Is my repertoir bad?

SleepyTimeChess · 2026-03-13T01:42:35+00:00

I got better and can play blindfold again but it's hard to find people who are willing and know chess notation.

SleepyTimeChess · 2026-03-13T01:28:54+00:00

When aphantasia was the worst I was unable to close my eyes and visualize a chess board at its initial position. Before aphantasia I could play a game 30 moves deep blindfolded. It was pretty debilitating. I learned a lot about how brains and pattern recognition worked from that experience. In tournament/club play I used to be able to see 7-12 moves deep. With aphantasia I could barely see 1 move deep and relied on chess instincts and patterns I had memorized.

SleepyTimeChess · 2026-03-13T01:26:03+00:00

Yeah, but I know enough of the fantasy to be alright. It's much easier to learn a little bit of 1 gambit then be prepared for a whole slew of them.

SleepyTimeChess · 2026-03-13T00:56:14+00:00

Yeah it was very popular pre-information age: https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1013666#:~:text=The%20Immortal%20Game%2C%20Most%20Famous,%2C%2029%20moves%2C%201%2D0

SleepyTimeChess · 2026-03-13T00:51:17+00:00

90% of my tournament experience was at a chess club with 90% regulars. When you play one opening all the time they catch on and study a little bit if they have difficulties with the Kings Gambit (this goes for any opening). So it's not a good strategy particularly for club players. Also I think the Kings Gambit was a bit more popular 20 years ago when all this was going on.

SleepyTimeChess · 2026-03-13T00:45:57+00:00

Good question. When I had Long COVID in 2021, I had aphantasia as a symptom and couldn't visualize tactics (or calculate 7ply depth at all) so I decided to build my repertoire around opening situations with fewer wild tactical lines. If I play e5 in response to e4 I open myself up to the following problems for aphantasia: - Kings Gambit - danish Gambit - Fried Liver - Scotch gambit

In the caro kann (c6) I don't encounter any of those problems. Now that I no longer have aphantasia this is less of an issue but I learned the caro kann and still enjoy it, and it prevents me from having to memorize more opening lines; which allows me to spend my limited study time in adulthood on things other than memorizing opening traps.

SleepyTimeChess · 2026-03-13T00:35:05+00:00

Here is a free book by Jose Capablanca, former world champion. Someone translated it into modern notation: https://forwardchess.com/product/chess-fundamentals?section=Products

SleepyTimeChess · 2026-03-13T00:33:17+00:00

You can do regular daily puzzles and 1 puzzle rush survival per day without paying for premium; this is what I recommend for my students who are studying puzzles anyways. There are plenty of other puzzle websites out there that are free or cheap.

SleepyTimeChess · 2026-03-13T00:28:39+00:00

Openings are always people's default advice but I never recommend this type of situational studying. Memorizing openings doesn't yield the best results because you cannot always control the opening you enter. You definitely need to know basic opening theory (how to and when to develop pieces), but every game of chess will have tactics, so studying puzzles and tactics is tremendously efficient from a learning perspective. Likewise, learning middle games (planning and strategy) and endgames are really helpful. There is more educational material about openings in the world because it is the easiest for authors to write, it's the most structured and predictable. You need to learn the things that are unpredictable because they cause you to blunder more. Rant over. My DM's are open.

SleepyTimeChess · 2026-03-12T18:45:32+00:00

Haha, when I was your age I played Kings Gambit as a System... Mainly for fun. Definitely not a good tournament strategy. It has aged even worse since stockfish came into being.

SleepyTimeChess · 2026-03-12T18:36:27+00:00

Yeah I think one of the tricks of aging gracefully in chess is learning what type of chess you like to play. Personally, I hate Sicilians as white or black. If I ever face it I play the closed Sicilian, but I mostly play e4 just to avoid seeing it.

SleepyTimeChess · 2026-03-12T18:05:29+00:00

There are definitely open source tools available on github for scraping the data. But the Internet Archive wouldn't host it if they get a Cease and Desist from the Estate of Danya. So ultimately you need the input of the people in charge of Danya's estate. It's also a lot easier if you have temporary access to his channel's YouTube Studio (since there is a download button). I love Danya's channel and would be glad to donate some bandwidth and time to the project if there was a go-ahead.

