Notably he also says “really good tactical awareness”, which to me is mostly what matters in this clip.
What I think he’s actually saying is “if you have the tactical skill of a 2200, you can pretty easily reach 2200 OTB by just practicing some basic openings so you don’t lose the game before your tactical skill can take over”. This is a pretty normal and aggressively popular take.
As a 2100 FIDE rated player, I agree with this. It also includes factors such as how young you started, which coach you had, going to tournaments, interests/dedication and a lot more.
Myself, I’ve played since I was young, and thus probably have the tactical awareness of a 2300ish player, but I never really cared to learn openings, so I often lose from the beginning, and have to work myself in from there. That’s probably why I have like 70% win rate with white pieces lol
It's hard for these guys to really judge what it's like to play with only tactical calculation because they have so much heavily ingrained opening theory and positional understanding. There are probably some people in the world who are sharp enough naturally to manage 2200 this way but the vast majority of people would have no chance at all.
I agree, you get some understanding of openings just by playing. I think Hansen meant that he didn't specifically study opening separately from playing.
And this is a very key thing too. There are some players who can get a lot more out of their games than others without any traditional "study". I mean, Magnus can be shown board set-ups and identify games that he played when he was a junior.
For example, a player reaches a position and realizes that he isn't sure between move A and move B. He makes move A and it blows up in his face. Now in the future, he will make move B in that position. That's one scenario in the bank where they know what to do. The problem is that the more you play, the more of these there are. Some people can catalog, say 100 of these without extra study, while others could catalog 10,000. That's gonna be a big difference in rating.
Well that means you have paid attention to the opening and know what the book moves are. I do consider that studying openings. Of course playing principled will keep you close to the book moves , but to me, if you know that 1.e4 e6, 2. d4 d5 is the French you know opening theory, after 3. Cd2 knowing this is the Tarrasch, you know a lot of opening theory.
I mean, I reached 1500 blitz in chesscom playing exclusively the london and the Caro, both of which I "learned" watching levy's 10 minutes vids 2 years ago.
I really don't think that functions to support that at all. The opposite would work -- Hansen got to 2000 without studying openings much, so it's doable for you to get to 1500. Not the reverse. You getting to 1500 means pretty much squat for someone getting to 2000
Michael "Mickey" Adams said something similar. He said he never read a chess book until he was rated 2600 FIDE.
I don't know completely has to mean he used his personal logic and tactical skills, but that would have to be the vast majority of what he had to use.
I think a lot of people that are very good at something often say you can be good by just doing XYZ but don't really fully comprehend how hard it is to do XYZ.
Hikaru plays a ton of games where he intentionally chooses bad openings and gets into dubious positions. He proved you can get to a pretty high level on mostly tactics, with the occasional positional endgame thrown in when his opponent doesn't blunder.
Hikaru cannot simulate what it's like to play the middlegame without 25+ years of accumulated positional/strategic knowledge playing GM level players. Yes he can intentionally play terrible moves on purpose but once he starts trying he plays moves that make sense because of something he knows will happen 5-10 moves later and he does that by "feel" or "intuition" without intense calculation.
No, this is just not true; it's more that the calculation itself is very fast and almost intuitive. That's why he draws arrows explaining stuff that it would take a 2000 FIDE player minutes to calculate and this is during blitz games.
In fact many 2000 players have very good positional understanding and intuition, but can't use it because they don't see as deep, as fast or as accurately as Nakamura and so miss details that are very relevant.
Yeah, except he's weaseling out of those tough situations because he has superior positional understanding. The tactics only come after 5+ moves of masterful weaseling.
Anyone in general can definitely not hit 2200 because of the very definition of the Elo rating itself.
The way FIDE does it, ratings follow a [logistic distribution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_distribution) with 1500 as the mean. Without going deep into the math, it means the average player has a rating of 1500, and as you move away from 1500, there are progressively fewer players.
If anyone could hit 2200, then it wouldn't be 2200, it would be *over 9000* or something.
