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:
This sounds like a great approach, - thank you for sharing! It would be great if videos from "live course" later became available on Chessable as separate "how to learn the opening" course. I bet many ppl (including me) would be interested in it. Thanks,
while I agree with the motivating arguments toward memory lasting experience, I think on variable might be not considered and that is the whole day cycle, of the number of blitz games ones brain has been exposed to. The time control actually does not matter, here. It might be the amount of information per day without having slept on it.. for the longer term memory processes...
just a thought that while blitz time pressure might highten the sense there are slower cognitive process (or different time scales) about learning that the pace of many such games might interfere with the specificity of the learnable from the board. otherwise I agree..
Also, another possibly hidden, aspect or thesis of mine, is that learned long lines as knowledge, might tend to make us not experience the tactical noise that our big stupid brain still need (a la A0 zero knowledge attitude) to see, to build its coginitive map of chess to be emerging as logical intuitoin...etc.. but that needs work.. just I find I have been lacking such silly experience in opening phase, and have started wondering if without the stress of time controls I could not use the fast chess of the explorer, but there is little fun in visiting others zero knowledge adventures (that time control being faster and fasted might make one nearer to). So I find you might have good points, but maybe blitz is not necessary. one could deliberately do minigame exercises with various deliberate goals... to attain the same motivation and experience. well. A component. One might not need to do full games.. I guess I am talking about more than official game chess study here.. sorry. to barge in. Or maybe this is a question, are there ways to get the positive points without the need to do full games all the time.. and submit one self to time stess.. could we not tie the floating boundary value problem tighter in phases of interest. like endgame studies but about opening positoin types. .because our human vision or horixzon limitations is the same limtiation whatever phase we are in anyway.. to get the same learning clarity as in endgames about the tactics of openigns I mean.. or to separate with clarity in opening what are stategic componeints or issues from what are tactical. most olf the opening theory knowledge often used for the full games scope, makes us avoid the tactical issues mingling or tangled with the opening foresight learner problem.