lichess.org
Donate

how to find a repertoire that fits your playing style?

thank you all for your replies so far. i appreciate your help.

i'm at work right now and will reply in the evening.

best regards
Ok, I dont know if this has been mentioned, just one remark.
the relation between style and openings is not one way
If you choose to main Kings Gambit, you can hardly be a solid player, and if you choose to main London you will not be a lunatic attacker. So the usual recomendation is to try some main lines at first , because main lines are usually the most rich positions so that your personaly style can flourish
On the downside, choosing main lines produces the worst results in the short term, so... it is your choice in according to your goals :)
Amatuers, in general, have a style, or preponderance to make the same mistakes.

But Style in Chess ? "I am positional", "I am tactical", "I am universal", "I am this", "I am that", How arrogant of us to be something that even top players these days are not categorically one thing. Modern top players are none of those things, and all of those things at the same time.

For us amatuers, just spot their mistakes and exploit it.

And this also applies to when in the microscopic chance you reach a certain level also.

Just my two cents.
If you show me 3 victories of a today top-20 player I can tell you who played these games,(ok leave Harikrishna out I dont know the guy)
If you show me 1 random game of Karpov, I can tell you who played it
And I mean that these are games that I havent seen before
Everyone has a style, even Komodo and stockfish have different styles, and noone is yet truly universal.,and noone will ever be,until chess is solved, because until chess is solved there will not be complete objectivity
Having a style is the exact opposite of arrogance.
It is like saying, I prefer to do things this way, though "this" way might not always be the best.

One my favorite GM's is Igor Smirnov. His words seem harsh, but I follow his line of thought.

Bare with me as I am trying to quote but it may not be an EXACT quote. If you want me to research the exact quote for clarity I can but it may take me a few days.

"As a non-titled player.. you cannot have a 'style' because your play or chess education is fragmented. You are still learning basic chess. Contrary titled players like IM's and GM's have a style because they have already learned how to play chess."

He expressed this with a line graph where the graph looked like old school disk defrag. The line represented Chess level vs chess education. The more to the amateur side had less strict education. (He has a strong emphasis on basic chess education and not underestimating it. Along with that he stressed quality over quantity. So It wasn't the amount of education you had. IT was the QUALITY of the education.) The NM's and FM's had a stronger chess education and therefore had more chances of worrying about their style. And IM's and GM's have attained the level of stylistic play. It's based on his lecture about levels of knowledge. He believes that all knowledge is not just known. It has to go through levels before you can consider subject matter known. Amateurs are at the first and second level. Where they are familiar with it, they have played with it a little, but not truly understanding it. They "BELIEVE" they understand it because it works to their taste. The difference is a MASTER knows, can teach, and has put it into practice many many many times. One of his quotes was,

"How many times have you successfully played an exchange sacrifice? Once? Twice? You cannot consider this knowledge."

"Did you do it more than 50 times? You can consider it sound knowledge. More than 100 times? You probably know it."

And note the keywords: Successfully played, You can play an exchange sacrifice and find out through analysis that it fails. That is not a successful sacrifice unless you trapped a master in it on purpose.

He explains it a lot better than I do, so it is much better to just go to him. But I think I explained it okay.
@MeWantCookie I think I remember those words!

So basically, you should be a universal player until you get to master level. Also, choosing openings that don't fit your "style" lets you progress more because you're adding to your chess knowledge.
I am not sure what "style" means, but lets assume you are talking about your personality, life philosophy, or how important winning is to you (as opposed to reaching a draw). This will tell you if you are inclined to avoid making risky moves, or do you embrace every opportunity of gambling for a win.

Further, there are 2 strategies that I would like to inform you about. Understand, that every time you exchange pieces, you approach the Endgame, where a pawn race to queendom decides the outcome.

So the Seek and Destroy strategy where you accept every exchange offer will lead you to the endgame in the fewest possible moves, also reducing your chances of making a mistake.

The Dancing Around strategy is when you decline exchange offers and try to hold on to your pieces for as long as possible. This delays the endgame, and increases the chances of BOTH players making mistakes in the process.

The best way to discover your playing style is of course by playing games. When playing white, stick to well-known openings like e4 and d4. But when playing black, research and memorize valid responses against all 20 of white's possible openings.
Let's do it another way too. In the same format. Another argument made by aforementioned GM is that when an amateur states he has a style, he is actually stating that he has a strength. Indicating that he would prefer to avoid his weaknesses.

I see this all the time. There are thousands of people who play gambit play. Claiming their style is of gambit play. When you ask them why they either state because they like it or they can't play boring positional openings. This is bad chess, because all GM's for example are good at positional chess. So when they choose an aggressive opening they are choosing it from taste rather than learning interest. When you choose from learning interest and never attack your weaknesses you are not going to improve. Or at least not improve like you should. A lot of people get 2000+ on those openings and stop and say that's as far as they can get. When if they studied all aspects of the game they might have achieved higher.

This topic has been archived and can no longer be replied to.