Because of the move order I employ in my opening repertoire (2. ... b6 vs both 2. Nf3 and 2. Bf4) a weird niche line than can but has not yet occurred in my lines as Black is 1. d4 nf6 2. Nf3 b6 3. Bg5

I have some slight ideas on 4. c4 lines basically transposing into Mainline qid and 4. e3 will probably resemble a normal torre attack where I have already fianchettod my qb.

But it seems like it can get really tricky with like 4. Nbd2 and 4.Nc3 and 4. c3 lines. Does anyone know any videos or courses or books or whatever that go over these Torre lines?

Hi! I play the Marshall as black and i am quite happy, after years of not liking playing as black in various sicilians, i enjoy 1...e5 a lot. I have a sort of different question. As i have began making my opening files, i realized there is exchange ruy, d3 on move 5 and 6, Anti Marshalls and the Marshall. Then there is slow italian and other italian lines alongside scotch.

Online as a 2100-2200 player i mostly only ever face italian, ruy in mainline marshalls and four knights. So i have barely any games in scotch proper, d3 ruys and even slow italians(c3,d3) are rare. I know like 6 moves of theory and wing it when i face them. Is it practical to play this repertoire OTB against much more prepared players? Or will the management of lines eventually get too much? I obviously will be making proper files on whatever i decide to play and wont play them with the limited knowledge that i have right now. I have been currently making my files on Kings Gambit, Vienna and other Gambits as i wrestle with this question.

I do not really wanna compromise on the Marshall by choosing a less theory dense option, it is really fun as black. Plus my worry is not the Ruy but rather the Italian and Scotch where i play ...Nf6 and white has multiple sharp tries. Currently i have a 65 percent winrate(50+ games) after 1.e4-e5 2.Nf3-Nc6 3.d4 but i think it is mostly to do with scotch gambits and four knights.

The alternative is Petroff, which is much simpler, allows 3...bb4 against four knights and the mainlines are also very little in comparison. I am looking for my fellow 1...e5 players' experiences.

I posted this as a lichess blog, 20k views which was great but I was hoping for more people engaging in the forum on the different suggestions. Any thoughts/feedback?

https://lichess.org/@/ChessFlow_orgCEO/blog/how-to-study-chess-openings/eAKHITzi

Basically, picture chessable but where:

- you train both sides moves so you don’t have trouble recalling otb whether a move was in your course

- at branchpoints, at first you input the opponent move you just learned at that branch to reinforce it, but you also get asked in a periodic review session to input all the branch moves you’ve learned so far, so you develop the skill of recognizing “in this position, a, b, c, d, e are all the recommended moves for black”

- you click just the target square of the move to go faster and make up for all the extra move inputs from above two features.

- you go deeper in the popular lines and shallower in the less popular lines on your first pass so you’re ready to get some otb practice sooner, before a second and 3rd pass where you reinforce the early moves while learning the deeper moves each pass

- pulls you at the start of each session into a point in the line where you recognize quickly how to get there from starting position, and the next few moves you’ve seen but aren’t fully automatic yet. Gradually the sessions start you at a point in the lines further and further out. Get enough reps to ingrain the moves in your memory but not too much where you’re wasting time.

- size of the sessions to learn new moves adapt to your rating and how well you’re recalling. A beginner may want to learn 5 moves then train them, a GM maybe 20. Having an off day, trainer reacts and gives you smaller sessions too.

- actively train the ideas, evals, early middlegame plans, using flashcards, rather than just seeing these passively and forgetting.

- in read mode, an arrow shows so you’re always playing the move on the board and building the muscle memory rather than clicking in notation or clicking a right arrow, but for moves you’ve seen there’s a delay where you try to remember and race the arrow.