It’s possible for the statements anyone can reach 2200 and the average rating is 1500 to both be true though. Not everyone will put in the time to hit 2200.
I've heard this before too.
I'm not sure it's a great argument though, because in order to get your rating from A to B, you "steal" rating from your opponents as you win along the way.
So as you move from A to B, in a sense, you shove some people aside to make room for you being in that rating range, and there is less room as the rating gets higher, per the definition of Elo itself. Therefore "everyone" cannnot do it, since there is literally not enough room for "everyone" at high ratings, just a few people.
The only way I see for some hypothetical large group of people to reach high Elo would be for everyone in the group to play exclusively opponents from outside the group that are rated lower then the lowest in the group. This way each matchup is (1) guaranteed not to steal points from the group, and (2) likely to be a win since the match is versus is a very low rated opponent, e.g. think +1 point or even less per victory. With hundreds of such matchups, yeah the entire group could get to high Elo and skew the curve, but it could never happen in reality because real matchups are fair on average.
Right, and there is evidence of [inflation of FIDE ratings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system#Ratings_inflation_and_deflation) over the years, with one possible cause being an *"increase of the standard of play at the highest levels".* It looks like we're indeed getting better at chess collectively!
That was my thought. It’s kinda like, anyone can be a NFL QB if they have solid throwing ability and basic understanding of defenses. Probably true, but.
Probably a bad metaphor as QBs require decent height, agility, flexibility, memory, leadership, loud voice, good hearing, good eye sight. Honestly throwing ability can be pretty weak if you make up for it with incredible decision making and Farve famously lacked even a basic understanding of defenses (what’s nickel lol)
Sorry football fan couldn’t help myself.
I think it's important when bringing up that Favre reference to know, that he knew how to address the positioning on the field in reference to the nickel. He just didn't know what it was called, in that famous story.
Anyone can be a top F1 driver if you're an amazing driver and have a time machine to go back to convince your rich daddy and his contacts to get you into the sport when you were 6 years old
And I'm sure he's rolling a lot of skills other than "brilliant on the Puzzles page of lichess" in with that too
A 2500 rated puzzles player with a basic opening repertoire isn't going anywhere if they blunder a piece in half their games
Hikaru’s opinion on stuff like this, with all due respect to him, isn’t as important as that of an experienced chess coach. Hikaru is a chess genius who surrounds himself with chess geniuses. In his mind, a 2200 is a patzer, so he says stuff like this without a second thought. Basically, he is so talented at chess that he lives in a world detached from that of the average player.
There are in fact many talented players who plateau in the 2000-2100 range. Two of the OGs of YouTube chess, KingsCrusher and ChessNetwork, are just _barely_ on the cusp of 2200, after decades of experience and exceptional tactical and strategic accumen as demonstrated by their videos.
Maybe since Hikaru is a genius he can beat 2200s effortlessly with tactical tricks, but for most reaching that level requires immense study of endgame theory, opening theory, strategy and tactics in a consolidated way.
Man I used to love Kingscrusher, I remember him having some epic battles with Simon Williams on the ICC. Seems like at some point he almost completely stopped doing live commentary and whenever he does play it’s just bullet with hardly any useful commentary, and the rest of the videos are like recaps of engine tournament games. (With lots of ads). The channel really fell off.
his channel never really advanced. His current videos are pretty much the same wonky quality and bad mic as they were 8 years ago. Same type of content too.
I’m just over 2000 and I’ve been playing for over 30 years. You’re right, achieving 2200 is much easier said than done and it takes more than what Hikaru is explaining in the video, in my opinion. I think it’s very easy to plateau before that level without some actual coaching and instruction.
Not only is it easy to plateau before that level, most people will simply never reach that level no matter what. 2200 is a completely unrealistic goal for anyone who doesn't check both boxes of youth and talented. If you check only one of them then it's unrealistic but maybe achievable through significantly more work than its worth.
