There’s basically an infinite amount of information available for free or nearly free when it comes to learning about any specific aspect of chess. Especially chess openings, people as a group love books about openings. And used books are “nearly free”.

Part of the “problem” is sorting through so much information and determining what openings will be the best fit for you when you won’t really know what’s best for you until you get there. And even when you think you’ve gotten there you’re not really there, chess goes on forever, and it’s hubris to think you really know anything. You’re always doing the best you can with imperfect knowledge and that’s how it goes.

When I was re-starting the hobby I decided that I wanted to learn the Caro-Kann opening. The thing is, most books aren’t broadly about a selected opening — many or most are “repertoire” books. What that means is that the author has picked out responses to the moves that the opponent could play and that’s the cross-section ideas that the book presents. Often the moves will represent one general approach and they’ll be internally consistent with each other. Mostly.

What I ran into was that two Caro-Kann books each had ideas that agreed with how I wanted to play the opening, but I wound up using 70% of one book and 30% of another specifically because the 70% author decided to throw in a “twist” for one very common series of moves. The thing is, while I do settle on a specific repertoire for each opening I’m much more interested in the concepts behind each one. Knowing the ideas is at least as important as memorizing the move orders themselves. The foundational ideas make the memorization easier, and they give you a backup if you blank on a move during a game.

I’m also learning the Nimzo-Indian, and that’s involved three books because (I think) the writers feel like if they don’t offer something new and novel then they’ll either be accused of copying an earlier idea, or the book won’t sell if it doesn’t offer something “fresh”. The books are all a hodgepodge of “solid” stuff mixed in with somewhat interesting-probably-not-very-accepted novelties. One way I’ll check a line is to go Lichess Opening Explorer and see how that line performs at the master level and around my level. If the line is a dog at both levels I’m going to pick something else that still fits within the framework of stuff I’m comfortable playing. Ideally the line should agree with what my “guys to emulate” (The “Posse”) would play as well.

As I write this, it’s raining and the mail carrier came and went. I just rescued another used/new to me book from the mailbox. It’s a well-regarded book on the Slav opening, and it has an overview of the core ideas and annotated instructive games. At the very least it should help broaden my knowledge of Black’s responses to White queen pawn openings. As of right now I’m using a combination of the Nimzo/Bogo/Queen’s Indian defenses, so the new material might be fun for some casual games to get a feel for it, though at this point I’m enough invested with what I’ve already chosen that I wouldn’t make a permanent change away from that existing group of openings lightly. Additionally- of the nineteen guys in my “Posse” database, only one plays/played the Slav as Black as their primary opening. For the other 2/3rds it’s primarily Nimzo.

So hopefully I’m on the right track.

When I was a young basketball player I tried to copy the style of Kareem Abdul Jabbar. After a while I developed a very passable version of his Sky Hook.

When it became clear I wasn’t going to grow to be over seven feet tall I changed the guy I was copying to Vinnie “The Microwave” Johnson. Vinnie is best remembered as the first guard off the bench for the Bad Boy Pistons of the early 1990’s. He was exciting and he could score in bunches from all over the place, hence the nickname “The Microwave”. He wasn’t much of a three-point shooter but he didn’t let that stop him. And that’s how I made the transition from “big” to “guard”, by copying a guy who was stylistically nothing like Kareem. A whole lot more of my practice time went into shooting jump shots and ball handling rather than Sky Hooks.

I think there are many times in life when learning how to do something that it’s helpful to find someone who’s good at that thing and try to emulate how they do it. It could be any activity from basketball to baking bread. When searching for a model to emulate I need to see their style as attractive and/or efficient, and it should be a style I think I can potentially copy reasonably closely, even if my version is pitched at a lower level.

When playing chess I’ve decided that I play best as a quieter positional player, rather than a player who’s more focused on fireworks and tactics. As a teenager – emphasizing tactics, deep calculation, and using memorization-dependent openings was a realistic way to play. As an adult With Things To Do I’m much happier squeezing opponents positionally until they crack.

In light of that, I used SCID vs PC to make a White database and a Black database for the players I’ve decided I want to try to emulate. I don’t think it’s a perfect list, but it does allow me to go to the Tree Window in SCID, look up a specific position, and see how it was played by my group of model grandmasters. The model grandmaster list is below, with a little (partially AI generated, then edited by me) blurb that describes a bit about how each one plays.

I’m sure I’ll add/remove guys from the list over time. But for now it’s enough total players, both old and new, that it should cover most situations I’m likely to run across over the board. It’s also enough of a sample size for Wisdom Of The Crowds to kick in. My nickname for the group is “The Posse”. As in: “Let’s see what The Posse has to say about this position”. I think the name is fun and irreverent, so there it is:

They all play differently. You could (correctly) say that some play very differently from others. But if I can play like a poor-man’s amalgamation of that group with any consistency I’ll be pretty happy with it. To date I’d mostly been “following” Adams, Karpov, and Tiviakov as models. I recently added Capablanca. Those four guys will be the tie-breakers when there’s a difference of opinions in the databases.

None of this is anything I could have conceived of as a teenager. It’s pretty neat that these tools exist now.

In conclusion, a picture of Vinnie because Vinnie deserves some love too. Here he is beating Danny Ainge off the dibble: