Excellent article. I know that I do not know my openings well enough when I start asking myself (during a real game) what if he does this or that move, followed by a minor panic attack! I usually put a small dot near the move number so that I can fill that gap when I go home. This is a more systemic way of 'filling the gaps'! Thanks.
This is an excellent resource and recommendation. My resistance to the exercise, besides being a beginner who ought not spend so much time on openings, is that during that 30 min, I am not "learning." Of course, this is not really true. In my mind I've equated learning with content consumption.
I'm reminded of the empty bar drills a weightlifting coach used to make me do. Practice the bar path, feel all the subtle shifts and movements.
The blank slate drill is similar. Work through the movements and find where it's smooth, and where it isn't t.
Hi Nate! I've tried this approach several times, but the problem for me is that it feels like too much material to cover and if I try to drill down into more narrow variations, it becomes too specialised and then I start to lose motivation -- I ask myself: are those potential moves going to really happen in my game any time soon?
For example, yesterday I decided to give it another go and started a new chapter in my "Blank Slate" study called "Kalashnikov Sicilian". There, immediately after move 4...e5, there are 6 potential knight retreats. Only one of them is the main line, but some others happen often in amateur games. I started to dig deeper in the mainline and in some variations, but there is a lot to cover that I partially remember (after all there are full courses and books on Kalashnikov!) and many potential opponent's moves -- the position is not too forcing. So I started annotating and leaving TODOs in my file, but then it quickly starts to feel overwhelming as I described above.
Any suggestions how to deal with that? I assume I should just tackle something more narrow in those 30-minute sessions...
Basically, the summary of my problem is this: the variation tree becomes huge very soon if explored diligently, and if I start to focus on narrow variations, it doesn't feel like I am doing something useful because likely I won't see those exact moves for years. And it's not easy to find the right balance.
Excellent article. I know that I do not know my openings well enough when I start asking myself (during a real game) what if he does this or that move, followed by a minor panic attack! I usually put a small dot near the move number so that I can fill that gap when I go home. This is a more systemic way of 'filling the gaps'! Thanks.
Exactly! It’s better if you can fill those gaps before the game!
This is a great read.. thank you very much.
This is an excellent resource and recommendation. My resistance to the exercise, besides being a beginner who ought not spend so much time on openings, is that during that 30 min, I am not "learning." Of course, this is not really true. In my mind I've equated learning with content consumption.
I'm reminded of the empty bar drills a weightlifting coach used to make me do. Practice the bar path, feel all the subtle shifts and movements.
The blank slate drill is similar. Work through the movements and find where it's smooth, and where it isn't t.
Hi Nate! I've tried this approach several times, but the problem for me is that it feels like too much material to cover and if I try to drill down into more narrow variations, it becomes too specialised and then I start to lose motivation -- I ask myself: are those potential moves going to really happen in my game any time soon?
For example, yesterday I decided to give it another go and started a new chapter in my "Blank Slate" study called "Kalashnikov Sicilian". There, immediately after move 4...e5, there are 6 potential knight retreats. Only one of them is the main line, but some others happen often in amateur games. I started to dig deeper in the mainline and in some variations, but there is a lot to cover that I partially remember (after all there are full courses and books on Kalashnikov!) and many potential opponent's moves -- the position is not too forcing. So I started annotating and leaving TODOs in my file, but then it quickly starts to feel overwhelming as I described above.
Any suggestions how to deal with that? I assume I should just tackle something more narrow in those 30-minute sessions...
Basically, the summary of my problem is this: the variation tree becomes huge very soon if explored diligently, and if I start to focus on narrow variations, it doesn't feel like I am doing something useful because likely I won't see those exact moves for years. And it's not easy to find the right balance.
Thank you!