Tabiyas

Hmm what are tabiyas... it's kind of like the battlefield where two players will play when the resulting position comes up from a few very standard moves of theory (thats my guess, I'm sure I'm missing something here.)

Apparently, my openings suck really bad. I noticed from annotating some of my older games, that I was fighting back from slightly worse positions, or even near lost positions and getting out of the struggle with an advantage. I think this is going to be bad for the future development of my chess, but this is no easy task on top of a normal training schedule, and on top of a "normal" life.

My coach stumped me on about move 5 into the French Defense, which kind of pissed me off because I didn't want to engage in a long theoretical debate for the duration of the time we spent together (a lot of the ideas are covered in textbooks and database dumps). But he made a good point - why do your openings suck so bad?! 

 

I noticed when I was studying a variation in the Dragon Sicilian, the main tabiya was considered to end with your typical Yugoslav position with the bishop on c4, and then rook on c8. However I ended up having a bunch of Be2's instead of Bc4's which made it slightly confusing, especially from the fact that I had spent much of my time studying the "main lines". 

Even worse as an e4 player, Black often opts for these really stupid sidelines that work in rapid games, such as a really ugly a6 b5 plan, or some immediate Na5 action, and in some lines white has already pushed h4 or even h5 and some he hasn't even touched the h pawn.

My god it is brutal losing some of these caveman attack games to 1200 - 1500 players. I don't even know how it happens, as Bobby Fischer once said, any patzer can pry open the h-file and throw the kitchen sink and hope to win. Unfortunately it seems like a complete self esteem killer to be much stronger overall (if game wasn't blitz and razor sharp I think the theoretical gap would close a bit).

I guess it pays to understand all tabiyas of a certain system you want to play, in my case in the dragon, the battlefield consists of trying to equalize in the meek Be2 lines, and aiming for sharp play with the black pieces in the classical Yugoslav line with Bc4, but then it begs the question - how important is the opening? 

Is it worth it to sacrifice this time rather than to study tactics, middlegames, endgames? I don't even feel sometimes that it's possible to actually calculate anything in the Dragon, you kind of just make a guess and hope it ends up well... bleh, watching me wade through these craptacular sidelines in blitz makes me want to puke, but losing I suppose weedles out a lot of the bad lines.

I was playing some themed blitz with an 1850 player, and it seemed like after the opening tabiya was reached, even if theory was met, both players were really on their own devices, and whoevers tactics were superior really mattered in the end. I sometimes feel that some of these sacrifices though, are way too standard, and it almost feels like luck when one side wins. It's kind of an odd way to play chess if you ask me - it's somewhat of a lottery when it's this sharp, and both players can't calculate worth their salt. I suppose it's a sharp mix of intuitive tactics, some calculation, and some positional ideas all imbedded, and I can say that most club players are incapable in all these areas, which really does make some opening tabiyas feel like a lottery drawing.

Anyway I suppose analyzing a ton of these games might help, it looks like even a lot of strong players were felled by just opening knowledge in this line alone... maybe it's time to ditch my desire to play c5, or maybe have it as a surprise weapon.