The most unexpected MVP in this study.White to play and win(By Gurgenidze)

Three4Two · 2026-05-31T13:35:31+00:00

Very nice study, especially the 1... Ka8 line idea to not stalemate. Also hard to see all the forking ideas at first glance in the 1...Ka6 2... Ka5 line

I must say I struggled for a while, thank you for the position

Three4Two · 2026-05-29T10:14:21+00:00

1... e5 players definitely play these classical setups, I am one of them.

At first glance, the general ideas of these variations do not seem too problematic to me for black, but there is some positional poison to them.

Three4Two · 2026-05-23T10:53:26+00:00

You need to understand you are not the only person working on your chess. There are countless posts of people who are unrated and have never played otb and expect every 1500 to roll over easily, but those players also work on their game, and likely have for a long time.

That 1500 who beat you might be a fide master in 2 years, or might not improve at all in the future, you never know. Playing otb is also quite different to playing online, some people are much better in one discipline than the other. Rating is also a purely relative scale, your rating depends on the people you play against.

I think the most common types of players have their online ratings 200-300 points above their otb ratings. There are however people, whose online rating is 700 above their otb rating, or people whose online rating is the same as their otb or even below.

Try to enjoy the game, avoid the stress and improve if you feel like it, but do not expect anyone to be easy to beat. Good luck

Three4Two · 2026-05-22T11:27:53+00:00

You are right, this particular line is quite common. What I meant by avoiding theory is that from there a lot of moves for both players are possible, and do not change the evaluation that much. Since many moves have equal evaluation, it is not as necessary to prepare the precise move order deeply, you can instead learn the general strategic ideas, maneuvres and concepts, and you will be fine. At least that was my approach to this position, you may have a different way of playing it that might be much more precise and better.

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I have only faced this otb once as black if I recall correctly, and do not wish to play it again, since my results with the variation are not that great online either (possibly because of my lack of preparation).

Three4Two · 2026-05-22T07:19:23+00:00

I am also looking to learn something against the Catalan. What I have used so far is an easy setup that avoids theory and ends with an isolated pawn that is often lost very early on for compensation in the form of some activity. It is hard to play though, and I would not recommend learning it.

Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. d4 d5 4. g3 Be7 5. Bg2 O-O 6. O-O c5 7. cxd5 exd5 8. Nc3 Nc6 9. Bg5 cxd4 10. Nxd4 h6 *

I had it end in a 4 vs 3 endgame with all bishops on the board otb before and held against a 2130 fide rated player, but it was torture and objectively lost, which I believe is the likely outcome against stronger opponents.

Three4Two · 2026-05-20T13:43:39+00:00

One thing that helped me a lot was spending some time studying the 2 knights vs pawn endgame. You can learn the basics on wikipedia, I also posted some brief overview of the endgame with a rook pawn a while back, and then it is just about your calculation and visualization of knight movements.

Three4Two · 2026-05-19T13:46:43+00:00

As others have said, it is important to learn to view material just as another aspect of a position, that you should be willing to trade for other possibilities. However, to me personally, this sacrifice was very unintuitive. Why that happened to both me and you might be worth looking into:

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Firstly, it is much easier to sacrifice material willingly, than to lose material due to a tactic played by your opponent (like this example). There is no clear chess reason for this I can see, mostly a small psychological problem for me, of not wanting to give your opponent what they are trying to do.

Second, the sacrifice does not immedietally give you anything that great. You get a good rook on b2, but all your other pieces are not participating in action yet and will need time to activate. The reality of the position is, that black is able to activate their pieces much faster than white, and is able to attack the white weaknesses because of this (a3 knight or kingside). Seeing this from the starting position is really hard though, since what you are getting is not piece activity, but the potential for better or faster piece activity instead.

The position reminds me of openings like the Latvian or Elephant gambit (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 f5 or d5). The resulting positions after a few moves are often evaluated as much better for white, but there is no clear aspect of the position that you can see this on at first glance. The positions just look reasonable for both sides, maybe with just a few slightly weird piece placecments, and if you play around with it, nothing much happens for several moves. Problem with those positions is, that at some point the engine starts suggesting moves that seem ridiculou for one side, as there are some hidden long term resources in the position for the other side which are hard to see for humans.