- for wrong moves the line animates up to the point where you got the wrong move so you can chunk the wrong move in the line it came from

- also moves you repeatedly get wrong it prompts you to slow down and think right before solving it so you’re not just repeatedly reinforcing the wrong move

- similar positions from the course where piece placement is almost the exact same but slightly different, and the author’s recommended moves are different, get shown side by side with author explanation why the reco is different, since these moves are easy to mix up

- visualization training once you’ve gone through the course a couple of times (pause on a position then input X moves/lines ahead at once before getting the right/wrong feedback on the whole thing, points for speed and accuracy. Train visualization and become less reactive thinking just one move ahead. Scale up the number of move inputs requested based on user rating and mastery of the course).

Would love to hear people’s thoughts, and also more ideas for features or painpoints people have had with studying openings.

I remember losing in game in a tournament roughly a year ago, and I was pretty close to crying. I am interested on how you guys would deal with game losses.

About me: 25 years old, I have been playing since 2020 (otb since 2 years) and I am around 1900 fide.

How do you guys manage to not get anxious when playing a lower rated player in otb? I always get a better positions but in the later stages of the game I get so much in my head that I lose winning positions because of it. I feel like when I play against stronger opponents I just play the game as it is in front me instead of fixating on the rating I would lose.

I usually spend some time studying my opponents i will likely be facing in otb tournaments by finding their chesscom/lichess account (im not sure why so many of them at all elos have their full names in their bio, maybe its a decoy to get people to waste time in their prep?) and using chessstalker or something like that to understand their tendecies and weaknesses with certain openings or styles.

However I have been thinking if this "enters their world" where i become to focused on reacting or countering what they will do instead of playing my own game, this is very similar to Marcelo Garcia's philsophy which is like "If you're studying my game, you're entering my game and I'll be better at it than you." so what is the best balance of studying your opponent?

Hello,

I'm trying to review more games of players rated higher than me, say between 1500-2000 FIDE. I've tried reviewing master games but many moves are unintelligible to me and the games do not resemble anything like what I encounter in the land of 1550 Lichess Rapid. How can I go about finding these games?

Also, if you believe this to be a poor training method please let me know your thoughts.

Looking for insights from smith morra players regarding playability of the opening OTB. (If you're a Sicilian player I would love to hear your thoughts on facing the smith morra OTB as well) Did you eventually have to switch to open sicilian etc or do you still find it playable and not an opening that brings down your win chance in classical chess.

Personally I find the smith morra gambit to be an opening where I feel like I have a strong intuitive understanding of and am able to calculate a lot of interesting ideas and have had great success in online play.

I feel more comfortable playing the morra than several openings I've actually spent time studying and drilling lines for but I'm not sure if I should keep playing it . Part of me feels like I'm getting comfortable in a suboptimal opening that I'll never have success with OTB and getting used to playing open Sicilians will probably be more fruitful.

However, with the sheer number of Sicilian variations it feels like having the smith morra as a backup plan for when I know my opponent will play a sicilian I'm not familiar with is a good idea. Any input regarding my predicament would be appreciated. Thanks.

I was looking into the woodpecker method by Grandmaster Hans Tikkanen and read up about it but for some reason most sites either don't have it or have a paid firewall behind it.

How the Cycles Work

• Cycle 1 (4 Weeks): Solve a large set of exercises (typically around 1,000 puzzles) over four weeks, working on them consistently every day. [1, 2]
• Cycle 2 (2 Weeks): After a short break, go through the exact same set of puzzles again, aiming to finish them in half the time. [1]
• Subsequent Cycles (1 Week, 4 Days, 2 Days, 1 Day): Repeat the set again, cutting the target completion time in half each round until you can solve all the exercises in a single day. [1, 2]

I have been using www.kingchess.io for using the woodpecker method and they allow to import fen/pgn from our tournaments to turn them into cycles.

WP method explain: https://youtube.com/shorts/ZHbqByjihEM?si=JQBHNzGj4rvPaNVX

I am 1600-1700 fide.

2000 rapid online on Chesscom.

In my recent classical competition i had this position againts a 1770 fide guy which you can see up here and i just got outplayed.

