How I Use Blitz to Refine My Openings

If I had to describe my philosophy for learning an opening in one sentence, it would be, “Learn by playing.”

I’ve never had much success memorizing a bunch of lines before playing. This process doesn’t work for me, and based on my students’ experiences, it doesn’t work for most people.

Instead, I learn the bare minimum needed to start playing the opening in online blitz games, and then I update my repertoire one move at a time based on what I encounter. This approach has several advantages:

• More fun: I prefer playing games to memorizing random lines.

• More relevant: I know the lines I learn are relevant at my level, because I’ve faced them in actual games.

• More memorable: I’m much more likely to remember the line in an OTB game if I faced it in blitz and updated my repertoire accordingly, than if I just looked at it in a course or book.

That’s the basic idea, but there are still some finer points when it comes to putting it into practice, so let me show you a concrete example from my games.

In this Nimzowitsch Sicilian position, the theoretical line is 10. Qe4+ Be6 11. Qh4, defending the pawn on f2. White remains a pawn up, but Black has more active pieces and generally does fine here.

In a blitz game, my opponent played 10. Bc4, developing a bishop and threatening Qxf7+. I responded with the seemingly natural 10… Be6, but got hit with 11. d7+ and realized I can’t capture the pawn without allowing Qxf7+. I was forced to move my king, but losing castling rights along with the advanced passed pawn on d7 gave my opponent a big advantage.

When reviewing the game, I saw that the engine believes 10… Bxf2+ is the best move by a large margin. In general I follow the one move rule for updating my repertoire: I learn up to the first move I would have played differently. So I could just enter 10… Bxf2+ into my file and be done. But it’s also critically important to understand the moves, and Bxf2 doesn’t answer the question of how Black is going to defend f7, so I explored a bit deeper.

After 10… Bxf2+ 11. Kf1, the computer wants to defend f7 with 11… 0-0. But doesn’t this allow White to trap the bishop with 12. d7? No, because Black simply takes with 12… Bxd7, and if White plays 13. Qxd7 Rad8 the rook is coming to d1 with a skewer picking up the rook on h1.

In a case like this where the first move only makes sense in light of a specific follow-up, I enter the whole variation into my file, along with arrows and explanations that help me remember the reasons for the moves.

At this point, having found the first move I would play differently and understood the logic behind it, I was done updating my file for this game.

Fast forward to an OTB game where I get the same position on the board. Naturally, having gone through the process of updating my file (and subsequently playing the improved line in other blitz games), I remembered my preparation and played 10… Bxf2+ 11. Kf1 0-0. Now my opponent played a move I hadn’t seen before, 12. Ng5.

I responded with 12… Be6, blocking the attack on f7 and offering a trade. I like the idea behind this move. Black hits the gas pedal on development, even at the cost of giving a pawn with check. If White takes, the rook will be lined up with White’s king on the f-file.

This is good logic, but while Be6 keeps a big advantage, it’s not the best move. I could have more or less won on the spot with 12… Bh4. Mate on f2 is threatened, and it turns out White has no good defense. For example, 13. g3 Bxg5 14. Bxg5 Bh3+ 15. Ke1 Rae8+ 16. Kd1 Re5 17. Qd2 Qxb2 with unstoppable threats of Qxa1 or Bg4.

If you want to see the analysis of White’s other defensive tries, I have a YouTube video where I analyze the whole game in more detail.

Of course, after this game, 12… Bh4 went into the file, so the next time someone plays 12. Ng5 against me, I’ll be able to win with much less sweat. And that’s the process: each game, we learn a little more.

If you made it this far, you might be interested in a live course I’m offering starting next week, where we’ll go through this process in much more detail while learning the Semi-Slav for Black. If you’re interested, here’s the link to learn more and sign up: