Welcome to the Game Explorer
heuschrecke Sunday, 07 January 2007
A00a Start position
The Game Explorer is designed to help you to understand the common opening moves in chess, and should give you some insight into the intentions of your opponent - but be warned. If you follow the advice here blindly without attempting to understand it, you may run into trouble. If your opponent deviates from the move order given in Game Explorer, you should know how to proceed.
Before beginning with the annotations of the openings, just a few words of advice concerning the fundamental differences between Over The Board (OTB) and Correspondence Chess (CC).
- Never trust your eyes. Trust only the board, because sometimes your eyes may be directed to the wrong square, file or side of the board.
- If ever you are convinced that you have found the right move or even any winning move, just lean back, relax and calmly regard the board. Take a day or even two. You have all the time you need.
- Do not be too confident in analysis of OTB games of high-rated title holders. In CC you will have to look much deeper into the position. 20 years ago, when starting with CC, I had to pay a high price for being too confident in those analysis.
- Choose the opening, line and variations corresponding to your own style and your own skill. Do not always try to find the best move or to follow theoretical recommendations. You should feel quite at home in the position. It is of no use when theory gives a big plus but you are ending up in a position which is not quite to your liking and where you do not know what to do next!
- Build up an opening repertoire of your own and choose the lines and variations corresponding to your preferences and skills.
- Never play too hastily. First try to find out what are the general lines and plans of the opening and where you could perhaps divert from the theoretical and well known variations. Always try - whenever possible - to make your opponent leave his books and databases so that he has to rely on his own brain and find the moves and answers alone!
All annotations, analysis and comments are exclusively based on:
- my own experiences with high rated opponents
- databases and games played on a high level by players of a minimum rating of at least 2300 ELO in CC and OTB
- the experiences of another annotator being an international title holder.
Any reference to the male gender in Game Explorer will also relate to the female gender.
Special thanks go to Robert Pallett for proof-reading my annotations and comments.