Consistency with Opening Theory

Just received Month 8 today & wow.
Strategies on Caro-Kaan, Loads on Kings indians, Loads on French advance. Queens Gambit exchange and minority attack.
Only one downside.
None of these openings are included in the opening repertoire!!

To be fair they do give interesting insights into the openings and I for one do not stick to their choice of opening. But it does seem like the material is a little inconsistent this month.
Mmmmm?!

Cool, 'cuz I play the Caro

It is great to hear from someone with experience on this course. I am starting my first month of main course + openings. I also will play the openings that they suggest.

zmaster wrote:It is great to hear from someone with experience on this course. I am starting my first month of main course + openings. I also will play the openings that they suggest.

That was my intention too. If truth be told there is just so much that if you study it properly you struggle to find time with the openings, A number of us have taken the same approach. Do the openings after completion of the course.

hoopy wrote:Just received Month 8 today & wow.
Strategies on Caro-Kaan, Loads on Kings indians, Loads on French advance. Queens Gambit exchange and minority attack.
Only one downside.
None of these openings are included in the opening repertoire!!

To be fair they do give interesting insights into the openings and I for one do not stick to their choice of opening. But it does seem like the material is a little inconsistent this month.
Mmmmm?!

& did I forget Benoni's!!

To me, this is the best month so far. It doesn't matter if the openings don't match yours or the openings course, it is the understanding of the positions which is important. An example of this, happened this weekend in the board next to mine, the game started by 1. d4 - d5 2. c4 - Nf6 3. Nf3 (cd5 is better) and after some moves the position was very similar to one from Grundfeld opening. Neither of two players knew how to play it because they don't play Grundfeld. With this example I want to say that the opening is not as important as the position itself and what I got from this month is how to handle this kind of positions. Very good month.

I have to agree, I've greatly enjoyed months 7&8.

The positions they discuss are all main lines, plenty of games in the databases, but they do sidestep these variations in their repertoire. But then so does Avrukh.

On a positive note even though the positions from month 7&8 are classic, dating back to before 1930, the positions still show up in practice up the last couple of months. It may be worth putting the lines into our own repretoire, I know I would feel comfortable playing either side of the positions with what I learned....

I actually got a really interesting value of their sneaky teaching of opening positions. I ended up in a King's Indian position and I actually remembered the study in the ICS course on this particular position and even something about what I could be doing! Amazed. That is the first time any serious study on opening has actually had an effect on my game!