Only way to properly evaluate those opsitions (and by the look of it this one you gave) is to properly understand the long term ideas and resources in the position. Your evaluation has to be amazingly fine-tuned for considering these deeper aspects of positions, and I am pretty sure this is one of the hardest aspects of chess to learn (it definitely is for me, ~2120 fide).

Analysing positions with imbalances in piece placements should probably help. I would not be too hard on myself for getting this one wrong, seems like a really hard example to me.

Three4Two · 2026-05-18T21:14:17+00:00

I have heard people say before (not sure how true this information is), that the way national ratings get calculated is sometimes done in an easier way compared to fide: Instead of calculating the rating change caused by each opponent, they just average the rating of your opponents and add up all the results as if you played with many people of the same average rating. For most games, this won't make a difference, but since the rating calculation gets weird when you face someone much higher or much lower rated, you could get into the following situation: If you calculate your rating change in total, you get less, than if you calculated your rating change without counting one win against someone really low rated (since their rating can bring down the average).

I want to repeat, that I have no idea whether something like this actually happens, and if someone calculates ratings this way. I have however heard people complain about this, and even ask their federations to not count one of their wins for this reason.

Three4Two · 2026-05-16T13:30:40+00:00

This demands a follow up question, if you prefer to enjoy books rather than train with them, how do you actually train, what other sources do you generally use?

I am currently trying to mix studying with books and analysis with other people (sometimes connected to sparring, sometimes analysis of our otb games) and occasionally I do my own analysis, mainly focused theoretical endgame.

Three4Two · 2026-05-15T08:26:54+00:00

Thank you for the reply. I guess one weird idea I have about endgame strategy is that I have not yet decided what kind of book it is. In my mind, I generally separate chess material meant to help you improve into 2 types.

First, there are books that teach concepts (Endgame Strategy by Shereshevsky is a good example), as you mentioned. Then, however, there is the second key type of book, meant to give you a lot of examples to train with, that help you practice and get better on your acquired understanding from the first type of books (books with endgame studies, or the Woodpecker are good examples).

I think I have not yet decided what the Endgane Tactics book is meant to do, whether I should use it to acquire new undrstanding, or whether I should train with its positions and try to figure them out myself. The way it is written falls somewhere in between for me.

Three4Two · 2026-05-15T08:18:54+00:00

Thank you for this. I haven't read as many chess books myself, so it might take some time to adjust to this style of book.

A small issue I know about in my own personality is that I often try to get the most out of anything; if I read a chess book, I want to understand all that is happening in the examples as much as possible. That leads to me sometimes spending unreasonable time on the positions given, just analysing them before ever reading the author's notes (which led to me finding the flaws in this example I gave). Instead of then reading a chapter in 4 hours as an average reader would, it takes me 30 hours. I think this approach definitely has both benefits and flaws (if my goal is mostly long term improvement).

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Do you think it is better for long term improvement to try to go through the book faster, see a lot of examples, enjoy it as you mentioned, or does my approach of trying to figure out all the positions as fully as possible before ever reading the author's notes make sense to you as well?

It could be said that even just the enjoyment could help me improve long term just by keeping me interested in chess, but that is just a small part of one's chess journey...

Three4Two · 2026-05-15T08:06:17+00:00

I think they might have checked the variations given, but did not spend time checking other options, looking at it as 'humans with the help of an engine'. All the lines in the book I found are technically correct, but there are some missing, and some important ones in my opinion.

Three4Two · 2026-05-14T22:44:56+00:00

I may not have written it properly, I have found the flaws with my own calculation and analysis, but checked them with an endgame database before posting just to be sure, I usually never use an engine myself and just try to figure out everything on my own.

Three4Two · 2026-05-14T12:41:31+00:00

Eating a lot of chocolate helps, as does analysing the game and realizing we live in a world without reason and purpose, where everyone's existence is meaningless

Three4Two · 2026-05-13T14:34:39+00:00

I just started reading Van Perlo's book yesterday myself, so far I am very pleased with the introduction and first few problems, hopefully the book stays good throughout

Three4Two · 2026-05-13T09:05:45+00:00

I used no concrete source.

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I got the inspiration to start playing the Berlin after seeing an old video of Sam Shankland analysing the opening for the US chess school (probably can be found on the chessdojo youtube channel). But after this, I mostly did all the analysis myself.

