Questions from a player stuck at 800-900 for over 4 years

@nizzledizzleshizzle said in #1:

... What openings should I stick to at my level? (i do know: London
System, Italian game and sometimes Ruy for white. For black I just
go with E4/E5 and D4/D4. ...
@nadjarostowa said in #17:
... Talking "I play this or that opening" makes hardly any sense on
this level. Even if you could play the correct moves, your opponent
will not, rendering your "preparation" useless. ...
Almost a century ago, Richard Réti advised beginners to go for 1 e4 e5 games. "... While he may not win as many games at first, he will in the long run be amply compensated by acquiring a thorough knowledge of the game. ..." In 2018, GM Emms suggested 3...Bc5 as a reaction to 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4. It seems to me that advice like that can be helpful.
@nizzledizzleshizzle said in #18:
... what I notice in my games as a 800-900 player is that the first
mistakes (and sometimes even big ones) happens right away ..
where I can pretty much resign right away because I am already
3-6 points behind. ...
Notice that, in the httpscolon//lichessperiodorg/0FRkwfP4 game (presented in #11), you were not in serious trouble until move 20. When reading about an opening, you may, from time to time, encounter a useful warning about this or that dangerous trap, but I suspect that, most of the time, your serious troubles arise in positions well outside the scope of any book that you are likely to read. However, in books, you may find ideas that would help you to avoid trouble - for example, the possibility of reacting to 1 e4 e5 2 Bc4 Nf6 3 Nc3 with 3...Nxe4. In the

https://lichess.org/DSNxUuI7

game (presented in #25), you played an “inaccuracy” after 1 e4 e5 2 d4 exd4 3 Nf3, but I think that it would be a rare book indeed that would try to prepare you for that specific position.
@nizzledizzleshizzle said in #18:
... Are there any good youtube videos that explain opening
principles well? ...
I often suggest the GM Emms book, Discovering Chess Openings.
@Alientcp said in #26:
... instead of focusing on openings, focusing on ...
To focus or not to focus on openings?
Is that really the question? It seems to me that there are lots of possibilities.
"... I am not a big fan of weaker players memorizing lots of opening lines they will never play. However, it is quite a different issue to spend a small amount of time learning how to play your openings a little better each time they occur. A long journey begins with a single step. ..." - NM Dan Heisman (2005)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627023809/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman50.pdf
@Alientcp said in #26:
... Learning the openings might help you to not lose pieces early, but
when you get out of the opening, you will look like a baboon with a
high tech gadget. Not knowing what to do with what you have.
Again, is it really a question of to-learn-or-not-to-learn?
"... the average player only needs to know a limited amount about the openings he plays. Providing he understands the main aims of the opening, a few typical plans and a handful of basic variations, that is enough. ..." - FM Steve Giddins (2008)
That does not sound to me like advice to be a baboon on all other aspects of chess.
@Alientcp said in #26:
But if you focus on understand the importance of the squares
and identifying which ones are important, ... The opening
moves will make sense and you can reach known positions
without knowing anything about the opening because ...
"... Evans' Gambit ... is attributed to a Captain Evans around the year 1830 ... For the rest of the 1800s it was practically the main line of chess, but it almost died out around 1900 due in part to 'Lasker's Defense'. ..." - GM Larry Kaufman (2011)
Does it make sense to strive to reinvent the wheel, or should one learn a little from the past?
@Alientcp said in #31:
When you study the opening, you will read or hear what the
opening aims to do, which involves which squares are the
important ones to control for that strategy to work, thus the
moves. ... So, for instance. Italian.
Aims to attack f7. How do you attack it? e4 to give access to
the bishop to c4, which attacks f7. Then the queen can reach
that square with Qf3 or Qh5. The knight can jump to f3 and
g5, but needs to control g5 before, so d3/d4 has to be played
at some point to give the protection to the knight with the
bishop. Etc.
Obviously the opponent will try to avoid it, you will have to
figure out how to keep adding pressure to f7, or how to
prevent your opponent to defend it, or how to prevent your
opponent to dislodge your position. So you check which
squares have to be controlled to interrupt his attempts of
defense, or his attempts to dislodge your position. But at the
same time, he can counter instead, so you have to keep an
eye where he wants to counter and how, thus, knowing which
squares he needs to do so, so you can prevent it.
But its a square control game. You just need to know which
ones are important in any given moment. And they change
over time according to the position and material available.
It’s not an easy skill to acquire, to read the board, ...
In First Steps: 1 e4 e5, GM Emms felt it was appropriate to tell his readers about such things as the 4 c3 idea after 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Bc5.
@Alientcp said in #31:
... Learning the opening itself is a waste of time. At most, knowing
what the aims of the openings are, but not memorizing a 15-25
moveset. ...
Is anyone here advocating “memorizing a 15-25 move set”?
“... you certainly don’t need to remember every single variation and all the notes before playing the opening. Take in the first few moves and the key ideas, and then try it out in your games! ...” - First Steps: 1 e4 e5 by GM John Emms (2018)
https://www.newinchess.com/media/wysiwyg/product_pdf/7790.pdf

