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KingsBlade,

Before playing the Trompowsky, I played lots of different openings. A long time ago, I played 1.e4 and I would meet 1...e5 with the Spanish exchange. It's a great opening and one that is pretty straightforward. The problem was that I hated playing against the Sicilian, so when I did I would play main lines in tournament games and the Smith-morra in blitz (I would never play that in a slow game, especially since I would just play whatever came to mind...I hadn't memorized much theory in the line).

After that, I switched to 1.d4. For a long time I played the queen's gambit declined exchange variation, which I think is excellent. In Yermolinsky's excellent book, The Road to Chess Improvement, he talks about that line a fair amount, and I pretty much learned it from there. This line really improved my middlegame play as I learned all about the minority attack as well as defending against the kinds of kingside attacks that black launched in those lines.

After that, I played the London system. It's a little boring, but I think it's a great opening, and I enjoyed it tremendously. Very easy to learn, even for people who hate studying opening theory.

Then I went back to the Queen's Gambit for a while before settling on the Trompowsky.

I'm glad you like my annotation style! I just hope my play gets a little better, I've been very sloppy of late. But that's probably because I haven't been playing that much (although I'm been studying a lot...no opening study though), and I was seriously addicted to 1-minute games of crazyhouse for about 2 weeks. That's not so good for my chess.

Hope that helps!

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Hmm....I chose the Trompowsky because I can play it against all variations that start with 1...Nf6. As this seems to be the most common first move for play against 1.d4 (at my level), I found it very convenient. Also, many black players find it annoying, and from white's perspective it can be quite easy to play. It's also very flexible in that white can play dynamic or solid lines. Another reason why I chose it was that I had always read that Peter Wells' Winning With the Trompowsky was an amazing opening book, and when I check it out, I discovered that it was one of the best opening books I've read. So I guess it's a combination of factors, but the main thing is that you can get into weird (and fun) lines pretty early.

Josh,

I'm interested in getting the book you mentioned by Peter Wells. I can't seem to find it anywhere. I checked amazon and the ChessStore.com. Any ideas on where I can get a copy?

Tazewell