Openings Checkup August 2023
A deep dive going through my openings on a monthly basis, and using that data to create an improvement plan. Or, why some people decide not to play 1.e4.
Every month or so I try to do a checkup on how I’m performing against certain openings. I realize that posting stuff like this might cause others to prepare for me, but to be honest, it’s not that hard to find me online anyway. This is a process I do on a regular basis, often tweeting a bunch of stats about it online where my audience is a bit larger.
Anyway, my process is to use OpeningTree and look at my own results against openings, and figure out if I’m bleeding too many points to any given line, then make a plan to patch up those holes. I already went through this process earlier, where I looked the past three months of results, but I’ve decided to do it for just the month of August as well, and share my results and thought process on the whole matter. This is a warning now: I’m going into a deep dive on esoteric stats that pertain only to me as a player — I’m inviting you along for the ride, but this might not be the most entertaining post.
First, we can take a look at my White openings. Since I switched back to chess.com in the middle of the month, I need to combine my lichess.org and chess.com pgns and make sure they have the same name so I can combine all my games on the website. Download pgns from lichess and chesscom, switch out one username for another using Find And Replace so they all match, then import pgn and analyze for White. Then I’ll do the same thing for Black.
Once I’m done with this, I’ll have a list of openings that I think I need to consider studying for the next month. I’ll then return in October to look at my stats from September and see if I improved.
White
Here’s the overall stats for August:
I’m ignoring the Performance and Avg opponent stats since this is an average of two rating pools and isn’t very accurate. What I am interested in are my overall results and scoring %. I won 80 games, lost 68, and drew 11, for a total score of 53.8% for White. That’s not bad. I consider 50% to be my bare minimum, but really over 52 is where I always want to be.
I play, almost exclusively, 1.e4. So now I can dig into where I’m losing most of my games.
The majority of my games were lost to the Sicilian (c5), Open Game (e5), and Caro-Kann (c6) defenses. My scores against the French (e6) and Pirc (d6) are not too bad. I struggle against some of the odd defenses, like the Alekhine (Nf6), Modern (g6), and Scandinavian (d5).
The top three openings I played against are my main concern, since those are where I lost the most points. The Caro-Kann bothers me most since my % is rather poor against it and it shows up relatively frequently. The Alekhine and Modern are also problem points where I lost almost 10 games. I’m less worried about the Scandinavian since it simply doesn’t show up that much.
Let’s do a deeper dive into the Sicilian first.
Sicilian Defense
I go 2.Nf3 against the Sicilian. After that I can see I’m doing pretty well against 2…Nc6 and d6. I would like to have a better score, of course, but proportionally my main issues are the e6 and a6 variations.
Nc6 Sicilian
I’m actually doing really well here. I play the Rossolimo (3.Bb5) because I don’t like playing against the variations that Black gets in the Open (3.d4) variations after Nc6. The returns here may be a bit diminishing. since I’m scoring well in almost all variations except for one (3…d6). Not worth the trouble of studying lots of lines, though I can pay attention to my results in this line in the future and revise that plan.
d6 Sicilian
The main line (2…d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3) leads to the main crossroads here where Black chooses the Najdorf variation (5…a6) or Dragon (5…g6). There’s also the classical (5…Nc6) but I haven’t seen that this month. Dragon stats, I can live with. Najdorf, I’m losing some points, so I should review it. My score is technically acceptable to me, but I would like to score better against it since it is by far Black’s best and strongest try in these lines.
e6 Sicilian
The main line (2..e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4) is where most of the games branched off. I have a clear problem playing against the Sicilian Kan (4…a6) variation. I previously paused lines in the chessable course I used — it’s time for me to turn those back on and study up. Three games is not a lot in the grand scheme of things — but it shows that I could still learn quite a bit here.
a6 Sicilian
This variation gives me problems because often I end up in a different move order against the Sicilian Kan (where I’ve played Nc3 instead of my preferred c4). I can use the same course with Sicilian Kan lines and employ those here — I know that it recommends 3.c4 here, which would solve my problem with getting into the Nc3 Kan which I don’t prefer.
In order of priority, I think most important to study is: Najdorf, then Kan, then a6 (which usually transposes to the Kan).
