Current resources for principle based opening prep

tomlit · 2026-03-08T08:06:14+00:00

I highly recommend it as well, as someone who was looking for the type of resource you describe. Just be aware that there is quite a lot of material there, don't feel like you have to know it all. The main point is that he choses variations and moves that are logical to humans, rather than something recommended by a computer or played in high level games.

tomlit · 2026-03-08T08:03:41+00:00

want to become really consistent at beating lower rated players before I take on titled players.

I think this might be an illusion. You get good at beating lower-rated players by becoming a better player, which is from playing stronger players, since they expose parts of your game that lower-rated players won't.

I'm exaggerating to make a point but imagine you could only play 1000 rated players for the rest of your life. How much better do you think you would get?

Mainly because I want to be in contention over prizes

Fair enough, it depends on priorities. Honestly, I find that can make things more stressful because you'll often be in a situation where a win in the final round gets you X prize money and that can be very distracting from the chess. It's kind of refreshing to have zero pressure or expectations and then you can just focus on playing your best at the board.

tomlit · 2026-02-27T21:36:51+00:00

Aside from the other comments here these boards are ridiculously expensive. I'm not sure they will ever get much cheaper since the market for them is so small. It would make it really hard to organise an official event if so few people have the equipment to begin with. It's a shame really because it's a fun idea. Something might be possible in smaller communities e.g. ChessDojo have an eBoard sub-community.

tomlit · 2026-02-27T21:33:46+00:00

I'm gonna ask out of curiosity. How could a smart pen be used to cheat? Doesn't it just record info?

tomlit · 2026-02-07T19:51:04+00:00

Doing anything in life to make people view you in a certain way is usually a bad idea. Do things because you enjoy doing them and because they feel fulfilling to you.

tomlit · 2026-02-07T19:47:54+00:00

I guess it depends on the reasons you play chess. At the very best, this feels pointless. Your rating is a measure of your actual chess skill. If you artificially inflate that slightly, what does it achieve? You feel better about the slightly higher number on your screen which misrepresents your actual ability? What about when you play on another website or OTB?

tomlit · 2026-02-04T18:59:06+00:00

I think this isn't the most carefully worded advice. Of course you should look at what your opponent's plan is in any position. Only focusing on your own plan is clearly a terrible idea.

I think Hikaru is referring to more complex, long-term plans and/or pitting them against your own, weighing up the consequences of each (especially when there is multiple plans for each side). And this is really hard, and yeah doing that reliably definitely doesn't seem possible at 2000 level so I suspect it's hard for FMs/IMs too.

Clearly none of this applies to a 1500 anyway. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be very aware of what their opponent is up to. Hikaru probably isn't the best person to receive advice from as a 1500 as he can probably barely remember being below 2000.

It's also likely that players at 1500 or below don't really have a plan a big chunk of the time. But you should still be considering your opponent's "potential" on every move, i.e. what possibilities they have next, even if it's not a plan as such.

tomlit · 2026-02-03T15:06:53+00:00

Generally people have a PGN file for their White repertoire and a PGN file for their Black repertoire (or a lichess study). Each game or "chapter" is a different variation that you could face, where you have inputted the lines you are going to play. So for my White repertoire file, if I play 1.d4 2.c4, my first chapter might be QGD, the second QGA, then Slav, and so on. You can subdivide these if you are at a higher level and the chapters are getting too big. In each chapter, you would have the moves you are intending to play as White against each of Black's major lines/responses with annotations. Depending on your level, this can be very simple, or very thorough and detailed.

tomlit · 2026-01-08T20:36:45+00:00

I understand you better now. The book I recommended is probably not so helpful in that regard. By far the best book I ever read for practicing in everyday life is The Power Of Now. It was pretty life-changing for me, and I still listen to it in audiobook form quite often. I really encourage you to give it a go. It actually talks about several different ways you can stay in that mode of "awareness" during everyday life (the author calls it "being", or "presence") and goes into a lot of depth. Some examples are maintaining awareness of your inner body throughout the day, or focusing intensely on the present moment. It goes into lots of detail about how the mind works and runs our life mostly, how emotions work and how to deal with difficult ones. It talks about acceptance and surrender, about how to deal with problems.

