hardcore pawnography

awhile ago, over at Mark Weeks’ about chess forums, there was a thread about “wouldn’t it be cool if you could hear what a GM is thinking as he is playing.” well, someone posted a link to youtube that shows GM Henrik Danielsen commenting on his games while he’s playing blitz chess. the link is here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/krakkaskak

on some the sound is not great, on others it is. it pretty much rocks…

it’s saturday, i’m gonna ride my bike, study some chess, clean a house, and hang out.

anyone reading this, i hope you have a great weekend.

yesterday, proust would have been proud. i was gonna do all those things, had a big agenda lined up. i didn’t do anything. i laid around all day. i’m turning into my cat. i go from room to room, sleeping and laying on everything. i got out of bed, went to the couch, and slept. i did study a few games from the keres book though. i felt guilty about laying around, so i made madelines

today at work, i think the spaceship landed outside the mall and they all came into our store. we had some wierd folks today, musta been the full moon. after a day of this, i came home to play some relaxing chess.

yeah. relaxing.

playing on ICC, i’m playing an unrated game, my mouse slips, i ask for a takeback. it was obvious my mouse slipped, he moved a pawn to my knight and i didn’t move the knight, i moved a pawn. the fag declined, and later during the game said “i don’t give takebacks, especially during unrated games. it slows the game down.” yeah, cause a 5 minute game takes so much time, and a takeback just adds what, another few hours onto that? fucktard. it wasn’t rated, so no big deal, but, cmon…

anyway, thanks to keres, i now answer 1d4 with 1….e6. it’s pretty cool. i did it in the next game i played.

guy is internet rated 1500 or so, i’m a lowly 1100.  he starts with the standard 1d4 2 c4, perhaps expecting a gruenfeld or nizmo indian (i still heart the nimzo indian) but i answer with 1…e6 and on 2…i check him with the bishop at b4.  he blocks with his, and we trade. i’m feeling feisty and slightly pissed at the no talent assclown who wouldn’t let me take back an obvious mouse slip, so i am out for blood. not any blood, but pure, fresh, chess blood.   i go into HARDCORE mode.

he retakes with the queen, so i bring my knight to f6, developing and threatening the queen. he will have to either move his queen, i gain temp, or bring out his knight, which is what he does. this is kinda cool, i am directing the game, forcing him to respond to MY moves. that’s right, bitch, *I’M* the master and you’re the slave, you dance to my tune.

i castle and we lock up the middle in a wierd, psuedo, reverse french kinda way. he brings his bishop to d3, but with the pawn gridlocked and stuck on e4 like a hummer in manhattan, his bishop aint going anywhere, so it’s no threat yet. i move the knight to g4 to give me some room, he attacks with h3, so i move the knight back. we both bring out other knights out, and then on teh 11th move, he moves b4. i don’t see the reason for this, to me it’s a wasted move. i move the knight to h5, on it’s way to f4, and he moves g4. clearly he has not read my system by nimzo, bitch!, he just weakened his castle for no reason. we move some pieces around, i kinda miss a cool tactic that would result in a nice knight trade, but i set up a pretty cool tactic on moves 25 -27 to win a queen. he is smart, he doesn’t’ fall for it. on move 29 he advances his pawn to f6, threatening my queen, but this is good for me. i take the pawn, and i am in a nice position to get a pawn or more, so he resigns.

the game is here if you wanna play through it.

1. d4 e6 2. c4 Bb4+ 3. Bd2 Bxd2+ 4. Qxd2 Nf6 5. Nc3 O-O
6. e4 e5 7. d5 d6 8. Bd3 Ng4 9. h3 Nf6 10. Nge2 Nbd7
11. b4 Nh5 12. g4 Nf4 13. Nxf4 exf4 14. Qxf4 Ne5 15. Be2 f5
16. exf5 Qf6 17. Kd2 g5 18. Qg3 c6 19. Ne4 Qe7 20. f4 cxd5
21. cxd5 Nd7 22. Nxg5 Re8 23. Ne6 Nb6 24. Qb3 Bxe6 25. dxe6 d5
26. Bd3 Rad8 27. Rhe1 Nc4+ 28. Kd1 b5 29. f6 Qxf6
0-1
i liked this game. i think i threw him off with the first 2 moves. it wasn’t as violent or action packed as an arnold schwarzenegger movie (not counting twins or kindergarten cop) or burma right now, but it was fun to play.