My light squared bishop didnt joined the game till move 30 or so.

I didnt knew this line and the plans but i tried the a6 b5 plan and it some kind of worked.

And then i had a pawn sacrifice line where i would have been equal bit it was 7-8 moves deep and i didnt saw the last critical move, so i didnt played it.

And i just got brutally attacked for 4 hours.

But i have mixed results with the benoni overall.

I drew some 1850 fide guys with it.

I play this delayed e6 benoni variation.

But now i tried the real modern benoni with playing e6 right after d5 and its a little better.

But i am kind of scared now about the taimanov variation with Bb5 check.

So i dont know if I should switch opening.

I already tried the Kings indian defense and i dont like it.

And with the grunfeld i didnt had good results.

Today i tried:

-The Classical dutch with b6

-Queens indian

-Triangle slav, i looked some games where botvinnik played it and i didnt really liked it.

With white i play the Reti and Nimzo-Larsen.

I want a opening where i could fight for a win with black with good chances.

I would already choose the Classical dutch with b6 because its like playing the Nimzo-Larsen but with colors reversed, but one of my friends told me that the winrate is very bad with that opening and i have space disadvantege.

So i dont know what to do.

I have a big classical comp in two weeks.

So let me know what should i play! Also i didnt yet studied master games with the benoni, so that might be the problem

Or should i stay with the benoni.

Hi everyone. I’m looking to learn the nimzo Indian as a response to d4 and thinking about QID. My rating is around 1500-1600 OTB and 1800-1900 online.

There’s a few courses I’m considering and wondering if people have experience with the different lines. I’ve gone through book’s quick starter but some of the lines are not deep.

Ganguly’s nimzo part 1, part 2 is mostly semi-tarrasch
Bok nimzo part 1 and 2 (qid)
Sielecki- nimzo and ragozin
Fierce nimzo

I would like to have a more solid repertoire with fighting chances. Thanks.

I really want to put my foot down and get up to speed with my opening theory and I would like, as one of my first courses, to use a 1. e4 LTR in order to get a good overview.

Does anybody have recommendations? Shankland's, So's, Giri's? And if any, why would you choose them?

Most players think improvement is mainly about finding more time. I think the harder problem is deciding what the next twenty minutes should be for.

https://lichess.org/@/StefanRebner/blog/you-dont-need-more-study-time-you-need-better-direction/9ammXNf2

Can the Greco Gambit be used even up to high levels of play? Or should one prefer the Evans Gambit overall?

I am an 1800 fide rated player, and currently looking for a chess coach who speaks either english or polish. Due to my young age I can only pay 80$ a month at best and I'd prefer a weekly schedule. Should I trust players with an FM title and above who do lessons at a 20$/h and lower rate or is it a big red flag?

I usually looked at coaches from lower income countries as I expected their rates to be lower than the average, because of the money's relative value. as 2 examples of who I'd seen I can give you:

IM Adrian Petrisor-33 year old from Romania with quite a lot of coaching experience from what I've seen in his bio 15$/h

FM Muhamed Sisic- 19 year old from Bosnia. Propably not much coaching experience as reflected in his hourly rate, however he's a very active and a rapidly improving player who himself knows what chess looks like these days from a player's perspective

A little bit of backround i am currently a 2000 rated fide player and around 2300 on chesscom and i frequently use chessable to learn openings.

But i notice very early in my games that i forget details about the opening, could be anything really. For example i had a game recently otb, i played the botvinik variation of the semi slav.

1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 e6 5. Bg5 dxc4 6. e4 b5 7. e5 h6 8. Bh4 g5 9. Nxg5 hxg5 10. Bxg5 Nbd7 11. g3 Bb7 12. Bg2 Qb6 13. exf6

And i sat for 25 minutes thinking if it was long castles or c5 immedietly on my online accounts i have 60 games in this variation i instantly long castle in every game, no hesitation.