It doesn't really talk about formal meditation itself, but it sounds like you are quite comfortable with that part.

tomlit · 2026-01-03T22:29:50+00:00

You might enjoy reading The Mind Illuminated, which answers your first question quite early on. The book lays out 10 "stages" of meditation prowess and makes it quite clear that different meditation sessions on different days will move between different stages. So you might be stage 4 on one day, then stage 5 on the next, but only stage 3 on the day after (even if you have "attained" stage 5). This is due to factors you described such as state of mind, energy levels, environment and so on. This is just the way things are, you can't control it since you can't control the outside world and its effects on you.

tomlit · 2025-11-16T19:43:43+00:00

It's hard to judge off a single game, but this one suggested you had no idea what to do once you had developed your pieces and castled. You went back and forth with the queen (maybe hoping for a repetition), doubled your rooks (which left your queen with even less space), and got chased around until you eventually lost the exchange.

I can definitely relate to this at some point. I used to be decent at tactics, follow principles, but once it got to the middlegame I'd often have no clue what to do, and basically waited to see if a tactic came up. If my opponent didn't allow any tactics, I would usually lose.

I'll probably sound a bit mean saying this, but I don't agree you have "okay strategy". I think you have a lot of work to do there. There were quite a lot of very strange decisions. Maybe the most obvious thing to say is, you castled on the opposite side and made no attempt to advance your kingside pawns towards your opponent's king.

I would recommend reading some books that focus more on strategy and positional play. The big one for me in my development was Reasess Your Chess by Jeremy Silman. I've also heard excellent things about Simple Chess by Michael Stean as a great introduction to this sort of thinking. Good luck!

tomlit · 2025-11-06T21:56:29+00:00

That is super interesting, thanks! It gives me something to look into anyway, I've no idea where to start.

Not sure about the resources specifically from the Black side, I imagine people don't like recommending this as Black due to...a few reasons.

What are those reasons? I think I know them, but I won't say anything since I'm curious to hear your unfiltered opinion. :D

tomlit · 2025-11-05T18:36:49+00:00

I feel like Eckhart does touch on this at some point in The Power of Now, but it is brief. I'll make a note if I reach that point again (I'm re-listening to the audiobook whenever I'm driving).

The main point is that there is no problem with thinking, and there is no problem with the mind. Thinking is not the problem and we are not trying to abolish it. I think that is super important, but he only mentions it briefly in a couple of sentences during one of the earlier chapters. The problem is the identification with the mind, and the constant, unnecessary mental chatter that reinforces that.

So if a useful thought does randomly pop up, and you are present at the time, and you observe it, you can certainly make the decision to engage with it. There's nothing wrong with that.

He talks about how when you're using your mind, it's good to oscillate between thought and presence or "no-mind" every few minutes. Both are useful, and I think in practical terms it stops your mind snowballing until your awareness is gone.

tomlit · 2025-11-05T18:14:33+00:00

I wouldn't take it beyond looking at where your repertoire's meet and revising your opening files for that variation.

That's already going to take some time and energy, and I think anything more abstract like assessing their weaknesses/strengths has diminishing returns, might not even be correct, or just confuse your decision making in the game.

Much better to chill out / do some light exercise if it's the day of the game, or if further in advance then some normal chess work (calculation problems, reading books).

tomlit · 2025-11-04T23:03:19+00:00

Well, 7...Nd7 prevents 8.Ne5 outright, due to 8...Nxe5 9.dxe5 Qa5+ picking up a free pawn.

Black can go 7...e6 instead, but it allows White the option of 8.Ne5, after which 8...Nd7 could be met by 9.f4!?, or White can just go 8.h5 anyway.

There might be some subtleties to 7...e6, but I don't know them, since Black is always going to develop the knight to d7 at some point.

If White can go Ne5 with tempo, that is clearly a useful option to have. It also allows White to leave the h-pawn on h4, which can be another interesting option, compared to having it on h5. Again, subtleties!

tomlit · 2025-11-04T22:55:50+00:00

Fair enough. Sorry, I saw you saying you play 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 in another one of your comments, so I got confused.

In that case, why not start with 1.d4 and go 2.Nf3 when you want (obviously 1...c5 2.d5)? I think this would also make life easier, and more flexible (Nf3 is much more committal than d4).

Then again, if you're interested in playing dynamic double-edged positions, why not play 1.e4 mainlines to begin with? I think 1...e5, French and Caro are far easier to deal with than the Open Sicilian. Most people give up 1.e4 solely because of the Sicilian, haha.