i don’t work today, so today i shall ride my bike and study chess. not at the same time.

been going over keres’ games this morning, i’ll take a break and ride this afternoon, then back to the games.

if i were going to print a book of games, i would split the book. the first half would be all the games where white wins, the second would be all the games where black wins. this way, i can just concentrate on one side’s moves. right now, i’m going through keres’ book, i’m only going through his black games. then i will start from the beginning of the book and go through his white games.

i’m slowly starting to be able to predict what move he will play next, but i’m nothing close to the artist formerly known as Dutch Defense with his 100 million games in a row streak…

another thing i will be doing, and i have wang to thank cause he showed me this when we metat the tucson tourney, is i will do tactical study, but i will write down the moves, mine and the opponent’s moves. writing down the moves causes me to really think and look and mentally figure it out, which is what you have to do OTB, so it trains my mind that way. and writing stuff down reinforces. for me anyway. kinda like wahrheit is doing with his flash cards.

i am a bit concerned that if i cram and study, i will only burn out my mind and i’ll show up at reno with a jelly brain, more so than normal. on the other hand, chess for me is like a language, if i don’t’ use it, i lose it. so there is that.

ok, i’ll look at a few more games, then hit the mountain, then back for more games….

first off, thanks Cheng for the analysis of my games.  the comments you made definately helped.

anyone else, please feel free to send me criticisms on my games, or just drop me a line to say hi.

so, you know who is really good at the chess game?  that paul keres fella.

i’m going through the books i have to see how grandmasters played the french, (sadly, not too many grob games in any of the books.  actually, none.  that’s gonna change when i become a freakin master playing the grob in all the tournaments) in hopes of learning the right way to go about it.  i was going through his book, “paul keres: the road to the top” and seeing what he did with the french, and i learned something pretty cool, which i am sure everyone else knows, and is like “well, duh!” but it’s new to me, so i am all excited:  you can answer 1d4 with 1….e6 and force a french,  like a highschool boy forces his tongue into his girlfriend’s mouth (forcing a french. get it?).    how cool is that?!?!?!  guy wants to play a queen’s pawn game, perhaps expecting Nf6 and you hit him with e6.  he plays d4, thinking you’ve recently suffered some blunt trauma to the head, you bring out the bishop and check his ass like a hockey player checking someone into the boards.  not so tough are you now, mr queen’s pawn opening, are ya?

anyway, i honestly don’t’ know too much about keres, but that guy can play.  he has some style, and plays with some elegant violence.   that’s the kind of chess player i want to be.  i want to learn to play with artistic brutality and leave my opponent bleeding, crying, and yet thinking “that was the most beautiful ass kicking i have ever received, and i am thankful for it.”

also, there is this really cool attacking sequence for white that involves an awesome bishop sac, and damn, i love to sac pieces.  i’m like some crazy despot dictator general sending his boys off to die.   it involves a the white knight on f3, the h pawn on h4, and sacing the bishop with Bxh7+.  leaves a bloody mess on the board and white down a few pieces but with a strong attack.   again, probably old hat to everyone, but new to me.

i’m getting pretty damn excited about the reno chess tourny.   thing is, i went and got a part time job, so i can’t be locked in a room studying chess all day like i had planned.  i think about chess during the day, but it’s not the same as when i sit at the board and move the pieces around.

ok, enough typing, back to the studying…

i love the blitz chess. i suck like a chest wound at it, but i love it none the less. it’s perfect for my short attention span.

in a two hour game, or even in a 30 minute game, there is too much time to think. my thoughts during a long game go something like this:

if i move my bishop, he will have to move his knight. but where would he go? hmm, maybe i should leave the bishop and move a pawn? do i want the tension in this position or not, what did that book say? damn i hope i win this. so what if i lose though? i wonder what i’m gonna eat for dinner, perhaps chinese food. i wonder if they call it “chinese food” in china, or do they just call it food? i need to rent some jackie chan movies. that kid in 7th grade was a jerk, i wonder what he is doing now? oh crap i just wasted 10 minutes, i wonder what piece i should move? damn, i suck, i should just quit now. fuck it, i’ll move my rook.