Open Game (1…e5)
After 2.Nf3, I need to look at a few first moves. The main deviations are 2…Nf6 (the Petrov) and 2…d6, the Philidor. The Philidor I scored 100% against, but the Petrov gave me a bit of trouble.
Petrov
I’m scoring 33% here, but that’s only three games. Not a heavy priority, but something to keep in the back of my mind.
Ruy Lopez
My score against 3…a6 is just barely tolerable, but I will need to do some more investigating to figure out where I’m bleeding points. Against 3…Nf6 (the Berlin Defense) I also want to see what’s giving me issues. Both of these lines I feel relatively comfortable in the mainline, but if I’m losing points there, it means I don’t understand the plans well. Unfortunately, the Ruy Lopez is an extremely broad opening with plenty of options for black at almost every single move, which means I might have a lot of study to patch some holes. That’s the downside to picking the most theoretical e4 e5 opening.
Martinez Variation mainline
This is the most common Ruy Lopez position I got in my games this month, and it’s also the one where I lost more games. Losing from two serious moves (I know 9…Bg4 is a mistake and I won that game) by Black here tells me that I just do not understand this position well enough, which means a lot of my opening study time will be dedicated to understanding this position, since it is very common in the line that I play. Even though there are only three games from this position, the structure itself is extremely common, so studying variations like this the right way will yield results for me in other similar positions too.
Berlin Defense
Here, I see I need to learn how to deal with the d6 lines. Bc5 I score OK against. 50% in two games is fine. I have studied lines in the d6 variation before — time to go to chessable and turn them back on.
Caro-Kann Defense
I kind of hate this opening. But it turns out that I do well with the Advance variation (2.d4 d5 3.e5), and that I should abandon my experiments in the Two Knights variation (2.Nc3 d5 3.Nf3). I struggle against the Ne7 and Nd7 lines of the Caro, so if I study, that’s what I’ll be focusing on.
French Defense
This is the line I reach the most, either directly or by transposition. I score 66% here, which is excellent, so my returns would likely be a bit diminished. Not much to say here, except that I won’t be learning many new French lines this month since apparently I don’t need them.
Pirc Defense
I score well against most of the sidelines, but only 50% against the main line. There are probably some lessons I could learn here; and earlier I noticed that my results against the Modern Defense (1…g6) are also lackluster. Since the Modern and Pirc are related, studying them both at the same time is probably a good use of time. When we combine them like that, they turn out to be a more significant source of losses. So, I’ll definitely be working on this one in September.
Alekhine Defense
I’m bleeding points here, mostly due to unfamiliarity with the resulting positions. I’ve studied this before; I think I’m rusty and need some checkups. Three games lost from a main line position is sufficient to go through the trouble and try to patch this one up.
Modern Defense
This is the tabiya that I run into the most problems with. The Nf6 move leads back to the Pirc Defense, but Nd7 and a6 are throwing me off. Like I said, I’ll study this alongside the Pirc since they are kissing cousins.
Scandinavian Defense
Personally I know I could sharpen up my play here, but against the normal tries I’m not scoring too poorly. I’m not going to sweat this one since I have others that are clearly more pressing. Maybe if I keep getting sucker punched by odd variations I’ll change my mind.
The last two openings are 1…Nc6 and 1…b6, both of which are not worth much trouble at this point, so I’m going to skip them for this month. I scored better than 50% against both.
Black
These are pretty good results overall. 77 wins with Black, 70 losses, and 8 draws. Scoring better than 50% with Black is something I consider pretty good, since statistically Black is at a bit of a disadvantage — I’m overperforming a bit here.
Breaking it down by White’s first move:
I’m scoring excellently against e4 and d4. There might be some problem variations to look at, but overall I’m not complaining. Against Nf3, I might want some help — but Nf3 is often used to transpose, which could complicate my efforts to inoculate myself against it. Against the English, I’m doing alright. Against everything else, it’s not worth the trouble at this point. Let’s look at these in order of frequency.
1.e4
I’m a 1…e5 player, and looks like the openings that give me trouble are 2.Nf3 and 2.Bc4. Against the Vienna and Scotch, doing great. Against the King’s Gambit, also doing well with 50% score, though that could be a bit higher. We’ll have to dig deeper into 2.Nf3, but first we should look at 2.Bc4.
