Cool, I wish I had the six tape one. I liked "Awaken the giant within" but I think I'll have to go other it again with a dictionary.
When me and my 14 year old brother is in one room it's WAR

Today I looked at this game http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1308845 which shows the correct handling of Fischer's idea for white. It's the c3 knight which had to be transferred to e3 not the d2 one!

I remember seeing this game before, probably in Chess Life & Review.

With respect to Robbins some of the the key ideas are

1. Modeling - Success leaves clues and if you can model those who are successful in any area of endeavour you can obtain similar results.
2. Continuous and Never-ending Improvement - the idea that applying little changes continuously can have profound results by stacking one upon another and compounding their effects.
3. State control - You can control your feelings and states through a variation on operant (pavlovian) conditioning to put yourself in resourceful states.
4. Triggers - Tools to help you modify your behaviours and internal states quickly.

I will continue to talk about these ideas since there appears to be interest in them and I do know that they can help you all improve your game if you apply the ideas.

Crash

This one is my favorite

Today I looked at yet another game in modern benoni. Petrosian's clean cut demonstration how to handle Fischer's 11. ...Nh5. Sacrificing an exchange is very effective way to exploit the weakened lightsquares
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1107108

I have like 10 chess books lying on my book shelf. I haven't read a single one from cover to cover I take one read like 20pages or so and put it back, then read another one and so on...

Yesterday I got a copy of Silman's Amateur's mind. I was so into it I read nearly 80 pages. Wow, what a book I thought Silman really knows his stuff: his explanations are entertaining and easy to understand. I like the fact that he systemizes the things one already knows. Also when he shows a seemingly boring diagram position I would have never thought how much is going in it. I especially like the imbalance thinking technique. So I decided I have to read my chess books from cover to cover from now on! Silman's AM will be the first one, besides Silman's books really deserve that

I am starting to scare myself with how much stamina I have when it comes to studying chess. I am even dreaming about playing though I can't remember the games when I wake up. Having problems with the internet at home has seemed to help the training program. I probably won't worry about resolving them until after next weekend. I will probably do a bit of posting on Friday from my hotel room. I am driving up the day before the tournament which starts on Saturday. There are three rounds on Saturday and the time control is 50 minutes/game plus 50 seconds/move increment. Another Guelph tournament. I am going to try to stick to one book for longer and get a few of these finished. That way I won't have a pile of ten books which I have read fifty or a hundred pages of.

I was going to stick 100% to openings but have been looking at the Suetin book and the Aagaard book when I get tired of openings.

Crash

Good luck in the tournament! Looking forward to your analysis of the games played
I kind of neglect opening study. It just doesn't seem right to me to put serious effort into it at my level and I like to play on my own. Instead I study complete games from the arising openings and look up at theory when analysing a game. I always get frustrated when I get into a sharp sicilian line where my opponent as white just bangs 20 moves of theory and then we have a peripetual check after some fancy sacrifices. At these moments I just want to give up my sicilian najdorf
Although I imagine how important is the opening stage at your level

Today I finally played an OTB game which is so hard to get here. What was even better about it was that I was the one who lost! More to learn . Time controls were 2hours per side. Here is the game:


The opening wasn't very ambitious by white, we traded into an endgame early and made some errors during the game. My blunder in the end of the game was even worse, I totally messed up and I would have probably won after not so hard to find 38. ...Kb5!. Nevertheless it was an interesting game and any sugesstions are more than welcome, thanks

Here are some critical positions I would love to hear what others think about them, thanks


Here I was wondering how should black continue. What structure,plan to choose? Later I found out that 5. ...a6 is the main line here, at least my Fritz10 shows it in his opening book. I couldn't really decide between 5. ...e6 and what I chose 5. ...g6. I was just wondering maby an experienced sicilian player could have a look at this and give me a solid kick in the right direction


Here I won't lie but I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO DO any ideas? I was staring at this for 30min and couldn't come up with a decent plan. Ok, I looked at 10. ...b5, 10. ...e5!?, 10. ...Bc6 10. ...Qc7 but I couldn't see a follow up. Eventually I decided, ok I have the bishop pair and since he moved a knight to the edge then having this in mind why not open up the game with 10. ...d5? Notice that after 10. ...d5 10.e5? doesn't work because the e pawn falls. Also 10. ...Nxe4? seems to win a pawn but looses for black, make sure you understand why. So after trades on d5 and long diagonal I thought that I won't have any problems and I could play on the weakened queenside dark squares. Wow, at last I came up with a plan...

