All sicilians have something in common, although it requires a bit of practice. That's pretty much the way I've learned it: got my butt kicked a few hundrends of times . Actually we could play a few correspondence games in the najdorf, I would like to understand the system I play a bit better and you could learn or teach me something as well. What do you think?

I'm fine, I'm fine. Started studying harder at the university, got rid of a tiny bit of lazyness. A lack of motivation might have been the problem but now everything is just fine

Hi armis,

I'm more interested in getting back into serious play sooner rather than later, even if it means not playing what I'd ideally like to play with infinite study time (like some of you student-types have ). When you're an old guy like me with a demanding job, a small child, and a wife who thinks everything on her to do list is more important than you studying chess, you have to be practical...

Now, I'm happy to take the White side in some correspondance games if you'd like a sparring partner as you work on your system. I don't have more than the vaguest clue as to what I should be doing from either side in the Najdorf, but I do have Palliser's book on my shelf which should help some... So if you'd like, you can pick a starting position in a variation you want to experiment with (no sense in playing the first 6-10 moves slowly) and set up a theme-game thread over in the correspondance forum (unless you want it here in your journal for some reason) and let's have at it. I'm not sure about my bandwidth and I do want to participate in the CV.TV chess team if it ever gets off the ground, so just one game for now and we'll see how it goes... Sound OK?

Also, instead of playing whole games, we could start with a position and just play 20 moves or so and then restart with a different position. That would be more of a traing mode than a playing mode, and that would be OK with me if you'd find it more useful. There's virtue in doing it both ways.

L8erz...
=wild=

I understand your concern. I like the idea of playing a certain position and I would love to give this a try. Which pieces do you want to play?

Hi armis,

I'll take White. You pick the start position and decide if you want to play a whole game or just play 20 moves from the start position. BTW, I can't promise to be very fast in moving this next month -- far too much is going on but I'll do the best I can to not let moves sit too long.

L8erz...
=wild=

I think 20 moves or so from the starting position is a good idea. Just to get a better feel of the opening. I'll create a new game in the cc forum

I am sort of on a mission: help beginners. I'll try to analyse or help analyse one game/day. It seems that this helps me a lot as well. Careless space grabbing pawn moves was something I was puzzled quite a lot. Surprisingly there is an awful a lot of them in beginner games Something to look at

My exercise thread is dying for new exercises. I should write something... I'll try annotating one move/day in those move by move exercises, something I enjoy writting

Thus training journal updated!

I started studying the Najdorf myself a couple months ago, with Kasparov's training videos. However, after seeing the jungle you had to get through to even attempt to learn that mess of an opening was simply not worth it yet. Diminishing returns, I think. All the time I would need to get through such a complex opening, to truly become proficient at it, would probably net me nowhere near the improvement in rating that all that time could have been spent used on Tactics and Strategy.

Kasparov also scared me away from the opening. When he said "In the Sicialian Najdorf, all black has to make one tiny mistake, one normal looking wrong move, and he's out of business." I said to myself "Well, I don't know if I even want to deal with this."

There is a pretty good book from the starting out series which explains the basic ideas in the najdorf. Najdorf can become awfully sharp, especially in the Bg5 lines, those are just crazy You probably watched the 2nd of Kasparov's DVDs since that is devoted entirely to Bg5

Still I like the positions that arise, although I sometimes hate Bg5 lines but white rarely goes for them as black has just TONS of different replies and since it's so sharp white must know his stuff as well

[Wildman makes note to self: "Hmmm... He doesn't like playing against Bg5..."]

As for the Starting Out: Sicilian Najdorf book, I own it and what little I've read of it is excellent. I own Kasparov's DVD on the Queens Gambit (about the QG Declined actually, so the title is a bit of a misnomer), and got blown away in the first segment. That might just be because Kasparov has nearly God-like understanding of this stuff and, well, listening to the voice of God can make one feel very mortal. What's important is to understand the openings you play at the level at which your overall chess game is at. It's not like you have to play the Black side of a Najdorf (or anything else) like a GM unless you play GMs regularly...

L8erz...
=wild=

ups...

I agree with Wild regarding openings

I seem to hit a wall lately. My rating is around 1900-2000 on various sites which is great, I remember this was my dream! I wish I had an elo... Anyway, I want improve my game further. So I've updated my training schedule:

Exercise thread:
Annotate one move/day I love this one

Help beginners:
Annotate or help annotate one game/day This seems to help me a lot as well and I enjoy it

Positional play:
Excercise/day Picked up Jeremy Silman's Workbook. I have read it before put just very quickly in three days or so. There was just too much info for my head back then. I'll go over this one slowly this time. There seems to be so much gold in Silman's books. This is my favorite part of the chess game: all the positional stuff I mean

I haven't included tactics. I don't want chess to become like a job where I MUST this and that. I'll solve some whenever I feel I want to I thought

I agree about Silman's books. There are often more layers than what you perceive on a first read. (At least for me, anyway, haha!) I just love his books, they've helped me understand a lot of different aspects of the game. I find his work invaluable.

Today was a great day. First of all I had an exam of complex number theory and mathematical physics. I didn't sleep ALL night which was totally nuts just to study enough, I think it was the first time I did that. The surprising thing is that at about 4 o'clock in the morning I only intended to get a 5 out of 10 or so, I just wanted to pass this exam, it's seemed so damn complicated with so little time ( my fault, had to start studying way earlier ) to study all this. A little tactical exercise,

guess how much I got

Hidden Text Below - [Show it] - [Hide it Again]

Besides when I got back home I noticed there is a new series on Dennis videos starting! Simply great

I've already solved 10 of Silman's exercises and I seem to enjoy them a lot. So far 5/day on a busy day

Woot! Congrats!

Ah... To be young again! I remember being able to do crazy things like staying up all night and functioning reasonable well the next day back when I was in college. Now days we celebrate New Years Eve at 9 PM (with the excuse that it's Midnight in NYC since we have a friend from there who always visists), give everyone a hug and a kiss, and then go home and to bed.

Congrats on acing your exam! Like in chess, a questionable move somehow becomes a brilliant one if it works out...

L8erz...
=wild=