Working on your chess can involve a lot of naval gazing. The times I've made a giant leap forward, for example in the early 1990s, were built on periods of reflection and then doing things differently.
What did I do differently in the run up to gaining the GM title? Essentially I realized that I had to play in a more classical manner, always playing flank openings, and going 1...g6 as Black, had hobbled my approach to chess in that I had very little space and was always looking for a counter attack. This might have been useful in weekend tournaments, but it was far from optimal in international tournaments. Not only did I change my openings, I also had to change the way I thought about chess strategy in order to interpret them reasonably well.
Playing in a classical style was not altogether new to me, having taught myself largely from books I had a decent foundation in the classics. The problems started when I took the King's Indian Attack from Leonard Barden's Guardian Chess Book and picked up on the 1980s craze for 1...g6. I thought I was saving myself from learning a lot of theory, and this was kind of true. On the other hand I was storing up problems for the future.
Which openings did I switch to? I met 1.e4 with 1...e5, met 1.d4 with the Nimzo-Indian and started playing 1.d4 as White. This cost me a lot of work but the turnaround in my results was remarkable.
Training Tournaments
This week's training tournaments return to the King's Indian Petrosian System (1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 g6 3.c4 Bg7 4.Nc3 0-0 5.e4 d6 6.Be2 e5 7.d5) and which was covered in the White 1.d4 Repertoire. There are two main alternatives for Black, 7...a5 and 7...Nbd7:
Sunday June 22nd at 5pm UK Time: KID Petrosian with 7...a5
Sunday June 22nd at 6.15pm UK Time: KID Petrosian with 7...Nbd7
My Upcoming Events
There's nothing new from last week and I have a new project that I'll start work on from September. I will keep playing, but it will move down my list of priorities for a while Here is how things look now:
June 23-29 2025: 11th Cesme International Open
This strong open event, in Cesme (Izmir province) in Turkey, promises to be a real challenge. I'll be going a couple of days early because I can get a cheap flight.
July 31 - August 10 2025: British Championships
As mentioned I've gone for the Championship itself rather than one of the old folks sections. Obviously this will be full of underrated juniors, I'll just have to play better against them this time! You can find details here.
August 23 - 30 2025: San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Tenerife
This looks like a great event and I'm really looking forward to it. Travelling back is a bit tricky because the direct flights were very expensive, finally I found a flight back to Glasgow from where I can take a train!
September 5-7: Hull 4NCL Congress
I'm a big fan of 4NCL Congresses because they are played in nice venues, they're invariably well organized and they offer free entry and accommodation to GMs. You can find details here:
I'll be looking for things after September, not sure when or where!
Twitch Channel
My new Twitch channel will have new shows every Monday ('Chess Questions Answered), the Webinar on training tournaments and games is up on Fridays. Please follow it if you'd like to get updates etc, all the shows will be available to Premium members in the Tiger Chess members area, even when they are no longer available on Twitch.
Have a good weekend.
Nigel