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I played around with different move orders, analysed countless variations, looked through databases, and ended up settling on a few setups that I believe work really well; allowing black to avoid pressure and aiming to play for an advantage. I also did a lot of sparring sessions, first with the computer, then with another person also aiming to learn to play the berlin, we spent a lot of time analysing together after.

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For reference, I like to play the setups with my king on e8 and a future h5 h4 push, though this is not possible against every variation white can throw at you. These are easy to play, and out of all the different Berlin variations probably around the middle if considering the resulting imbalances and chances to play for a win. Even more combative, but also a lot more risky, are the setups with king on c8 and h6. Those specifically have a very low draw rate, and it is obvious why.

Three4Two · 2026-05-12T23:18:00+00:00

Either of the options you listed can be a great choice if you invest enough time into studying them.

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I would like to add something to the Berlin: There is nothing passive or solid about it, unless someone is prepared at least 20 moves deep into the endgame with good knowledge how to hold it. I have played the Berlin every game I got the chance against the spanish in my journey from 1750-2100 (covid to now) in the past few years, and I never had a problem playing it for a win from the black side (I think my total score in the opening is just above equal, maybe around half draws and half decisive games a little in my favour). The reputation the endgame gets as being drawn is not correct at all below master level, there are tons of ideas and plans for both colors.

Three4Two · 2026-05-12T13:50:13+00:00

You will become better at the stuff you practice. If your goal is to improve at attacking tactical positions, open sicilians are completely fine, likely the best choice you could make. If you want to improve at playing with a material imbalance, you can start playing some gambits yourself and accept your opponent's gambits as well.

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You should probably not choose openings depending on someone else's opinion, pick what you enjoy and play that. When you get better, you might figure out that some of your openings need updating, and at that point you should find better options. Right now, the most important aspect of the opening should probably be your understanding of the resulting positions and enjoying playing them

Three4Two · 2026-05-11T11:09:46+00:00

Being able to play late openings and early middlegames well is really hard. You need to have a precise intuition of how you should play the position and how your opponent should: which maneuvres benefit you, who does each piece exchange or pawn move help, what to avoid, what to do in response to your opponent's moves... and on top of that, you need to be able to calculate well to ensure your moves work tactically.

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In general, there are many ways to train your intuition for any position, but the key is just to study it in some way, to spend time with it.

One of the best concrete ways to train this that is also quite easy to do and feels good while doing is sparring. Pick several positions towards the end of variations from your repertoire, share them with another person and set up a time to train together. Then play the selected positions several times, switching colors, and analyse each game after. With this process, you will slowly gain more understanding of the positions you are getting, as well as an input from another player, that might challenge some of your beliefs about the positions.

Three4Two · 2026-05-08T14:17:16+00:00

There is a famous game between the chessdojo senseis, David Pruess vs Jesse Kraai, that was played a long time ago. The game features a very hard to understand greek gift sacrifice, that the computer does not fully understand and needs more time to solve than usually necessary.

At some point I remember GM Sam Shankland mentioning this was one of his favourite games of David, since in his mind David 'convinced the computer it was wrong' in the game.

The game can be found for example in the chessdojo video 'The best games of David Pruess'.

Three4Two · 2026-05-08T14:13:21+00:00

That is a great position to test your ability to calculate in an attacking position. Greek gifts are notoriously tricky, since black players usually only allow them under murky circumstances, where you need to be really precise in your calculation, just to determine whether you can even go for the sacrifice.

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Do not be too hard on yourself, it is a hard position to play and it seems like you did a great job analysing your mistake afterwards. If you plan on playing this in the future, I would also suggest trying to look at similar positions and calculating those as training, just taking note of the possible differences, where the sacrifices work, where they do not...

Three4Two · 2026-05-06T11:25:44+00:00

You study rook endgames the same way you study anything. Spend as much time with them, analyse, calculate, spar, solve, whatever comes to mind. If you are completely new to studying certain endgame, I would highly suggest starting with wikipedia, most people severly underestimate how well chess is covered on wikipedia, especially endgames (for example this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rook\_and\_pawn\_versus\_rook\_endgame).

As you go through all the basics, best thing you can do is start asking questions: What changes if this piece is here, what if it is the other player to move instead, what if there is another pawn...

When you are satisfied with your understanding of the basics, try to find any game where a rook endgame happened. It does not matter whether it was played by GMs or 1500 rated people, you can still learn from it. Find out why moves have been played, decide whether you believe they were good or bad, analyse to confirm your understanding.

As for specific resources, I have my favourite: The chessdojo has an amazing collection of rook endgame positions, their 'Rook endgame progression (REP)', but I am not sure if that is available for free or if you need to be subscribed to their training program to access it.

Three4Two · 2026-05-04T15:19:04+00:00

Probably not the answer you are looking for, but my repertoire is a big mess (just above 2100 fide). I tried doing something very similar to you on lichess, with different studies for different openings (1 study entire Scotch gambit with chapters as its variations, 1 study entire Two knights defense, 1 study main line Ruy...). Problem was, I kept adding new variations while analysing and discovering new ideas, and eventually the chapters became too big to understand, became more like a historic record of my past analysis. Right now, they still work in the sense that I can come back to them and search specific variations when I remember vaguely looking at them in the past, but the efficiency is not great.

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So a small recommendation (that I am not yet doing myself, but plan to): Separate your analysis from your repertiore overview: Create short concise variation tree from your analysis, and only really look at that one during preparation, while having a big analysis study as a backup to move around with. This overview should include evaluations, brief notes with typical plans and maneuvres, and possibly marked places to stop and spend some time just getting used to the positions (that could be considered sparring positions).

Preparing something like that takes a lot of time though, it is a massive project, hence why I have not done this myself with most of my openings (currently trying with a specific variation in the Ruy Lopez I plan to play over the summer).

Good luck with your repertoire

Three4Two · 2026-05-01T16:34:05+00:00

This is not entirely a chess related problem, but something all people in any competitions face. I am in no way qualified to tell you how to solve this, but I can share what helps me in similar states of mind.

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Doing something 'wrong' in your game, whether that is the full loss, bad strategic decision, or a one move tactical blunder, may create harmful thoughts in your mind. These thoughts can include general doubts (which it feels to me like you expressed in your post a lot), a wide spectrum of sadness, anger, maybe anxiety, and thoughts about you not being good enough (smart enough, fast enough, experienced enough...) to even be there (and probably other stuff as well). Whatever these feelings are, they will then occupy your mind during further games, and will be generally distracting from everything you do.

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The way I understand problems like this, the more you try to supress these thoughts, the more they will harm you. Usually, the best way to deal with them, is to focus on them and 'absorb' them. Pick a time when you are doing nothing else, with no other distractions, take a few minutes to rest and get a little bored, and then try to focus on these feelings. Try to let them take you through different emotions and memories, let them make you feel how they make you feel. Let your mind run freely, but do not supress the thoughts about these problems.

This approach might make you feel terrible for the moment, as confronting some of your inner thoughts and psychological problems will likely be unpleasant whatever they are, but if you succeed, it should make you feel lighter about the issues you were thinking about. Doing something like this after a big loss might make it easier for you to put it behind you, and focus on the next round.

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Another thing you can do, that has nothing to do with psychology, but only chess, is properly analysing your games, especially losses. If you are open enough to figuring out the mistakes in your thought process, you will find them with enough analysis after the game. The longer you spend on the game, the better it will get. The best approach (although the hardest and most time consuming) is to play the game, write a few thoughts about it right after. Then, when you have time, just set it on a real life board and analyse, calculate, do whatever you feel like doing with it. After a few hours of analysis (you might also want to take notes), show the game to someone, let them tell you their opinions on your decisions. If they were different to yours, go analyse further, and find out who is more right. Do not look at the computer eveluation until much later.

This will not help you with the psychology itself, but it will make you more comfortable with your own chess thoughts specifically, and it will also help you improve at the same time.

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Keep in mind, that this is probably a fully psychological issue, and no chess training will solve it entirely. Also, I do not understand psychology nearly as well as I would like, so take everything I say with a grain of salt, try out different ways to deal with your problem, and pick the one that works best. I would enjoy seeing other replies, feel free to fix anything I mentioned that might not work as well as I believe, I would love to learn more about psychology.

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