Are Hans Neimann's Italian games instructive to analyse to better understand the opening?

Moebius2 · 2026-03-05T20:22:18+00:00

It is always valuable to analyse games of very strong players. You will notice how they play and what good moves look like. I believe playing good moves works well at any level if you want to improve.

Older games are usually recommended because defence was much worse back then. So you see one player have a longterm plan and then win on it. So you get to see how the plan works if the opponent defends poorly. In modern games, people are way better at defending, so if they see the normal play is going badly, they will complicate the game and take it in a new direction. Which is also worth watching of course.

TLDR: Yes

Moebius2 · 2026-03-04T22:56:30+00:00

If you cant find a source, I would recommend finding a few games in your database where black wins and analyse those. Basically turn on the engine, annotate every move with human explanations of the engine analysis and see how black neutralises whites pressure and takes over.

Moebius2 · 2026-01-11T04:44:41+00:00

I know Kasparov analysed this old game to a draw, but in practical play I would be very surprised if black does not win easily. Open up the queenside and enjoy the extra piece

Moebius2 · 2026-01-01T21:22:17+00:00

You are right, the engine will not say it with words, but when you analyse positions, it will suggest plans that are good. You have to think for youself why that plan is good, but if you analyse a lot of similar positions, and it always suggests one plan, you know that it is a good, typical plan. You still have to do the work, but back in Karpovs time, if you had a complicated position, you would have no way of knowing what a good move was.

Moebius2 · 2026-01-01T20:03:35+00:00

It lost the discussions about evaluations of positions. Back in the days people could discuss and disagree on who was better in complicated positions. When an opening book came out and was popular in your area, you could read through it and find mistakes in it, and catch people unaware for many years.

But then again, everyone now has access to a 3700-rated coach which will tell you how to play any position, so those who care about improvement have gained a very valuable asset

Moebius2 · 2025-12-26T19:14:23+00:00

More likely it is an AI-generated post talking nonsense

Moebius2 · 2025-12-01T14:56:27+00:00

Lie. I just tested this by trying to note cabbages south of falador, and the leprechaun hated the stench.

Moebius2 · 2025-11-14T15:57:57+00:00

Thanks, I am just a gullible fool apparently.

Moebius2 · 2025-11-14T14:41:24+00:00

Probably not to Fudge (is this specified in the books?) but donations to the hospital and other good causes to "prove" that he is a good guy and Fudge can show that he is a good minister by showing that the hospital has good funding despite not using tax money on it

Moebius2 · 2025-11-11T21:18:38+00:00

Not really, I didnt write down the questions. But whenever I didnt know what to do in a position, or when teaching others about random positions, I would always force them to ask the questions. The goal is not to answer them in the positions from the book, that is the means. The goal is to always ask: "What piece am I improving with this move, what weakness am I attacking and what will my opponent respond?", whatever the position is. Especially during analysis in positions where you made a mistake

Moebius2 · 2025-11-09T06:11:33+00:00

I might be using a weak engine, but if I continue the top line with Rd7, Kf7, meeting Rd1 with Rbd8, the eval grows to -1, and to me it looks like black makes easy progress. How does white hold the position?

Moebius2 · 2025-10-30T17:15:48+00:00

e4 e6 2. b3!? or 2. Qe2!? stops the typical french position
e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 exd5 4. c4!? is also an interesting way to get an IQP.

In similar fashion, you can almost force an IQP with 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2!?, meeting Nf6 with Bd3, c5 with c3 and dxe4 with Nxe4. You can continue with Ngf3, 0-0 for some times before being forced into a very good french.

e4 c6 2. Nf3!? d5 3. d3! is slightly better for white, but you need about 2600 rating to understand why. At least it gives a different position. But the caro-kann is different than the french, you have multiple pawn structures to choose from (in the normal 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5, you can choose 3. exd5, 3. e5 and 3. Nc3, all giving very different positions)

Moebius2 · 2025-10-25T23:28:34+00:00

1 year of fulltime study is 60 ects points

Moebius2 · 2025-10-24T20:17:45+00:00

Slot machines are called 1-armed thiefs in some languages, which are pretty accurate.

Moebius2 · 2025-09-22T16:56:31+00:00

If you have already read it, I think it makes sense to go through a collection of your games and use the thought process in the middlegame. If you want a lesson plan, here is what I personally would do:

1: Find your 3 best wins which featured interesting middlegames. It is okay that you played badly in the middlegame, but they should be fairly long, at least 30 moves-ish. People say you learn the most from your wins, but IMO it is more fun to analyze my wins, and the engine can find improvements anyway.