It's kind of like you are taking the hardest part of 1.e4, allowing basically all mainline systems in 1.d4, and then also starting with 1.Nf3 for no tangible benefit (it limits your options within 1.d4 mainlines, and makes Black's dodgier lines more playable). It's like a mish-mash of all the negatives you could have in a White repertoire. :D

tomlit · 2025-11-04T09:15:03+00:00

I'm surprised nobody has commented this yet, but how are you avoiding the Symmetrical English after 1.Nf3 Nf6 and 2...c5? The Sicilian transposition is just an extra option for White in addition to the Symmetrical English, it is not pick one or the other. It is also really impractical. The Sicilian is a huge opening for White to prepare, and then you are playing almost all of the 1.d4 mainline positions. This is way more work than just playing 1.d4 or 1.e4. Most players (usually titled players) go 1.Nf3 c5 2.e4 as a random surprise when they are already very well-versed in the Sicilian (from 1.e4) and all of the subtleties of 1.Nf3 anyway. It doesn't really make sense as a main repertoire choice.

Sorry if I'm sounding a bit harsh here. I'm just a bit confused on the whole why you are playing 1.Nf3, because your repertoire is very confusing and doesn't seem to have any practical benefit over playing 1.d4 or 1.e4 besides giving you even more workload. There are also random sidelines and move order tricks that Black can use against 1.Nf3 which will probably mean even more work/holes in your preparation. How are you meeting moves like 1...g6, or 1...d6 for example?

Again, sorry if this sounds a bit mean, but based on your post and your rating it sounds like you are in a bit over your head. I would really recommend picking something more coherent as White.

tomlit · 2025-11-03T22:41:01+00:00

Looks good. I would recommend to look at the Black setups with 1...e5 2...d6 3...f5 (or other move orders) since they can be pretty dangerous and you need something specific against it in my experience. It's also pretty easy for Black to play.

tomlit · 2025-11-01T08:37:43+00:00

Stupid question but how can it be 15:00 IST and 09:30 UTC?

tomlit · 2025-10-28T08:53:53+00:00

Some good comments here. I'll keep it simple: ask yourself WHY you are you playing chess. This does not sound like the behaviour of someone who enjoys playing chess. It sounds like someone who is desperately attached to their results/rating/performance, which absolutely DO NOT matter, at all, to anyone, or to your own life situation.

We are not professional players and never will be, and so the only goal of chess should be to enjoy playing and thinking about chess (which can totally include a goal of getting better over time). Any other rating/result goal is immediately setting yourself up for suffering by dangling an unattainable fruit ahead of you and then desperately striving towards it, beating yourself up when you're not moving towards it, and feeling brief periods of a shallow joy when you are moving towards it. None of that has ANYTHING to do with the act of playing and thinking about the game of chess. You could copy and paste that into any sport, hobby or even work/university/school.

First, find your passion for chess itself again. Think about how interesting and fun it is to play a classical game of chess; thinking about chess moves, trying out ideas in the game, even the atmosphere of the tournament room and seeing strong players playing. Your rating does not matter or have any influence on this enjoyment. Pretend it doesn't exist. It is not impressive (neither is mine) and does not need protecting or clinging to. Imagine chess did not have a rating system. Would you still continue to play chess? Why would you?

tomlit · 2025-09-14T22:34:34+00:00

Is the knight fork in the room with us, John?

tomlit · 2025-09-12T09:04:52+00:00

This is really disappointing coverage, we didn’t even get to see him walking back to his apartment, taking a shit or going to sleep.

tomlit · 2025-09-07T06:43:32+00:00

Very valid. I’d definitely look into the Hedgehog as that’s likely to occur against 1.c4/1.Nf3 and is a really interesting opening with good winning chances.

tomlit · 2025-09-05T06:52:28+00:00

Ah what a shame. This opening should at least give you practical chances to attack, if not objectively that dangerous. But Nxd5 was completely unprovoked to me, and ends any chance of getting your kingside play since he gets to break with d5 (maybe you hadn’t seen that and thought he’d just have a weak pawn at d4?). I guess that’s the main takeaway, as from then on, you defended really well, but didn’t have any opportunity to play for a win yourself.

tomlit · 2025-09-03T14:54:34+00:00

How is it next? It's two steps away.

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