@kindaspongey said in #61:

If you dont like the advice, dont take it. It was not for you anyway.

@nizzledizzleshizzle is perfectly able to tell if what i said was useful for him or not. Each level requires different information and training. The information I provided is more useful at his level than what he is suggesting on studying. He is the one that needs to do the grinding. So he decides if he takes it or leaves it. Making the rest of what you added irrelevant. I dont care if you disagree. It was not meant for you.

@Alientcp said in #62:

... The information I provided is more useful at
[nizzledizzleshizzle‘s] level than what he is
suggesting on studying. ...
It seems reasonable to me to suggest that nizzledizzleshizzle consider options other than “what [nizzledizzleshizzle] is suggesting” and what Alientcp “provided”.
@Alientcp said in #62:
... @nizzledizzleshizzle is perfectly able to tell if what i said
was useful for him or not. ... He is the one that needs to do
the grinding. So he decides if he takes it or leaves it. Making
the rest of what you added irrelevant. ...
I will indeed take note of any complaints made by nizzledizzleshizzle.

Please don’t fight and help me to hit 1100 ELO or 1300
On lichess

This discussion seems to have been sinking into the depths for about 32 hours now (starting somewhere around the time of talk about focusing most on direct treats). Perhaps, from time to time, someone will come down here to visit. Probably, a good idea to check the engineering credentials of anyone offering a trip into the abyss.

@kindaspongey said in #61:

Does it make sense to strive to reinvent the wheel, or should one learn a little from the past?

what if we want to learn the common emerging logic rather that the distinct move chess sequences first. I explore different angle of (mis-)understanding that question. Not just one point, way. I see a context for different interpretation of that question thta might go the way it was meant to be read, as an arguement for learning move sequences advice without having experienced or understood what it was really solving, as a way to improve win ratio for some time.

Learning from the past does not have to been verbatim data imitation. Or single ideas that are linked to the move sequence being learned, rather than generalizable board information based familiarity that need more than studying the past grooves.

As the history grows, the nature of the competition would seem to enlarge such role of knowing sequences rather that general chess physics more independent of the line prefixes.

So that perhaps there is a need to memorize more and more if the memorization of lines is indeed sufficient to beat an opponent who also learn lines.

If luck had it, chances are that 2 players that would not be able to step sideways of most popular lines would both play popular lines that they could get them to a deep playable position. So it might depend on defintion of chess.

The "make sense" for what exactly?

tounraments with closed opening books. I find that open books, would make for equal tools, and that past knowledge would be offload and visible to all, leaving the board based chess decision game have more say in who wins or lose.

That would answer the question, one could both include the past history as common knowledge, not competitive advantage from memory task prowess, but perceptible population and history say on the matter or early decisions, as well as become a competition of generalized or robust to new position challenges not seen before.