there is just too much time to analyze, think, second guess myself. in blitz, its 98% gut reaction, 1% rote memory moves, 1% blind “i wonder if this will work?” moves. for me anyway.

the other thing i love about blitz is i can try out new things a few times in a short period of time. i can play a few 5 minute games and get a certain opening tweaked, get the moves into “muscle memory.” with a long game, i play one game, maybe two, i’m done, and whatever i did in the opening is long forgotten.

the only problem with blitz games is they can reinforce bad moves. and blitz doesn’t help you build up the stamina needed for long games of concentration. there are probably some other down sides to blitz, but it’s just so damn fun. in 30 minutes, i can play 5 games. that’s 5 games of experience. i don’t know about the quality of experience, but it’s4 games more than if i played a long game.

all that said, i really really should play longer games. but online, i have a tendency to surf the web waiting for the other guy to move, instead of looking at the board and analyzing. again with the short attention span.

at the suggestion of samurai pawn, here are some games of mine that i think i had a winning position and i lost. these are all losing games, so, which ever side loses, that is me. everyone reading is more than invited to point out where i went wrong. please do so, i’d like to know. you can copy and paste in your favorite PGN viewer.

in this game, i gave away my bishop on 24 by mistake, which was the obvious death knell, but i think i messed up before that.

1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 f6 3. c4 e6 4. Nc3 c6 5. c5 b5
6. e3 Qd7 7. Be2 g5 8. Nd2 Ne7 9. Bh5+ Ng6 10. h4 Be7
11. hxg5 fxg5 12. Bxg6+ Kd8 13. Nf3 Kc7 14. Ne5 Qd8 15. Nf7 Qg8
16. Bh5 h6 17. Nxh8 Qxh8 18. Qf3 Bb7 19. Qg3+ Kd7 20. a4 b4
21. Na2 a5 22. e4 Qxd4 23. f3 Qxc5 24. Be3 Qxe3+ 25. Kf1 Ba6#
0-1
1. d4 Nf6 2. Bf4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. Nb5 Na6 5. a3 O-O
6. Bg5 c6 7. Nc3 d5 8. e3 Ne4 9. Nxe4 dxe4 10. h3 f6
11. Bf4 g5 12. Bh2 e5 13. c3 c5 14. Qc2 f5 15. O-O-O c4
16. dxe5 Nc5 17. Rxd8 Rxd8 18. Bxc4+ Kf8 19. h4 Bd7 20. hxg5 Ba4
21. b3 b5 22. bxa4 bxc4 23. Bg3 Nb3+ 24. Kb1 Rab8 25. e6 Nd4+
26. Kc1 Nb3+ 27. Kb1 Nd2+ 28. Ka2 Nf1 29. Qc1 Rd2+ 30. Ka1 Bxc3+
31. Qxc3 Rd1+ 32. Ka2 Rbb1 33. Qh8+ Ke7 34. Qxh7+ Ke8 35. Qh8+ Ke7
36. Rh7+ Kxe6 37. Qe5#
1-0

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 exd5 4. Nf3 Be7 5. Bd3 Nf6
6. O-O O-O 7. Nc3 Bg4 8. h3 Bxf3 9. Qxf3 Nc6 10. Be3 Ne4
11. Bxe4 dxe4 12. Nxe4 f5 13. Ng3 Bf6 14. c3 Bh4 15. Ne2 f4
16. Bxf4 Bg5 17. g3 Bxf4 18. Nxf4 Rf6 19. Qd5+ Kh8 20. Ne6 Qe7
21. Rae1 Rh6 22. Nc5 Qf6 23. Qe6 Qf8 24. Qg4 Rg6 25. Qh5 Qd8
26. Ne6 Qd7 27. Nc5 Qd6 28. Nxb7 Rxg3+ 29. fxg3 Qxg3+ 30. Kh1 g6
31. Qf3 Qh4 32. Qf6+ Qxf6 33. Rxf6 a5 34. Rxc6
1-0
1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 c5 4. c3 Nf6 5. Bd3 cxd4
6. cxd4 Bb4 7. Nf3 dxe4 8. Qa4+ Nc6 9. Bb5 Bxd2+ 10. Nxd2 Bd7
11. O-O O-O 12. Re1 e3 13. fxe3 Qc7 14. Nf3 a6 15. Bd3 b5
16. Qc2 g6 17. Bd2 e5 18. dxe5 Nxe5 19. Qxc7 Nxf3+ 20. gxf3 Rac8
21. Qd6 Rc6 22. Qd4 Bh3 23. Rac1
1-0

it’s a beautiful sunny day here in fruita, colorado…today i gotta go to work…but that’s cool, i enjoy it, it’s fun.

