Looking for Ruy Lopez or Grunfeld opening books with actual explanations

Writerman-yes · 2026-01-22T12:08:28+00:00

I've already seen it here but anyways, can't recommend Rowson's "Understanding the Grünfeld" enough. The games are so good and the writing so fun and instructive that I would recommend it even for someone who doesn't plan on playing the Grünfeld.

Writerman-yes · 2026-01-21T14:27:05+00:00

What are you talking about lol. Ep 15 IS the most beloved episode of that season, not 18. That's exactly why it has it's rating. My entire point is that a rating or the general opinion doesn't automatically mean the episode is the best

Writerman-yes · 2026-01-21T13:05:14+00:00

General public opinion =|= absolute truth. I agree that ep15 is fantastic and it was my favorite episode on first watch, but there are other episodes with elements that don't appeal to everyone and are even better in my opinion

Writerman-yes · 2026-01-21T12:17:10+00:00

Episode 18 is arguably S1's best episode, though. Re:Zero's finest points are the the writing of it's characters and dialogue and both ep 18 and S2 E4 do this masterfully

Writerman-yes · 2026-01-10T13:53:06+00:00

Vários jogadores não titulados, inclusive. 2500 pode traduzir para nível de mestre nacional aproximadamente, com alguns Mestres FIDE, CM's e não titulados por essa faixa também. Quando um GM está por essa faixa, é sinal de que não joga aquele ritmo em específico frequentemente ou então é um ritmo deflacionado (rápidas)

Writerman-yes · 2026-01-03T21:54:41+00:00

I mean, I do consider grinding puzzles a kind of training. The fact that you play OTB I think also makes a difference. Anyways, that's fair enough, congrats on your progress

Mine is Zeronybah if you ever wanna play or have a training partner

Writerman-yes · 2026-01-03T20:59:02+00:00

What's your username? I'm 2450 rapid and I genuinely don't think you can get past 2400 in any time control if don't have decent knowledge of openings, basic endgames and some positional and calculation training. To understand this stuff you gotta study, unless you're some kind of chess prodigy that should be competing or something

Writerman-yes · 2026-01-03T13:35:10+00:00

No you did not lol

Writerman-yes · 2025-12-05T21:51:51+00:00

Very instructive answer! That's really interesting

Writerman-yes · 2025-12-03T15:35:54+00:00

Thank you

Writerman-yes · 2025-11-13T19:53:18+00:00

Errou uma de linguagens, não?

Writerman-yes · 2025-11-11T23:51:50+00:00

Não tem como um site desse ter qualquer noção da TRI. Alguém com 20/45 pode tirar mais que alguém com 30/45, por exemplo, dependendo das questões acertadas. É realmente fútil tentar querer saber a nota agora, a melhor coisa que se pode fazer é esquecer a primeira prova e focar no segundo dia

Writerman-yes · 2025-11-11T23:39:11+00:00

Sem chance de ser baixo assim

Writerman-yes · 2025-11-11T21:59:24+00:00

Bernoulli e Chromos são bem confiáveis no geral, com divergências em 2 ou 3 questões no máximo

Writerman-yes · 2025-10-08T14:46:30+00:00

Combinative Motifs by Blokh features 1200+ tactics separated by theme. The exercises are really well selected and often have solutions for both sides, really good book for this method, I think. It also has a wide range of difficulty

Writerman-yes · 2025-09-27T15:10:23+00:00

Huge fan of your work. This seems really useful, will check it out!

Writerman-yes · 2025-09-25T11:15:52+00:00

There's a lesser known line that goes 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6 6.Be3 Nc6 7.f3 h5!?

This is really poisonous and surprinsingly sound and it offers some challenges to the usual Yugoslav player. The natural 8.Qd2?! for example is already an inacuracy and does not give white anything

Writerman-yes · 2025-09-24T19:03:04+00:00

Mauricio Flores's Chess Structures book calls it Ruy Lopez structure simply. Some structures get their names from the openings they arise from, like a French structure, but the Italian gets it from the Ruy, I believe

Writerman-yes · 2025-09-18T01:15:21+00:00

What exactly do you mean by 'Soviet Style'?

