How I learn a new opening at a master+ level in less than 3 hours

The full opening preparation process I teach my students and use for myself to beat masters, IMs, and even GMs

A quick programming note: in my weekly posting schedule Saturday was supposed to be “a longer piece touching on broader themes of learning, strategy, and decision making.”

Ugh, sounds like a bunch of pretentious bullshit! 😅

Seriously though, while it’s fun for me to think about and write these broader pieces, it’s clear that by far the biggest reason most people subscribe to this newsletter is to get better at chess. With that in mind, I completely scrapped my plan for Saturday and replaced it with something better.

Today (and on every Saturday going forward) I’ll do a deep dive on a key aspect of chess improvement. This is going to be the longest, most detailed post of the week. I want this post to be so insanely valuable that it makes subscribing a no-brainer. For that reason, I’m sharing everything I know, not keeping any secrets.

Today’s topic is preparing your own openings. Over years of playing and coaching, I’ve come up with a process for prepping the opening that works really well for me and my students. When I use this process, within a few hours, I’m getting good-to-winning positions against everyone below GM level (grandmasters, it turns out, are in fact quite tough).

People think it’s hard to build a great opening repertoire, but it’s really not. It feels hard for most players because they’re wasting the majority of their time on irrelevant tasks like memorizing long lines that will never happen in their games.

When you have a good process, opening prep becomes a fun, easy, and organic part of your play and study routine. It’s not weird or confusing, and it doesn’t take time away from the core capabilities that will actually decide the majority of your games, like pattern recognition and calculation.

That’s the process I’m going to teach you today.

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Picture yourself at a tournament game. You sit down at the board, fill out the scoresheet, and shake hands. For the first few moves, you and your opponent play quickly and confidently.

But soon enough, your opponent starts to slow down. You can sense that they’re starting to question their preparation, not quite sure if they’re following the line they intended. Not you. You’re fully in command of your lines.

A few moves later, your opponent commits an inaccuracy. You know, because you’ve seen it before. It’s a move that looks natural, but on a deeper level, doesn’t quite grasp the needs of the position. You’re ready, not only with your response, but with a nuanced understanding of the problems this move is going to cause for your opponent in the middlegame.

The game continues. Your opponent is slowing down even more now, clearly feeling the heat. A few moves later, they make a more serious mistake. You’ve seen this before, too. In fact, you’ve played this whole game up till now in online blitz (the way your opponent is going wrong is very typical).

After a few more moves you’re on your own, out of prep. But the character of the position is very familiar to you, and you know you’re winning. Soon enough, your opponent collapses in a terrible position and allows a winning tactic. Sensing your chance, you calculate hard for 10 minutes, double checking any possible escape sequences.

When you make your move, your opponent simply gives a rueful grin and extends their hand in resignation. You’re the first game done in the playing hall. Your opponent was 200 points higher rated than you, but they lost like a little kid.

Wait, that doesn’t make sense – little kids are too good now. An old person? Too mean. A cow? I don’t know. The point is, you won the game easily.

What I want to tell you is that this level of opening preparation is not only within your reach, it’s fairly easy to achieve, and it doesn’t take that long. But you need a good process.