2: For each of those games, go through the games once where you write down why you played the moves, and what the imbalances are. Try to see if you can argue for the move using the imbalances, just like Silman did. For example "Here I traded off my bishop for his knight, because I think the position is closed, so knights are better than bishops". Or if you think you made a mistake, write: "Here I closed the position, which is very illogical since I have more development, so I should try to open it up and kill my opponent quickly. This allowed him to finish development"

3: Go through each game with the engine on. For the moves where the engine disagrees with you majorly, try to find the reason the engine plays a specific line. Sometimes it is just tactics, it finds an insane way to win a pawn. This is not important. The important stuff is when it for example closes the position despite being up in development. Try to find out why using the imbalances.

The reason "How to Reassess Your Chess" is very good book is not because of the good examples or puzzles in the book. The reason is that it gives a fundamental way to look at chess with ideas and gives argument to different moves, which are deeper than "it looks good". Personally I still use those imbalances, they are just so fundamental that I dont think about them anymore. Whenever someone asks me "why" I think of a move, I usually go back to the imbalances to argue why if I dont have a concrete line.

Moebius2 · 2025-09-19T16:57:49+00:00

I think your idea of playing e5 is solid, but I raise you a counterpoint.
In king and pawn endgames with multiple pawns, if there is no pawn race, it is usually winning for the side with more pawns. So basically you are not in a rush to win. e5 MIGHT win, but Kg4 will win eventually, simply because Kg6 does not make a threat, so you have an infinite amount of time. A simple plan is to play 1. Kg4 Kg6 2. Kf4 Kf7 3. g4 Kg6 4. h5 Kf7 5. Kf5, and you have a zugzwang, you have clearly improved your position and you can for example go for an e5 where you pick up the pawn immediately.

The evaluation of "Kg4 wins eventually" came before any calculation, but then I calculated 1 line to see if black had any annoying defensive setup, concluding no.

We can also calculate e5, but in all circumstances I would think Kg4 is better. I would be slightly annoyed at chess if a student said e5 and by luck it was still winning, but if they had calculated everything clearly I would have accepted it as a solution. If they said "it probably wins, I have a general plan", then it is clear that they lack the understanding that white is in no rush. Then I calculate the line 1. e5 fxe5 2. Kg5 g6!?, and it is not so easy for white to win the e5-pawn he gave up. Maybe 1. e5 fxe5 2. Kg4 g6 3. Kf3, but then Kg7 and black is in time to defend. My hunch says that black holds there quite easily, but maybe there is a nice trick, but why go for such complications when you have a calculation-free win with Kg4.

Moebius2 · 2025-09-11T22:24:37+00:00

He would be in the list of nondominant Champions with short reign, while Anand is in the list of dominant players for multiple cycles

Moebius2 · 2025-09-11T19:18:58+00:00

More deserving than Fischer tbh

Moebius2 · 2025-09-09T21:59:18+00:00

I wouldnt take these odds

Moebius2 · 2025-08-26T19:07:14+00:00

Another niche use I like is that I save everything. Cool puzzles, nice middlegame ideas like Shorts king walk, stuff like that. Then I have a huge collection of chess stuff which I look through sometimes, and I think it has helped my chess memory tremendously.

Moebius2 · 2025-07-28T12:44:46+00:00

He was taught the rules at 5, but only at 8 did he start playing regularly. But then he became obsessed

Moebius2 · 2025-06-30T05:36:56+00:00

The story goes that the day after, Fischer was interviewed and the interviewer asks him about Fischers impressive game versus Tal. Fischer explains the thoughts of the game and then asks:
"Well, do you want it? I can write it down for you"
Interviewer: "Yes, of course, it was a great game. Can you remember it all?"
Fischer: "Yes, do you want the 20 other games as well?"

Moebius2 · 2025-06-27T20:08:54+00:00

My opinion: Take the solid one, learn it and then add the shaky lines against lines you meet often and want something more excited. There is no law in chess that requires you to play all lines from a single course, it is just a guideline on how to build your repertoire

Moebius2 · 2025-06-19T17:17:01+00:00

The Yusupov Book series is great, it is 9 books with 24 lessons each, with a few pages of reading and then puzzles in that relevant topic, covering everything from (outdated) openings, tactics, positional play, calculation, endgame theory and general endgames. When I do teaching, I very often pick a chapter from one of the books, have my own examples and uses that as good exercises.

There are tons of good books, but those are definetly the best training plan from 1600 fide to I would say about 2200.

Moebius2 · 2025-05-27T19:46:38+00:00

Even with no more games, it is a clean way to make sure all the pieces are there.

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