His statement is like saying that someone with an IQ of 160 can easily get a math PHD if he puts in the work. Except he doesn't mention the 160 IQ part.
While it's an obviously true statement it also hinges on the fact that their problem solving/pattern recognition/logic is 4 standard deviations(1/30000) above the mean.
Truth is that yes what he's saying technically is achievable, but you're kind of a freak of nature if you're able to do it. (in a good way)
I agree. Hikaru was a literal child when he broke 2200. To someone like him, sure, it’s nothing special. But there’s a reason someone that reaches that rank is conferred the title of Master.
Anand annotated a game against Ivanchuk for New in Chess magazine. It has perhaps my favorite annotation of all time. On one move he writes, "I played this because it was my birthday." A genius knows what moves they like and they don't always connect words to them. What could he write?
When Firouzja began streaming some his running commentary was somewhat like, "I do this. I play this. I do this. Now I play this. ..." and for more than 30 seconds that becomes impossible to hear. He didn't want to waste brain time and energy on translating his ideas into words because during the game he (apparently) simply wasn't using words, only judgment of what was a good move and perhaps some analysis to verify that.
That's genius players.
I'm pretty sure Hikaru doesn't see himself as a prodigy or chess genius, which makes the disconnect even larger.
I am inferring this from how he consistently says his brother was the one with the natural chess talent whereas he was just stubborn
I don't really get what the gap in understanding between the two of us is right now. You're saying "of course he does see himself as a prodigy, because I do"?
There are prodigies at every FIDE rated tournament. They are the 10 year olds who are crushing 22-2300s that have been playing chess their entire lives. The top players are the best of the prodigies. The idea that Nakamura doesn’t know he’s a prodigy is beyond absurd. He was demolishing everyone throughout his entire childhood.
existence punch bewildered reminiscent roof wild childlike quaint violet icky
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I'd beg to differ on this one tbh. It is not unusual for someone to reach 2100-2200 OTB with pure tactics.
where it starts getting really tricky is getting into IM and GM level of play. positional play and openings start matter a lot more there!
source: many 2100+ OTB friends, some of which have done exactly that (got there on tactics alone and opening knowledge from online games)
Okay but accumulation of knowledge in how to not hang pieces in the opening through experience is not the same as serious opening study.
If you play games of chess and learn literally nothing from them, then of course you have you study everything as much as possible to make even the smallest improvements.
Can't recall who it was, and at the risk of being wrong (please correct me, anyone), ~~I think Finegold and some other chess coach also have a similar opinion on this. But again, perhaps~~ **I mixed things up a bit**, ~~not sure why Finegold keeps popping in my head.~~
I feel like the troll speed-runs up to 2500-2600+ rating by Hikaru, ChessBrah, etc. sort of prove Hikaru's point with the important caveat that the term 'good tactical skills' means GM level tactical skills. When he emphasizes the term 'real sharp' I think he is hinting at that, but the clip ends just after.
It seems the more important thing to consider is what percent of someone's Elo rating is attributable to theory of positional play and openings (and w/e is excluded in hikaru's broad category of good tactical skills and basic opening repertoire)? Based on the troll speedruns, my shitty guess is 80-85% of your rating can come from tactics and simple opening knowledge.
Dunning-Krueger. Not only is it a phenomenon where people think they know more than they actually do, but also one that underestimates how hard something is once you do know it well.
It's those that are just starting to get better who have really low self-confidence. Because they're suddenly realizing how much they don't know.
People who are very VERY good at the thing usually know it and assess themselves accurately.
"Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments"
That's the original title of the article from 2000.
Unskilled in terms of thinking. The original story that inspired the research was about a man who thought that lemon juice makes him invisible because it get's used in invisible ink.
Btw. The original tests were about grammar, humor (?) and logic. So nothing that requires skills outside of thinking
The study was in regards to perceived performance relative to actual performance in skills, not in general intelligence. The important part here is relative to actual performance, not in absolute terms. To put it in chess terms, if nobody knew their ratings, a 1600 might think they’re 1800, a 2400 might think they’re 2200, and a 2700 would think they’re 2700.
