:

• You can assess the types of game your opponent is most comfortable playing.
  Knowledge of the opening if your opponent does play down the line you expect
  Builds up your opening knowledge for future games if your opponent doesn't play down your expected line
  If your opponent fears your prep, they may play down an unfamiliar line for them
  Doing prep just before a game gets you focused and in a chess-thinking mode

[MartinCarpenter]

Well they're probably meaning really specific targetted stuff to try and directly take out a specific opponent directly in the opening. That is of course well worth avoiding - and a priori plausible in parts of the 4NCL if often not elsewhere - so I'm not at all surprised if people are varying their openings.

Obviously still worth doing some generic peperation at times, and that can be useful. Mostly I just make sure to have something else interesting to play if going to be playing someone for the second time.

The last time I got a real result from specific preparation was in the Yorkshire league two seasons ago. I had some rather modest idea for annoying black slightly in a 4 Be2 Alekhine. That ended up giving me a free piece when my opponent presumed I was clearly blundering rather than in preparation when moving near instantly! Mostly shows how rare real preparation is

[Jon Mahony]

In the summer I spent a good portion of a week of annual leave, preparing for a match in the Leeds CC club championship, against my much higher graded opponent, Mark Szymanski.

I was drawn white, and knew he played either the Caro Kann defence, or the Scandinavian against 1.e4 so I decided to make the switch from 1.d4 as I didn’t fancy playing against his Benko /Kings indian set-up’s and so spent days analysing the fantasy variation of the Caro Kann (3.f3) or transposing into a Blackmar Diemer gambit against the Scandinavian (where he would also have had the possibility of going into his Caro Kann with 1.e4, d5 2.d4 c6).

Sufficed to say I was more than a little miffed when I played 1.e4 and saw all my preparation go down the pan when he responded with 1…c5

Still we had a good game, and I sacrificed a knight for 2 passed pawns and was winning most of the way until I eventually blundered, but I won’t be in a rush to do any specific preparation again!

[Ian Thompson]

Does anyone else find that every time you try to prepare an opening against a specific opponent they ruin all the work you have done by deviating from their usual line.

I think the bigger risk at the level you and I play at is that you don't have a representative sample of their games in your database, so what you think is their usual line may not be.

[Joey Stewart]

Yes, that is a good point too.
Like for myself people always play that boring Bb5 line against my Sicilian just because it was the first game in the database and now they are all copying it because that is the only data they have to work with.

[Roger de Coverly]

Like for myself people always play that boring Bb5 line against my Sicilian just because it was the first game in the database and now they are all copying it because that is the only data they have to work with.

For relatively obscure players (sorry), the approach has to be to first find out who they play and where they play it. That means looking at the FIDE site and the ECF grading site. In your case, it's only the 4NCL games that are likely to be available. Lower division games in particular may or may not make it to the commercial databases, so a private collection has a certain value.

3 Bb5+ is a move of the new world champion. The critical question after 3. d4 is what you play on move 5. The limited evidence is that it's 5. .. g6 rather than 5...a6 or 5. ..e6. Players who might be prepared to take on the Open Sicilian will have preferences as to whether they will take on the Najdorf or the Dragon.

[Joey Stewart]

It is strange actually, I should not be that obscure, I have had plenty of games published over the years but the online databases seem to keep losing them.

[Paul Dargan]

I remember an old interview with Short in NIC (I suspect it might have been c.1992) where he said that you neede about 2 years of playing full-time ... then you find that the 'bank' of preparation that you have built-up starts to pay dividends - it's not so much what you prepare on the dsy, but that you do have something in your tool-box for what turns-up on the board.

Paul

[MSoszynski]

I agree. Opponents should be far more obliging, and play straight into your prep

I once tried the following line of questioning when I first sat down opposite my opponent and started completing the header details on my scoresheet.

"Name?"
...
"Grade?"
...
"Club?
...
"Opening?"

When my opponent objected at this point I feigned offence.

"Look, I'm just trying to fill out what it says on the form."

[Jonathan Bryant]

I should not be that obscure

It's a cruel world.

[Colin Patterson]

As we enter the Carlsen era, no doubt many people will now convert to these tedious, anonymous English/Reti/g3 hybrid systems. How do you even begin to look for a preparation advantage in that arena?

[Andrew Bak]

I've faced a lot of opponents who already play either the 'White Sniper' or the unambitious Reti/ King's Indian Attack.

Personally I'm not worried about facing these systems as Black. Just pretend you're White and you should comfortably equalise.

[MartinCarpenter]

Eh, if no one is doing game specific preparation then there's no huge reason not to play critical/interesting lines. Somewhat different at those very high levels!

Of course you might always feel like manouvering instead.