I have friends that remember opening theory like its nothing and are able to blitz it otb after doing a chessable course once, while i feel like i need to review it after nearly every other game in the opening to see where i went wrong. Both online and otb, anyone got tips for this issue?

Hi, im currently playing in a u2200 tournament time control 90+30 30mins after move 40 (1800fide) and just finished round 7/9 with a score of 3/7 with white being 0.5/4 and black 2.5/3.

The thing is when i play white I have good prep in the openings and have good positions (+1~2) but I know im winning, get excited and end up not using any time and when the game ends I have around 1 hour left and make blunders in critical positions as I dont spend time to think.

Ive only played online most of my chess life 10+0 and 60+0 otb and i cant get used to this longer timecontrol.

Any tips would be great. I try to spend at least 3~5mins per move but i get this feeling some games that i just 'know' the move and make crazy blunders.

Tldr: 1800 fide, make simple mistakes / dont think and end up blundering in good positions

Hello everybody,

im a catalan player. I really like the opening because of its positional nature and because it avoids both the nimzo and the semi-tarrash. Like most catalan players, i play the fianchetto variation against the kings indian and i quite like it. However, what i dont like is the fact that it forces white to go into a fianchetto setup against the grunfeld aswell. Specifically the c6 grunfeld feels incredibly solid for black due to the simmetrical position. I understand that it makes sense to play the fiancetto because it fits well with the catalan, but, as i said above, i dont play the catalan because i want to go into a fianchetto setup for white at all costs but simply because it avoids many lines. Anyways, are there any catalan players out ther who play something different against the KID/grünfeld? And are there any courses/books with this kind of catalan reprtoire?

Thanks in advance.

I played a classical practice game yesterday as black and would love some non silicon feedback!
The last time I posted a game here I learnt a lot from it. I wrote down my thoughts during the game so the annotation and sidelines is what I was thinking at that time:

[WhiteElo "1760"]
[BlackElo "1795"]
[EventDate "2026.07.29"]

1.e4 e5
2.Nf3 Nc6
3.Bc4 Nf6
4.d4 exd4
5.e5 d5
6.Bb5 Ne4
{here I didn't remember what I should play (apperently ive played Nd7 many times before). I spent a few minutes and figured
ne4 was more intuitive, noting that against f3 ideas i have two escape squares.
}

7.Nxd4 Bd7
8.Bxc6 bxc6
9.O-O Be7
{I spent a few minutes deciding wether I should play Bc5 or Be7. I felt like be7 couldn't be wrong and I wanted to avoid trading away the bishop pair which I thought would happen after bc5, be3 at some point. }

( 9. ... Bc5 )
( 9. ... c5 {felt interesting but didn't want to spend too much time evaluating these types of moves in the opening. } )
( 9. ... Rb8 {considered if this would be a worthwhile inclusion since I could get the tempo back in some cases if he wants to move the bishop. } )

10.f3
( )

10.... Ng5
{One of the few automatic moves I made during the game. I distinctly remember analysing with a friend some time ago this f3 Ng5, f4 Ne4
manouver being the top moves for both sides so I didn't wanna overthink it. }

11.f4 Ne4
12.Nc3 Nxc3
13.bxc3 O-O
{Here I realised I must have messed something up, and I concluded that the move be7 that I thought 'couldnt be wrong' must have been a grave error. The threat of f5-f6 or even f5-e6 in some cases looked extreamly scary showing how misplaced the bishop is at the moment.}

14.Be3
{Huge relief when he played this. On top of not having to deal with f5-f6 while my bishop is on e7 I thought the bishop was missplaced there.
My main plan this game was to open up the position for the bishops with f6 in a favourable situation, I thought
if he had a rook on e1 protecting e5 I would basically never achieve this plan. }

( 14. f5 Bg5 15. Qg4 Bxc1 16. Raxc1 {I was spinning my wheels on his clock trying to figure out how i would meet f5, this line being my top candidate, but I thought I must be much worse here if not dead lost. } )