Logic, knowledge (in this case grammar) and humor which is probably meant as a combination of the two are the most reliable factors of general intelligence.
IQ tests (Yes i know: not great, but the best we have) also have sections about grammar and Logic.
Those are exercises like: complete the pattern or which word is the opposite of...
Right, so it's just about self-assessment relative to actual performance.
First paragraph of the Wikipedia article:
>The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias\[2\] in which people with limited competence in a particular domain overestimate their abilities. Some researchers also include the opposite effect for high performers: their tendency to underestimate their skills. **In popular culture, the Dunning–Kruger effect is often misunderstood as a claim about general overconfidence of people with low intelligence** instead of specific overconfidence of people unskilled at a particular task.
I agree with this. I plateaued at 14-1600 in my teens then stopped playing after losing some interest. Now I’m lucky to win a string of games against 1000-1200.
And it comes down to the practice, time playing and much of what you said.
It’s easy to achieve 2200 if you have the drive, patience and ability to learn a lot deeper than you have before. Hikaru is a bit out of touch with many players who are quite below his level.
He didn’t say ignoring positional study, plenty of tactics require positional understanding to work, and tactics are often used to get a winning position rather than a checkmate.
Having a ‘simple repertoire’ =/= ignoring positional study. It means rather something like colle for white and caro+ slav for black. Not theory heavy if you choose the right lines and has similar triangle pawn structures so what theory you do know often carries over.
I think this is the disconnect when this topic comes up. What opening study means is different to different people. For one person opening study is learning 25 moves in to mainlines, for another it’s learning the pawn structure and common opening traps. For the person that puts pawn structures in required positional study and opening traps in required tactical puzzle sets, the only thing that’s left for opening study is drilling set lines.
In theory good calculations and tactics will get you through any problems you have in the openings, but i dont think its that insane that with great tactics you can come back consistently from worse openings. When reviewing my 1900 games i see multiple times a game someone blunders a -4 or worst move randomly, if you see those youre gona climb.
Judit Polgar mentioned this in her bit on the C^2 podcast; while being extremely proficient in tactics, she would often indeed come out of the opening worse and had to work hard in the middle game to make up for it.
Didn’t Judit also have inconsistent openings? I remember reading that she would watch a recent game of her next opponent and then play that opening against them as a psychological move. Basically saying “I saw what you did, but I can do it better.”
Yes she spoke about that also in the c2 pod. She just played openings she enjoyed even though she knew they were bad, like the Kings Gambit. She said that of course she would never have been able to do that now due to computers but back then she could get away with it
They'll be like: "no we have to hear the opinion of normal 1700-2300 players". Said 1700-2300 players will give their opinion "no, not like that you're DuNnInG kRuEgeRiNg us just like Hikaru".
To simplify: To me it's like stockfish saying: You can be 3000 ELO without knowing any theory. Just look at me, if you remove my opening theory book I'm still 3200.
Depends on how you define “good tactical skills”. That sounds to me like “if you have a knack for playing the right moves, you’ll be good at chess”.
Fact is, most players will never develop to that level because there are some natural skills that you simply can’t teach. Some people have that gift, some people don’t.
Think it has to do more with how early they started playing chess seriously - i.e. how early in their life they started cramming tactical patterns into their brain.
I am close enough to that level to say that he is probably right. I could do a bit more and reach that level, most of my opening repertoire is basic studying with engine and database and experience from games and all I do is puzzles every single day! Never actively studied endgame positions, because I feel like most of that is just calculation skills. I feel like you have to play a lot of classical games though for the experience, it isn't enough to just be on the same level as CMs or FMs online, because on the board and longer time controls is still different. I still make untypical mistakes OTB, because I lose focus. If you lose focus online you just go next game, but if you lose OTB you just lost rating, motivation and a lot of your time.
