5 Helpful Tips for Chess Openings

5 Helpful Tips for Chess Openings

CHESS IN SCHOOL

Coach Gerald Ferriol

3/28/20242 min read

5 Helpful Tips for Chess Openings

1. Goals: Our goal in chess affects our daily practices and training, that’s why we need to choose the best opening that suit our long term goal in chess.

Can I excel in chess? Am I playing for fun? Can I get benefits fromplaying chess?
1.a For example, if we want to become national, international or world champion, we need to choose the complex openings like Sicilian, Caro-Kann or 1.e4 e5 openings. These openings need thoroughly analysis and more time to
master but very rewarding for players.
1.b If we want to have some fun and we can choose flank openings like Owen, Scandinavian, Pirc Defence etc.
1.c If we are serious in chess but have less time and planning to take seriously later, the Sicilian and Caro-kann best fit your need.

2. Personality affects our mood in the game. After we choose our opening we can choose the variations based on our goals and personality. These are lines with complex, passive and positional approaches.

2.1 Choleric (Goal Oriented) – Aggressive/Attacker
2.2 Sanguine (Having Fun) – Adventurous/Creative
2.3 Melancholy (Detail-Oriented) –Positional Player
2.4 Phlegmatic (Pessimestic) – Safer

3. Resources:
3.1 Coach is very important forevery player, good coach provides best avenue for each player. He motivates,
inspire and remind each player of his chess goals.

3.2 Good books produce good result.It is better to use the 1 book per opening. Example, The Scandinavian Opening
by Sergey Tiviakov or Michael Melts, The Caro-Kann Defence by Former World Champion Anatoly Karpov.

3.3 Time: Proper time management give immediate impact on our chess.

3.4 Lastly, ourselves: we need to have discipline in each areas of our training like chess openings, middlegames,
endgames, physical health etc.

4. Application (Performance). We need to apply different ideas in middlegame from different variations we have chosen. Remember, learning is a long process. After we prepared, studied, applied and lost, it doesn’t mean the opening is not fit for us, maybe your opponent was better with you in the middlegame (tactics) or endgame. Experience is the best teacher.

5. Consistency (Updates). Moreover, the lack of updates, innovations, or new ideas behind this discovery could result in an inferior opening and middlegame. Remember the words of former world champion Viswanthan Anand.
"For every door a computer closes, a new one opens." Small continuous improvements lead to big successes.

The diagram summarizes all the informations above.

by Coach Gerald Ferriol