Thanks in advance for your time posting sugesstions
By the way if anyone is interested in my analysis on this game, feel free to ask. I'll send it to you

Opening theory is a bit less important than you might think. My most productive opening study has been the five minutes I spent looking at the Ruy Lopez Zaitsev a few hours before my last tournament started. I got a point and a half out of two and probably would have got two points if I played the game in two months and was more tactically aware. I only looked at the main line and a couple of annotations with regard to the ideas in the opening and it was enough to cause problems for my presumably better prepared opponents.

I did play both sides of the sicilian early in my chess career but have preferred 1.e4 e5 in recent years. I get sicilian positions by transposition sometimes these days. I don't try to memorize variations but rather try to fill my head with ideas that may be relevant in a variety of similar positions. I know that you can't afford to do this on either side of some of those sharp sicilian variations.

I am also looking at adding the Paulsen/Taimanov lines in the Sicilian into my repetoire though I did study them some time ago with my mentor Milan who played them. I played it a few times in the mid-90s but only against very weak players so I can't really say how well I knew the ideas. This is a problem when you play against players that are not as strong as you. Your play and opening variations do not get tested in the fire when your opponent blunders a piece in every game.

Crash

2. ...e6 lines in the Sicilian are very flexible with lots of transposition possibilities. I was thinking about taking up that one myself

Armis, with regard to the positions you posted:

In the first one, I think ...a6 is clearly black's best move. In lines like this black often plays for a6 and b5, and here you have the opportunity to prepare b5 with tempo and possibly trade off white's light squared bishop. If, for example, 6.Bxd7 Nxd7 and then g6, Bg7, and castles and I think you have a very comfortable position. Note that you should probably taken on d7 with the knight, as otherwise ...e5 might be a problem for you (not 100% sure). Or if white tries something like 7.Re1, maybe you could even play 7...e5, not sure.

The second position is much more unclear. It looks to me like white is playing for f4, so maybe we can use that knowledge to our benefit. I like the idea of ...d5 and then ...Bc6. The point is the if white plays f4, the a8-h1 diagonal will be weakened, and we can get some good pressure against white's center. For example, 10...d5 11.f4 dxe4 12.dxe4 Bc6 and I like black's position.

Thanks Josh

In the first position theory indeed recommends immediately grabbing the bishop pair with 5. ...a6. I thought I could force him to give up his bishop anyway. So I continued with my development. However white could play a later c3 and preserve the bishop. 5. ...e6 was possible as well and here white has an option of preserving the bishop after 6. c3 Thus 5. ...a6 was more accurate

I have done analysis on this game and it turns out that 10. ...d5?! wasn't great. The problem is that I give up my advantage which is the bishop pair. The position is probably even after the trade. Also notice that after 10. ...d5 11. f4 doesn't work because of 11. ...d4! blocking the b2 bishop and creating a hole on e3. White would be in trouble after that. However I should have played simply 10. ...b5 and it turns out that f4 just looses a pawn but one has to calculate a bit further and evaluate the arising position correctly. Here is the diagram, black to play

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This position comes from a 5min blitz game of mine. I thought the combination is beautiful so I'll share it with you

Seems that black is in trouble but what did he have in mind?

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There is a book out there calling it "The Safest Sicilian"

Crash

Thanks for looking at it

Yeah, that's pretty much the reason why I played g6. Although there is nothing wrong with e6 which is the set up I am more used to. According to theory by the way a6 is best to grab the bishop pair and only then continue development.

In the second diagram b5 is indeed way better than what I played because after b5 f4 actually looses a pawn. But I don't understand why should I give up my ligthsquared bishop. You say you would trade it off as soon as possible. It's just I think that I might open the position for them so there is no need to trade it. Also his knights are kind of stupid they don't have good posts at the moment