Bishop’s Opening
OK, my clear issue is with the move 3.d3, though when I look through this, I see that this move always transposes to the Italian Game, so really, I don’t need to worry about this line on its own — We’ll discuss the Italian later.
I’m scoring 50% and every loss that isn’t from 3.d3 is a single-variation loss. I’m not likely to fix these at all.
OK on to 2.Nf3 Nc6:
Against the Italian I’m scoring rather well. I should check to see if there are any issues in that particular line though. The Spanish and Scotch and Ponziani give me trouble though. If I could fix those, I’d be scoring a lot better. Not too worried about 3.Nc3, which usually transposes to one of the top three openings anyways.
Italian Game
Here I can see that my main issues are the Giuoco Pianissimo with 4.d3 and the Knight Attack with 4.Ng5. I’ll need to brush up on those for sure. Looking deeper at the Giuoco Pianissimo is a lot of work due to the complexity of the resulting positions. However, 4.Ng5 is rather easy to patch up against since it is so forcing and generally these positions are easier for Black to play. Note 4.Nc3 where I have a whopping 100% score.
Ruy Lopez
Two main branches of Ruy Lopez line here. I lost a couple games against the Exchange Variation, but it’s not very many games to deal with. But I lost 8 games against the main line 4.Ba4. It turns out that all my lost games in that line started here:
This is a new position I’m learning, so I’m not surprised that my score here is bad. But it does show my weaknesses: d4 and c3. Now I know what I’ll be working on in this line!
Scotch Game
The good news is that I’m doing great against the mainline Scotch Game after 4.Nxd4. Here, my main issue is the Scotch Gambit after 4.Bc4. A bit deeper I see the variation I most have issues with, which is the e5-push.
I’m scoring OK when White castles first, but I’m losing every gain against e5. This is a concrete line that I’ll just have to study and memorize the tricks to equalize against White. This line is kind of like the Ng5 Italian line where Black should probably be better in the end if they know the concrete lines better than Black.
1.d4
Against 1.d4, I play Nf6, the Indian Defense. White has a lot of options here, but when they’re not mainlines, I score pretty well.
The problem openings are 2.c4 (aka the mainline) and 2.Bf4 (the dreaded London System). Let’s look at the London first:
London System
Of the five games I lost, four of them began here. Now I know what I need to look at. This c5+Qb6 position is something I’ve been trying to learn, but improvising hasn’t been working. I need to work on this one quite a bit.
2.c4
My main line here is the Benko Gambit: 2…c5 3.d5 b5!?. White usually accepts 4.cxb5 a6, and then the positions branch off a bit.
Against e3 I’m scoring 50%. Not to worry. But in the Fully-Accepted variation bxa6, I’m 0 for 5. So that’s a big priority for me to fix, since I see this variation most often. I’m glad to see that against the other lines I’m not doing poorly at all.
Lastly, let’s look at the 1.Nf3 thing:
After 1…d5, it’s clear I’m running into issues against the Reti (2.c4) and the Nimzo-Larsen attack (2.b3) Clearly I’m not in good shape against those plans, and they are somewhat related anyway, so it doesn’t hurt me to study these.
Conclusions
These are the opening lines I think are necessary to study the most the next month and see if I improve. I might not get to all of them by the end of the month, but even stopping the bleeding on one of these is considered a success if I can maintain my other results in the meantime. I put these in a spreadsheet that lists the openings I want to study. One rule I’ve set for myself is to try not to rage-study after losing to a random opening that I got sucker-punched in. This saves me time and energy.
Top Priorities
Ruy Lopez Martinez main lines (as White)
Ruy Lopez Steinitz Deferred sidelines (as Black)
Sicilian Najdorf, Kan, and O’Kelly (as White)
Pirc and Modern Defenses (as White)
Scotch Gambit (as Black)
London System (as Black)
bxa6 Benko lines (as Black)
Secondary priorities:
Alekhine Defense (As White)
Caro-Kann Defense Ne7/Nd7 lines (As White)
Two Knights Defense Knight Attack (As Black)
Giuoco Pianissimo (As Black)
Reti and Nimzo-Larsen lines (as Black)
If I remember, I’ll come back to this next month to examine the changes in my results in these lines and hopefully we have good results.