Somehow this slipped my attention...

The site i use for online playing is Free Online Chess ChessCube. The site is not without bugs, but it is a free site and i can play from my Linux laptop. Most sites are limited to Windozw one way or the other.

Chessgames.com: Chess Games Database & Community is a nice site for finding classic games but i i recommend to ignore the comments section. I have two grandmasters among my friends and when i showed them the comments to their own games they nearly fell over backwards laughing.

I do NOT use any computer to analyze my games - it simply makes no sense! A computer can give you variations, but what a player on my level (i am around 2000 ELO) needs is to understand the position. For the same reasons all these opening books which are merely database exports are useless for me. I once analyzed a french opening position with my friend, who is also known as an world-class expert of the french defense. At one point i put my queen to b6 and he said something like "yes, there is always the question in this variation complex [French, Winawer variation] to either put the queen to b6 and attack d4 or put it to c7 attacking e5". He went on to explain when to do the one and when the other - 5 minutes of explanation and i had an understanding of the position which a computer would have never helped me to get. I read the book by Moskalenko (Viktor Moskalenko: The Wonderful Winawer) about the french defense before and he didn't explain that either. After getting this insight i re-read it and found that all the grandmasters seem to know this too (now, this is a big surprise) because all the variations there followed the rules laid out by my friend. The author just could have explained that instead of cramming in the newest developments in a sub-sub-sub-variation starting on move 33.

I think at my (mediocre) level it is better to learn the methods to come up with second-best moves instead of playing 10 first-class moves learned by heart, followed by 5 no-sense-moves. If you get some tactical prowess on the way and don't blunder away piece after piece you will have 2000 yourself in no time. Once you pass 2200 or 2300 you need to learn variations because you will need the first-class moves now - but only then! You do not need the opening arsenal of a FIDE master when your rating is at around 1500.

Chess is about understanding - the dynamics of a position, the movement patterns of pieces, the development of pawn chains, strong and weak squares, and so on. If we try to memorize instead of understand we are not only taking away from the game - we are taking way from the creative accomplishment a well-played game can be.

Btw., if someone wants to play: my handle is "wouk" and my opening repertoire is Queens Gambit or Birds Opening with white, with black i play the french defense and the Prussian (two-kníghts defense), against the Ruy Lopez mostly Marshall and Birds Defense (3. ...Nd4). Against 1. d4 i play the Slav, sometimes (in blitz games) "the Vulture" as a surprise weapon.

bakunin


PS: @Neo: if you are not at above 2000 already i suggest you try another opening. The Najdorf variation in the Sicilian Defense is an extremely well-analyzed opening where you simply have to know the latest developments. Most moves cannot be found over the board (well, not by mere mortals withouth a GM title) and many variations are "make-or-break" to the extreme: one suboptimal move and the game is without any hope. There are openings which are more tolerant because the positions are not that extra-sharp. But then, maybe i am just too much a coward to play it.