Looking For
1. Good opening encyclopedia. I only used MCO14 so far but no one seems to carry a hardcover version. The paperback versions are just too flimsy for 700 pages. Who's idea was that anyway? Does anyone use ChessBase instead of a paper based encyclopedia? What are your comments?
2. Method for storing OTB clock times electronically. I have Fritz 7 and use Winboard but can't figure out how to do it with either program.
6 Comments:
Let us know what you find. I am still looking for a good opening trainer program. I got the ABCs of chess openings from chessbase, but it stinks (very little explanation, mostly a bunch of games for you to sift through: useless for someone at my level. perhaps they should have called it they xyz's of chess openings!).
I have about a meter repertoire books.
And a little vademecum from 1961 or so if I want to know a name of a opening. For further questions I use internet.
I don't really truly know any openings even though I have four or five books dedicated to various openings. I got Schiller's Gambit Opening Repertoires for white and black, but I've not been able to get into them as of yet.
Thanks for the input guys. So no one uses an openings catalog? I'm looking at MCO14 and NCO but they are both paperbacks and they fall apart upon opening. I was hoping for a hardcover of MCO but none are available. Chessbase is another option but at over $100 I think I can wait until I am at least 1800 before even considering it.
PS
Just forget opening books. Do tactics training. Apply general opening principles to get active play all the time. I wasted lots of time on opening variations for nothing. Do not repeat my fault.
I think it is useful to have an opening reference not so you spend tons of time memorizing moves but so you can learn the next move or two in your opening after your games. This way you learn a little opening theory but you also don't repeat mistakes over and over.
If you play the same openings, get books on your favorite opening lines. This will be better than something like NCO since an opening-specific book (especially good ones) will tell you why those moves are played.
Otherwise, a good opening guide is a must. I use ChessBase, NCO, and a zillion other opening-specific books. Fortunately (unfortunately?) I wasted many years just reading opening books with little study so I have a general idea of what to do in most major openings which is helpful (but of course I should have been spending that time studying tactics and master games).
BTW I often use Fritz to find the next move in an opening- if it is not in Fritz's book it will usually pick a pretty solid move unless you are playing some super-positional opening.
Personally I'm a bit torn on openings...I really would like to have a bit of a repertoire so I'll feel better prepared in games (instead of always having to wing it), but I've been doing pretty well of late without the opening study, so perhaps I should continue my focus on tactics and master games...
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