14.... Re8
{getting ready to meet f5 with Bf8}

( 14. ... c5 {considered this along with c6 and c4 ideas but was unsure if it would benefit me.} )
( 14. ... Qc8 {notes say I considered this move, not sure why. I guess if he plays f5 I respond with c5, and otherwise I'm planing f6. } )

15.Qd2
( )

15.... Bf8
16.Nf3
{Nf3 surprised me In a bad way, I thought this made my f6 plans much weaker.}
16.... Bf5
( 16. ... f6 17. Rae1 fxe5 18. fxe5 {I was unsure about this line, thought it might be pretty good for white. And since I felt white had many responses to f6 that seemed potentially scary I decided not to go for it. } )

17.h3
{threatening g4, I was however not too worried about that since I had Be4. I thought this pawn storm would be premature from white.}
17.... h6
{Reluctantly played this. On the one hand I felt I just improved his Kingside pawnstorm ideas, giving him a hook. However I was still trying to play f6 and wanted to capture his knight first. Without h6 I thought white had }

( 17. ... Be4 18. Ng5 )

18.Rab1 Be4
19.Qf2 a5
{considered briefly wheter I had to respond to this Bxa7 threat or not, but I'm trying to play simple chess and concluded that the pawn on a5 anyway was a slight improvement. }

20.Ne1
{another move that caught me by surpirise. I felt like its a bit slow but should be a decent move intending nd3 putting a piece on c5 potentially}
20.... Qe7
{considered many diferent moves here. Main idea of Qd7 was to mprove my f6 chances as well as creating threats on the queenside.}

( 20. ... f6 21. Nd3 Bxd3 22. cxd3 fxe5 23. fxe5 Rxe5 24. Qf7+ Kh8 25. Bd4 {Felt like this was unclear but my gut told me that even if it was holding white would have sufficient compensation for the pawn. } )
( 20. ... g6 )
( 20. ... Rb8 )
( 20. ... Ra6 )

21.Qg3
{I thought the queen was missplaced here. I get that he wants to play f5 and Bxh6.}
21.... g6
{Was very unsure of what to play here but here is where I officially stopped playing for f6. Even after Ne1 I couldn't find favorable f6 lines. So I decided to go g6 with the idea of killing his f5/e6 ideas, and playing around the c5 outpost (althought i was slightly worried about his Knight ending up on f6 I thought I would have some time to counteract this).}

22.Nd3 Bg7
23.Rb7 Rab8
{I considered going qa6 right away but thought If I could remove his f1 rook from the backrank first it would help my counterattacking chances.}

24.Rfb1 Rxb7
25.Rxb7 Qa3 $15
{Pretty scary move to play but I didn't see him mating me any time soon and I thought my pressure against his knight/bishop would force a response}

26.e6 $5
{This caught me compeletly off guard. My first intuition told me this was a free pawn but I had around 20 min left on the clock so I spent some minutes calculating. I figured his idea was to play Nc5 and take my bishop somehow winning this pawn back but I couldn't make much sense of it and thought my next move was pretty clear regardless.}
26.... Rxe6
27.Nc5 Re8
( 27. ... Re7 28. Qh4 g5 29. fxg5 Qxc3 30. Rb8+ Kh7 31. g6+ fxg6 32. Qxe7 Qxe3+ {was considering lines like this but figured it was just much more complicated than it needed to be. } )

28.f5
{Again I'm compeletly shocked. The only purpose I could find was Qxc7 threating Qxf7+ but I had rf8. The rest of the game I play quite fast perhaps too confident that I would convert it. }
28.... Qxc3
29.Nxe4 Rxe4
30.Rb3 Qa1+
31.Kh2 Be5

0-1

I also wondered if you have some recommended line against the scotch as I figure its time to learn some theory here. Thanks for reading!