So the question might be about how the history can be applied to the chess activties, as well. If one is interested in competinig on the blinfolded memory task of holidng more lines in storage with speedy execution, or if would have same knowledge as the opponent but read the boards with better intuition or other type of knoweldge, whatever the position. I know weird outlier post. but I persist. I like to jump into weakly stated problems, where one assumes common meaning of words at the internal scale of things.

So, if we restrict the context of the question to current OTB methods of classifying progress of individual, given the expanding opent theory knowledge, yes, it might not be interesting chess for me, but, it seems that one does have to pick up such party pooper advice (for the general chess curious learner), and win, with some recipe like that.

big books in the small heads. longer and longer infinite llifetime hard work, must start early....

@dboing said in #66:

... what if we want to learn the common emerging logic
rather that the distinct move chess sequences first. ...
"... I feel that the main reasons to buy an opening book are to give a good overview of the opening, and to explain general plans and ideas. ..." - GM John Nunn (2006)

@kindaspongey said in #67:

"... I feel that the main reasons to buy an opening book are to give a good overview of the opening, and to explain general plans and ideas. ..." - GM John Nunn (2006)

yes. but rarely are those presented first and the game examples or move sequences second.
I think it might be time to invert the data dable from SAN to ideas, and more ideas to SAN , and the tree transversal traversals slices outlook. why i prefer to learn about pawn structure plans as organizing principles (or hypothesis of such) as my eventual peek into opening "physics". There are many plans possible, I like that it would be position information that would federate ideas and not "genealogy" or early moves. I would think it would be more economical learning as memory task, and more fun on the problem solving type of task, even during games meant for competitoin performance.. but that is not where "real" chess is going. still on that ifrst moves organization of the knowledge. lleading to ECO characteristics, needing some trademark to mean not really as descriptive term like semi-closed tag to all children of first 2 plies, one of the letter codes...

@dboing said in #68:

rarely are those [general plans and ideas] presented first and the game examples or move sequences second.

Because it is harder. Best way to learn, at least for common people, is going from concrete to abstract. When you learn a language, driving a car, playing a musical instrument, a mathematical subject or whatever I can remember, you do things (preferably supervised and allowing for mistakes) so you get a background of concrete experience first, then you can develop a mental framework which allows for abstract thinking. History of science is full of examples, maybe the best is Mendeleev figuring out his Periodic Table through previous knowledge of ~60 chemical elements, instead of categorizing hypotetical chemical species a priori and predicting its properties, only waiting to be discovered.

That doesn't mean, and it is somewhat annoying to read it time after time, memorizing 15 moves without a clue of what am I doing. What I don't want (even less as a beginner/low rated player who, by definition, has no deep insight of moves and positions) is to have to think from scratch about the short-term and long-term consequences of the no less than 5 almost equally good moves after 1.e4 e5, then the same after 2.Nf3 Nc6, then the same after 3.Bc4 d6, etc...

The irony here is that one is considered dumb for (allegedly blindly) following a sensible sequence of moves but a smart player for following (in the same blind way) a sensible set of principles.

It seems as if we were one-dimensional beings unable to memorize and understand at the same time.

@dboing said in #68:

yes. but rarely are those presented first and the game examples or move sequences second.
I think it might be time to invert the data dable from SAN to ideas, and more ideas to SAN , and the tree transversal traversals slices outlook. why i prefer to learn about pawn structure plans as organizing principles (or hypothesis of such) as my eventual peek into opening "physics". There are many plans possible, I like that it would be position information that would federate ideas and not "genealogy" or early moves. I would think it would be more economical learning as memory task, and more fun on the problem solving type of task, even during games meant for competitoin performance.. but that is not where "real" chess is going. still on that ifrst moves organization of the knowledge. lleading to ECO characteristics, needing some trademark to mean not really as descriptive term like semi-closed tag to all children of first 2 plies, one of the letter codes...

I feel dumb reading you :) "invert the data dable from SAN to ideas, and more ideas to SAN, and the tree transversal traversals slices outlook"? What does that even mean?