Improve with repertoire selection? (Openings)

by juggernaut, Tuesday, April 05, 2005, 00:23 (7319 days ago) @ Moderator

I am a Canadian player of around 2000 strength. I have been so for some time. I have been frustrated so for some time. I keep flipping openings frequently and getting nowhere quickly. After yet another mediocre performance at a tournament, I asked a FIDE master bits of advice for me to improve (In addition of course to this wonderful site! ). This was his reply:

1) Study the opening well and postions arising from it. He said you should know some endgame stuff but it doesnt really help to learn how to defend an endgame one pawn down if you get blown away in the middlegame by some opening theory 20 moves deep that your opponent knows well.

2) Pick openings that suit your style. To dtermine your style, look at well annotated games of GREAT masters (GMS of course). Tactical dragons like Tal,Shirov or positional boa constrictors like Karpov,Petrosain, Andersson or somewhere inbetween! Looking at modern GMs also give you more up to date theory as well. I like Capablanca but all they played back then was a lot of Queen's Gambit and such. Not much theory back then on the Sicilian Sveshnikov!

3) Once you've got a player with whose style you like, chances are you will like the opening choices they made too. Hence you can copy their repertoire because they have done all the work for you! There seems to be logic in his advice. Well what do you think? Any takers?