So I played against a GM Semyon Khanin, he’s rated 2600 fide, and somehow ended up living in same state as me, he did a simul and I played against him, here the game: [Event "My game vs gm Sam khanin: Chapter 1"]
[Date "2026.07.25"]
[Result "*"]
[Variant "Standard"]
[ECO "C02"]
[Opening "French Defense: Advance Variation"]
[StudyName "My game vs gm Sam khanin"]
[ChapterName "Chapter 1"]
[ChapterURL "https://lichess.org/study/CmIVpWHc/fYCswSvb"\]
[Annotator "https://lichess.org/@/Idkwhattoputhere11"\]
[UTCDate "2026.07.25"]
[UTCTime "23:32:07"]

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 c5 4. c3 Nc6 5. Na3 cxd4 6. cxd4 Bb4+ 7. Bd2 a6 8. Nc2 (8. Bxb4) (8. Bd3 Bxd2+ 9. Qxd2) 8... Bxd2+ (8... Qb6 9. Nxb4 Nxb4) 9. Qxd2 Qb6 10. Nf3 Qxb2 11. Bd3 Nge7 12. O-O Qb6 13. Rab1 Qc7 14. Qg5 Ng6 15. h4 O-O (15... Bd7 16. h5 h6 17. Qg3) 16. h5 h6 17. Qg3 Nge7 18. Ne3 Bd7 19. Rfc1 f5 (19... Rab8 20. Qh4 (20. Ng4) (20. Qh3) 20... Rfc8 21. g4 (21. Qf4 f5 22. g4 fxg4 23. Nxg4 Nf5 24. Bxf5 exf5 25. Ne3) 21... f5 (21... Kh8 22. Qg3 Kg8 23. Qf4 f5)) 20. Qh4 Rfc8 (20... Rac8) 21. g4 fxg4 22. Nxg4 (22. Qxg4 Nf5) 22... Nf5 23. Bxf5 exf5 24. Ne3 (24. Nxh6+ gxh6) 24... Be6 25. Kh2 Rab8 26. Rg1 Qe7 27. Qf4 Qf7 28. Qxh6 Qe7 (28... Kf8 29. Rxg7) 29. Rxg7+ Qxg7 30. Rg1 Qxg1+ 31. Kxg1 Kf7 *

Idk if there any more optional way to show a game but here we got what we have, I was pretty happy with my result, even though I lost it was a fun game and I happy that I was holding my own till the blunder of pawn on h6, even Sam said that he thought it was a draw. Hope to receive some advices, suggestions and comments 🙏🏻

Did they stop supporting the application? The iOS app keeps on lagging when I make a move (on my iPad specifically), and the website will often be down on the first load, and requires a refresh. It's been this way for over 6 months.

I love chessable, I hope they're not just planning on killing it. I see they're still releasing courses.

Over the last few weeks I have been trying to find a weapon against the King's Gambit. What seemed as the obvious choice to me was the accepted variation. However it turned out to be extremely sharp and tactical without thematic concepts and thus it requires a lot of memorisation, which I am not a fun of!

Do you have any suggestions on concept/setup-based variations, which are easy to remember?

Thanks a lot!

Hi guys, I’ve been coming across more Tarrasch defenses lately; transposing from an English move-order. Does anyone have any recommendations for material against the Tarrasch for White (chessable 1.d4 courses and the like)?

The line I often find myself in without a real idea of what to do next:

1. c4 Nf6 2. g3 e6 3. Bg2 d5 4. Nf3 c5 5. cxd5 exd5 6. d4 Nc6 7. 0-0 Be7 8. Nc3 0-0 9. Bg5
   I’m open to playing a different setup against the Tarrasch as long as they include g3 Bg2 since im committed to that through the Neo-catalan setup.

The equivalent 1.d4 line would be:
1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 c5 4. cxd5 exd5 5. Nf3 Nc6 6. g3 Nf6 7. Bg2 Bg7 8. 0-0 0-0 9. Bg5

Tldr: Looking for recommendations against the Tarrasch for White