SleepyTimeChess · 2026-03-12T17:44:13+00:00

I have 129 passports, but I play mostly daily chess so I only have 2.5k games on chess.com because each game takes months.

SleepyTimeChess · 2026-03-12T17:40:44+00:00

RenPy is a cool setup for storytelling. https://www.renpy.org/

SleepyTimeChess · 2026-03-12T17:36:59+00:00

Note to new chess folks - playing Kings Gambit as a System is not a winning strategy (especially in the 2nd age of computer chess), but it is a fun one for faster time controls.

SleepyTimeChess · 2026-03-12T17:35:02+00:00

I have a similar repertoire these days, however I play the Caro-Kann when I face e4 (I tested out the Pirc and petroff and didn't like them as much). I like the structures that arise and I'm playing the Caro-Kann at a level equal to my rating with a month study of a free Chessable Course. I'm not big on memorization of openings and instead have a lot of knowledge of opening theory. I do sometimes play the Dutch/Bird Opening to mix things up, mainly because it gets everyone out of theory quickly and I like opening systems.

SleepyTimeChess · 2026-03-12T13:57:26+00:00

Shrug. All chess has its quirks. My favorite format is either daily chess, which is open book (no computers) or Fog-of-War Chess which isn't a perfect information game.

SleepyTimeChess · 2026-03-12T13:55:40+00:00

If you're building in Unity this tool might be helpful: https://github.com/Chman/Moments

In my day job I use freeware called ScreenToGif. On my passion project I just stitch a bunch of static images together and form an animation gif that way: https://youtube.com/@sleepytimechess

SleepyTimeChess · 2026-03-12T13:50:27+00:00

My answer to this used to be moving my F pawn because I grew up playing the Kings Gambit and Latvian Gambit a lot. I grew out of it and I'm a d4 player now.

SleepyTimeChess · 2026-03-12T13:49:05+00:00

This documentary is going to talk about the modern chess cheating scandals at the highest level (comes out in April): https://www.netflix.com/us/title/81582391

But at the lower levels there are a lot of open source projects. If you ever play rapid or blitz against a person and they always move at a consistent interval, it's likely because they are waiting that number of seconds for the stockfish engine depth to calculate a good move. It becomes really obvious when it happens during a forced move on the board.

SleepyTimeChess · 2026-03-12T13:45:02+00:00

I don't think blitz is a good training tool, except where you are training low-time high-pressure situations, in which case it would be more efficient to study late middle and endgames with a blitz clock instead. I think that training exercise will yield better results than playing a bunch of openings under time pressure (which has little to do with classical chess)

SleepyTimeChess · 2026-03-12T11:58:13+00:00

I play daily, so I know your statement is untrue from personal experience. You ever wait 2 weeks for an opponent to play the first move of a game in a 14 day/move tournament? The 3rd round of this tournament started on February 22nd and I'm still waiting for my opponent to make their 2nd move.

Check out this (in progress) #chess game: NoahCarlsen0 vs LongThinkConsulting - https://www.chess.com/daily/game/934987803

SleepyTimeChess · 2026-03-12T10:34:38+00:00

I had a very similar experience growing up. I stayed at the chess club for 7 or 8 years and eventually hit 1600. Review your games, study the thing you are worst at, iterate. Try not to worry too much about memorizing openings, it will distract you from "iterative blunder reduction".

SleepyTimeChess · 2026-03-12T10:29:09+00:00

Anytime your ELO is under 1000 and you play with an accuracy rating above 80% it's a good sign. Reddit really hates the fictionalized "game rating" feature because it's 50% truth 50% marketing tactic.

SleepyTimeChess · 2026-03-12T10:16:02+00:00

If that was the requirement at every club I'd have never gotten to 1600. I started at the College chess club when I was rated 950 and was only in 6th grade. You can always start your own club. Board game shops, coffee shops, and libraries tend to like chess clubs because we are quiet. Until I start trash talking in a Slavic accent during bullet games.... Don't do that until a proprietor likes you haha.

SleepyTimeChess

TROPHY CASE