Blitz Repertoire (#1) - Caro Slav Structures

There are a number of bloggers and followers/fans of the game which share their experiences online. I decided to follow along and do so as well

A lot of my practice comes from internet chess. Internet chess while somewhat superficial is a real reliable choice when measuring ones intuitive understanding of chess positions. Many times when playing OTB chess, a players candidate move radar is within the realms of that of a speed chess scope.

I would estimate that depending on your time range which you choose to play in you will have a certain number of allocated times to think. I think that every 3-min game will have 1 to 2 serious thinks. while 5-min games will have a bit more but certainly not more than a few.

These instances are powerful in improving your play and we should choose the activity to improve our play.

I will suggest some ideas and methods to follow shortly which can help you when training on your own.

Firstly, choose an opening repertoire which is practical and leads to middlegame positions which can be of instructive value.

In this case I am preselecting a caro-slav opening repertoire because I think its practical and leads to interesting middlegame positions.

Theoretically the positions are not too dense and the purpose of each of the lines is to really side step theoretically heavy monsters.

here is our suggested repertoire:

as white - 1.d4 the universal london system. which suites well for blitz chess as Boris Grachev teaches us.

as black - versus 1.e4 the fort knox variation of the french ( the famous bishop sortie Bd7-c6 exchanging the bishop on e4 in the most opportune time and then building the wall with c6.

versus 1.d4 we will play the QGA (which from a tournament players point of view is an excellent opening to have in your repertoire however the line we will be selecting are the ones where black attempts to try to keep the pawn on c4 by playing Be6 and holding on to the position.

Essentially we will reach the same type of middlegame pawn structure in our whole repertoire. Ideally we will learn how to play with our pawns there, where to place pieces and so forth, and in the future we will have a better understanding when playing the caro kann defense, and the slav.

Why not play the caro kann now and the slav? because its a little impractical to learn all the theory and do all the work for those openings as I would like to by illustrating the process for you to see here in the blog. trust me on this one, just to get started we would like something faster and more practical as opposed to going crazy.

strong players that play the london system (based on the 1.d4 d5 Bf4 position):

a) Strong grandmasters who used this line as White:
Gata Kamsky Result=9/14 2010-2015 Elo-Ø: 2712 Games: 14
Pavel Eljanov Result=5/11 2008-2010 Elo-Ø: 2721 Games: 11
Alexander Grischuk Result=2.5/4 2014-2015 Elo-Ø: 2802 Games: 4
Baadur Jobava Result=2.5/3 2014 Elo-Ø: 2710 Games: 3
Richard Rapport Result=2/2 2014 Elo-Ø: 2702 Games: 2
Ruslan Ponomariov Result=1/3 2010 Elo-Ø: 2744 Games: 3
Vladimir Kramnik Result=1/2 2007 Elo-Ø: 2785 Games: 2


b) Other notable players:
Slobodan Kovacevic Result=85/113 1984-2014 Elo-Ø: 2382 Games: 113
Vladimir Karlik Result=56/85 1986-2015 Elo-Ø: 2290 Games: 85
Hauke Reddmann Result=40.5/58 1996-2014 Elo-Ø: 2325 Games: 58
Olaf Heinzel Result=38/50 2006-2014 Elo-Ø: 2354 Games: 50
Minh Thang Tran Result=37/57 2010-2015 Elo-Ø: 2069 Games: 57
Nikola Sedlak Result=35/46 2005-2015 Elo-Ø: 2556 Games: 46
Igor Miladinovic Result=26/36 1998-2015 Elo-Ø: 2562 Games: 36
Eric Prie Result=25.5/32 2006-2013 Elo-Ø: 2504 Games: 32


information on players that play the fort knox:

 a) Strong grandmasters who used this line as Black:
Boris Gelfand Result=7/11 2006-2010 Elo-Ø: 2749 Games: 11
Anatoly Karpov Result=4.5/7 1992-2003 Elo-Ø: 2732 Games: 7
Ngoc Truong Son Nguyen Result=4/7 1999-2013 Elo-Ø: 2630 Games: 7
Hikaru Nakamura Result=3.5/5 2005-2009 Elo-Ø: 2672 Games: 5
Baadur Jobava Result=3/4 2014-2015 Elo-Ø: 2703 Games: 4
Alexander Khalifman Result=1.5/4 1990-1992 Elo-Ø: 2628 Games: 4
Yasser Seirawan Result=1/2 2000-2002 Elo-Ø: 2632 Games: 2
Etienne Bacrot Result=1/1 2007 Elo-Ø: 2695 Games: 1
Yue Wang Result=0.5/2 2013 Elo-Ø: 2706 Games: 2
Sergei Movsesian Result=0.5/2 1998-2008 Elo-Ø: 2659 Games: 2


b) Other notable players:
Alexander Rustemov Result=29.5/52 1996-2013 Elo-Ø: 2560 Games: 52
Patrik Lyrberg Result=22/41 1992-2015 Elo-Ø: 2430 Games: 41
Mihajlo Stojanovic Result=21.5/35 2003-2015 Elo-Ø: 2547 Games: 35
Katalin Decsey Result=20/38 1995-2005 Elo-Ø: 2083 Games: 38
Keith C Arkell Result=17/34 1991-2015 Elo-Ø: 2485 Games: 34
Ovidiu Doru Foisor Result=16.5/36 1987-2013 Elo-Ø: 2431 Games: 36
Joerg Wegerle Result=16.5/32 2003-2015 Elo-Ø: 2421 Games: 32
Heikki MJ Westerinen Result=15/35 1998-2015 Elo-Ø: 2381 Games: 35


In my next post, I will share the theory of the openings in a file from which you can assimilate the ideas and take it from there. Follow me and hopefully get started :) which is the most important part.