i was in the bookstore and saw Kings Gambit - a son, a father, and the world’s most dangerous game by Paul Hoffman….so i bought it and it looks pretty good, it’s about the crazy obsessiveness in chess players…

i wish i were more obsessive.   i find that i have a really short attention span, so i sit down to study and a few minutes later i am up and doing something else…this can’t happen. occasionally, i get into a game and the world around me ceases to exist, it’s just the game.  i need my brain to be more focused like that more often.  i wish it could be like the matrix, and i could say “teach me chess” and i could get plugged in, and me and morpheus would be in a chess tournament hall, playing bad ass chess and breaking stuff while some hard techno played in the background and when the program was over, i would know every line in the french, the sicilian, and the queens pawn openings…

last night i was playing online, lost every game. some of them i had a winning game and the game just went sour.  tonight i will review those games and try to find where i went wrong.

tomorrow i plan on overloading my mind with the cheese eating surrender monkey defense, i.e. french defense…. so help me god, i am going to *KNOW* the french defense. i used to not like it, i used to think it was weak and boring, but it’s not.  it leads to some devious play, and even if white does everything correct, he can still lose. as black, i like that.

every day must involve serious study from now until the tournament…the pressure is on, and i kinda like it.

if you are reading this, have a great weekend…

yarrr mateys, to be honorin’ “talk like a pirate day” i’ll be postin like this…

this morning i was goin throu the leningrad interzonal 1973, i be lookin at the “cheese eating surrender monkey’s defense”, what ye be callin “the french.” the scurvy knaves played lots of sicilian and english at that event, but a few brave souls played the french. the game i looked closely at was estevez-korchnoi. estevez walked the plank on that one, ended up in davy jones’ locker. thing about the games i saw was white, on move 3, all played the knight to d2….to me, this be strange, yarrr……

i be enjoyin the booklet, as it came as free booty when i plundered, err, ordered a book from the hearty matey’s at labate’s chess….yarr, they be good folk…a port i’d seek out in a chess storm…

enough of this slackin, i have to be out plunderin at the kitchen gadget market in the mall…

yo ho ho and a bottle of rum…..

first off, R.I.P. Brett Somers.

story is HERE

so i’m going to the tournament in reno in just over three weeks. am i ready? nope.

i have mixed feelings, and i’m filled with self doubt on one hand, and filled with blind overestimation of my abilities and optimism on the other foot. i entered the 1300 - 1400 section, thinking, my rating is just under 1200. if i play in the 1200’s and lose, my ratings will plummet, and i don’t’ care about chess, just the ratings (smell that? that is sarcasm. nothing int he world smells like that…) but if i enter the 1300 - 1400, if i win, my ratings will go up and if i lose, well, i shouldn’t go down that far. i also, somewhere deep inside me, believe i am better than a 1300 rating, even though i consistently lose to 1100’s.

i think i will have a chance playing the grob, it seems to throw people off for some reason.

here are two quick games, i am white in both.

1. g4 e6 2. h3 d6 3. Bg2 c6 4. d4 Na6 5. Nf3 Nc7
6. c4 g6 7. Bg5 f6 8. Bf4 Bg7 9. Qd2 Ne7 10. Nc3 O-O
11. Bh6 Bd7 12. Bxg7 Kxg7 13. h4 Be8 14. h5 g5 15. Ne4 d5
16. Nexg5 fxg5 17. Qxg5+ Kh8 18. h6 Rg8 19. Qf6+ Rg7 20. Qxg7#
1-0

1. g4 e5 2. h3 d6 3. Bg2 Bd7 4. Bxb7 Be7 5. Bxa8 Bc6
6. Bxc6+ Nxc6 7. Nc3 Nd4 8. e3 Ne6 9. Nf3 Nf6 10. e4 O-O
11. h4 Kh8 12. d3 Ng8 13. Ng5 Nxg5 14. hxg5 Bxg5 15. Nd5 Bxc1
16. Qxc1 Qg5 17. Qxg5 f6 18. Qh4 h6 19. Ne3 g5 20. Qh5 Kg7
21. Nf5+ Kh8 22. Ne7 Rf7 23. Qxf7 Nxe7 24. Rxh6#
1-0

both grob games, both wins. i gotta try it at the tournament.