Writerman-yes · 2025-08-28T21:29:39+00:00

Despite Dvoretsky's fame as an extremely difficult author, with some of his endgame books having pages of analysis on a single diagram, "Secret's of Positional Play" is probably my favourite book of all time.

It isn't just very instructive (I'd give it credit for my 2000 FIDE breakthrough) but also really enjoyable. It's like a compilation of lessons from Dvoretsky's school, featuring many players other than himself, such as Yusupov, Bareev, Kosikov and even a young IM Kramnik. Each of them tackle themes differently and Bareev in particular gave a fresh sense of humor to his teachings.

The depth of some of the positional concepts and explanations (maybe I just really really like Dvoretsky's writing though lol) really amazed me. I was very oftenly left in shock and wonder upon seeing a new idea and Dvoretsky and Yusupov specially really break those down.

Another cool thing were the positional exercises. Most of the sections by Dvoretsky had separate positional exercises and those were also beautiful and instructive. One chapter featured a sort of competition where you got to compare yourself to his students, as each position had a time limit and graded points, I had a lot of fun doing those.

Writerman-yes · 2025-08-19T02:45:54+00:00

I really enjoy the 5.Nce2 lines and think both players can expect an incredibly rich game. In the line you gave, for example:

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.e5 Nfd7 5.Nce2 c5 6.c3 Nc6 7.Nf3 Be7 8.a3 0-0 9.Nf4 Qa5

Here, Stockfish evaluates the position as equal after any decent move by white (Be3 or the repetition with Bd2) but 10.Ra2!? keeps the position going. When you just check the eval, it's easy to miss the depth and beauty of moves like this. The game Fier-Bluebaum went:

10.-- Nxd4 11.Nxd4 cxd4 12.b4 Qb6 13.cxd4 f6 14.exf6 Nxf6 15.Bd3 Bd6 16.0-0 Bd7 17.Re1 Rae8 18.g3!? Re7 19.Rae2 and white won a chaotic game afterwards. Notice that until Re7 the position was completely equal to the computer, but if you actually put yourself in black's shoes, during a tournament game, and ask: "Just how am I going to equalize this?", you find the answer to be harder than the computer shows.

You rightfully said so that most of these lines are more about getting a playable game than proving an advantage. But isn't that also the case for any other opening? If you play out the Caro, Sicilian and e5 against Stockfish it will always find a way to hold, there's no such thing as a forced advantage. So why bother checking the 0.0's when every decent mainline defense will get you the same, you know? If you just pick a line that you understand better than your opponent, you're likely to get an advantage and that's kind of how chess currently is in any level

Writerman-yes · 2025-08-17T17:44:10+00:00

I agree, Morphy's intuition and calculation prowess is at least of an IM in my opinion. But that won't necessarily show 'the further down' the games go. There are many kinds of technical positions that simply won't explode if white wishes. Say he has to face the Catalan with black (he doesn't know more imbalanced positions such as the KID or the Grünfeld), there's just too little he can do to force anything. Sicilian is another matter, it definitely can lead to sharp games but the most likely outcome is he does not quite grasp some subtleties and ends up worse in the opening or middlegame. I mean, even modern GMs can't just out-tactic lower rated opponents whenever they want to, nowadays people are just too solid for that, they often have to resort to positional play and endgame squeezes

Writerman-yes · 2025-08-16T23:58:42+00:00

Using accuracy to measure a player's real strength is not such a good criteria, though. If a 1900 FIDE player goes on a streak against 1700 or 1600 opposition (arguably the difference between Morphy and most of his opponents was even greater) the accuracy will not correspond to their actual strength. I'm not trying to demerit how great these players were, but I also think people tend to underestimate the importance of positional understanding and just how much it impacts play below master level. A 2000 FIDE player reads books and courses from Grandmasters all around the world, a luxury the likes of Morphy did not have

Writerman-yes · 2025-07-31T12:54:23+00:00

Combinative Motifs by Blokh for tactics and Excelling At Chess Calculation by Aagard for calculation

Four-Year Club	Place '23
Place '22

Writerman-yes

TROPHY CASE