i’ve been losing, but online i only play blitz. i can count at least two losses where, after i made the move, i saw that it was wrong, and had i just looked for 10 seconds longer, i would have seen the move. so i think, possibly wrongly, that i am stronger over the board playing in a 2 hour game then on the computer playing 5 minute games while looking at porn waiting for the other guy to move.

i still retain that naive belief that i can just waltz on into the chess world and play well and win. if i can keep that optimistic confidence, i think i will do ok. also, if i would just pay attention to the master games i am going over, if i could remember the pawn stuff i read in “my system” and if i can just play good solid moves, not attack with nothing behind it, look for tactical moves for me and my opponent, i should be ok.

but am i ready?

i got bit by a black widow.  i accidentally  tipped over her husband’s casket at the funeral, and she freaked out and attacked me….

so it’s saturday.  i just rode 22 miles on the road bike, which honestly isn’t that much, but i feel it in my legs.  i am way out of shape.  the loop i did is nice, a bit of a headwind for the first half, but on reletively flat road with a good surface, not too much climbing, great last half, scenery, nice road conditions.  good loop, good ride.

i am still eating turkey.   two days ago i made a caponata and put it all over the turkey, last night i just heated it up and put mustard on it,  today maybe i’ll make an olive tapenade and drown the turkey in that….

oh, hey, this is a chess blog, i gotta talk about chess….

i won a game on icc, after losing about 20.   i looked for wango and blunderprone last night, they were not on.  i cant figure out how to find them if they are not online.

this morning before i went for a ride, i hit the chess tactics server, i’m still only at about 72% correct and my rating is only 1450.  today, for chess study,  i will read some “my system” and “rethinking the chess pieces” and i will go over some of petrosian’s games from his “petrosian vs. the elite.”  i also have the paul keres: the road to the top, which i haven’t even looked at yet.  so there is that…

ahhh, saturday….i love saturday….

if you need chess books or chess stuff, may i recommend: Labate Chess.

they are awesome and have lots of books and stuff that i’ve never seen before.

i swear i wouldn’t buy any new books. i don’t need any new books. why don’t i just read the ones i have and study them? if i only learned from the books i have now i would be a few thousand points higher in ratings…

yeah, well, i went and bought “rethinking the chess pieces” by soltis. i don’t read the books actually, i glance through them, see what’s interesting, i use my books like a tasting buffet, a bit from here, a bit from there. it’s my short attention span.

ok, now that i think about it, i’m not sure if it was that book or the petrosian book i’m going through. crap, it may have been “my system” but i don’t think so. ANYWAY, i was browsing through one of those books and there is this cool sac exchange that apparently used to be used quite frequently by the russians and has fallen out of favor. it is rook x the knight on c6. most people would be appalled at trading a castle for a horse, but this fucks up the pawn structure and causes chaos and apparently is a pretty strong move. i think i tried it against the computer or online and it worked ok for me.

dammit, now i can’t find that damn move.

anyway, in rethinking the pieces, soltis gives a few reasons when to make an exchange sacrifice:

1. when it substantially changes the impact of the minor pieces

2. when the rooks can’t behave like rooks (too much debris and traffic on the board, rooks cant use the board like a giant slip n’ slide)

3. when there are several minor pieces on the board

4. when it inflicts significant pawn damage (note: aha! it was in this book, in the last chapter. rook takes knight, which apparently is pretty sound in some circumstances, usually in the sicilian)

5. when it gains the two bishops

so anyway, rethinking the pieces is a pretty cool book, i’m glad i got it, even though i probably don’t need it. it does help me “rethink” the personality of the pieces, the potential of the pieces, the capabilities of them. and i learned that in the Sicilian Dragon, you can take out the knight with your rook and it’s not always wrong….

i can’t buy capers in my little town. i asked for them, the guy thought i said “papers.” i took those little green berries for granted, but now that i want them to make caponata and tapenade, i have to drive to “the big city” 8 miles away to get them. gives me a reason to leave my house i guess.

so i joined the ICC for a year. it uses the dasher system, just like world chess, but it has more people on it and it only shows GMs and IMs playing games, i can’t watch two 800s blunder through a game to see who makes the least amount of mistakes.

i thought i was playing the french, i intended on it, but it turned out i played some kind of sicilian variation.

i’ve been reading “my system” by nimzo, bitch, and he was talking all about pawn chains and passed pawns and such, and during the game, i was thinking of what he said as i marched my two pawns up the g and h aisle of destiny there at the end.

the guy started the game off with trading bishops. fag. i just don’t see the reason for this, especially as he is white and might need that bishop to attack or something (lookit me, talking about not sacing a piece). my knights find nice outposts on e and d 4, which make him trade off nights. on move 14, i think tactically for him, and see that my queen can be pinned with a discovered check, so i move my king out of the way, and sure enough, he moves his bishop. again thinking about “his system”, nimzo talks about blockading pawns, and i blockade his e pawn with my queen. he doesn’t have a knight to move her, so she is pretty safe. also, he has one lone castle out there in the middle of the battlefield. sucker.

starting on move 16, i let loose my pawns, thing 1 and thing 2, and they walk hand in hand through his house up the board, harassing his bishop. he takes a pawn with his rook so i will take his rook and he can take mine with his bishop, leaving his bishop on d4. this is how it looks from my point of view, i’m black.

do you see the move? see what i did?

i knew, or at least counted on, if i advanced my h pawn, he would advance his g pawn to lock shit up. which is excellent, cause then i either win a bishop and probably a rook or the game.

i won the game.  he never even moved his queen or his queen’s rook.

here is the game. if you wanna see it played, copy and paste. again, i am playing black.

1. e4 e6 2. c4 c5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Nf3 d5 5. cxd5 exd5
6. Bb5+ Bd7 7. Bxd7+ Qxd7 8. e5 Ne4 9. O-O Nc6 10. Re1 O-O-O
11. Nxe4 dxe4 12. Rxe4 Nd4 13. Nxd4 cxd4 14. d3 Kb8 15. Bf4 Qe6
16. a3 h6 17. b4 g5 18. Bg3 h5 19. f4 h4 20. Bf2 g4
21. Rxd4 Rxd4 22. Bxd4 h3 23. g3 Qd5 24. Bf2 Qg2#
0-1

woo hoo!  i got me the internet.

i’ve successfully moved me, my house goods, and retardo montalban my pot smoking emo cat, to fruita colorado.   i’ve been unpacking boxes, getting the house set up, and riding my mountain bike like crazy (which is the main reason i bought a house here a year ago, to ride my mountainbike.  i hadn’t gotten into chess at the time.)

i’ve been studying, but not as much as i’d like to have been.  been playing through petrosian’s games, been reading “my system” by nizmowitsch, which kicks ass and i wish i had read it when i first got into chess.   haven’t studied up on the grob though, i gotta do that, i really want to use it in the tournament in october.  and since i’ve gotten some links and e-book sent to me on the grob, i have no reason not to (thank you dutchdefense and takchess for your help).

i’ve been eating lots of turkey.  i had a leftover frozen turkey that a guy gave me last thanksgiving, when i left my house, my wife said i should take it with me, as she couldn’t keep it with her (she is still in arizona until the end of the month, finishing up her contract) so i got here and made the most splendid, juicy, wonderful thanksgiving turkey.  20 pounds of it.  for just me.  mmmmm.  turkey.  lunch and dinner.  until it’s gone.  yeah.

also, my plans for doing nothing but riding a bike and studying chess have gone awry.  i was walking through the mall, minding my own business, and i accidentally got a job.   i went into the kitchen gadget store to buy something and walked out hired.  so now i work in the mall in a kitchen gadget store.  the cool thing is, i get 20% off anything i buy in the store, and twice a year i get stuff at cost.  i am going to end up with the most well appointed kitchen in colorado cheaper than anyone else (except all the old ladies who work in the store).   the cool thing is it isn’t a corporate store, it’s owned by two old ladies, and they are cool as hell, so i have a fun time.

i’m planning on playing the french as black against 1.e4 in the tournament, i dont’ know if i should go with the tarrasch or winawer or classic or what.  i’m getting a bunch of games at chessgames.com and adding them to a folder so i can study them.  any ideas on which is best for the french?

it’s nice to be back, i should get back into the swing of things shortly.