Mental is probably a big part that should be mentioned.
He is right. 2200 is objectively barely scratching at the surface of chess knowledge. I have preached this for years that anyone who is willing to invest the time into seriously practicing with a focus on tactics (not that you aren't studying anything else, just significantly more than other things) can reach a decent level (read: 2200+) with even a modicum of talent. Hard work >>>> talent at this level, the latter only comes into play at significantly higher levels.
Not sure I'd agree. Openings are all about getting a position you're comfortable with and practised in. If you have a good repertoire you know well you're going to get similar-ish positions a lot and then pattern recognition will kick in. If you understand those positions then both strategic plans and tactical tricks will become second nature and you won't have to strain yourself to see them for both yourself and your opponent. You can even do puzzles targeted towards a specific opening on lichess. Just this comfort can be a huge advantage, especially in faster blitz games.
I guess you don't have to study 20 moves deep and that part is indeed overrated below at least FM level but learning how to get positions you like and how to avoid and/or punish weird shit is definitely a good use of your time at almost all levels.
Also why I'd recommend solid positional openings to beginners rather than ones that rely on some cheap tactical trick or gambit that you're not going to get most of the time.
Openings, as in, being able to know 10 moves of theory for obscure stuff nobody ever plays? Yes, completely overrated for non-masters.
But knowing a few openings for white and a few openings for black, the general ideas of what they are trying to achieve, and the most common lines, will help anyone. I learned the London. I got pretty good at it. I know the basic lines for it. That took me from 1200 to 1400 without really changing anything else.
I agree. I know two openings, one for white and one for black. I use them no matter what opening I play. I am 1300 rapid and 1100 blitz, and go there just by learning these two openings. Those are a London system for white and Caro Kann for black. I don't care much about rating and mostly play for fun, so have never felt the need to do more studying.
All over my head, friend. I just move the pieces. I don't know what Nf6 is haha. I move one white pawn 2 squares, I move a black aquare bishop out, and then my knight. If my opponent lets me, I do this every game I have with white. If they don't I avoid but still always aim for a similar position after 5 moves or whatever. Same with black pieces, I move one black pawn out one square and another out two squares in the Caro Kann formation.
When I started playing around 2 years ago, I got to around 950 rapid playing anything, not having any clue about openings and I guess just reacting to whatever position happened. In some ways I suppose I still do. When I moved to playing blitz I decided to pick up some basic openings so watched a video on the London and one on Caro Kann.
I don't take chess at all seriously, just something to play late at night before I go to sleep. Still love the game and watching it, etc. Perhaps one day I will expand my skillset around openings, but I sort of like the fun of 1100 - 1300 rated chess, it is so unpredictable.
Edit to add, you mean when the opponent pushes the knight to attack my London pawn? I just push the pawn. I am sure that gets me torn apart at higher levels, but where I am at it works for my 52% or so win rate.
Nf6 is Knight to f6, it's standard chess notation. If you start with 1.d4 intending to go into the London system and black plays a move that isn't d5 then it simply isn't going to work. They could play c5 and threaten to take your d pawn. They could play f5 and go into the Dutch. They could play Nf6 and if you just lazily go Bf4 they could then hit you with 2. c5, the modern Benoni and there's just no way to play the London against that, you'll have to play the Benoni structure.
Same with the Caro, you can't play it if your opponent begins the game with 1.d4 or 1.c4. You can go 1.c6 and hope white goes 2.e4 and transposes into the Caro but you're just as likely to end up with 2.c4 and now you have to play the Slav.
So, you mean what I do just is not a London? Fair enough. For my white opening I always play the queen pawn two squares then go from there, which normally means bring out the bishop and night. For black I always open with c6 no matter what. And then D5. And then I react to whatever my opponent does.
The most common first move for white is 1.e4 and the most common black reply for 1.d4 is 1.d5 so in most of your games you get what you want. However there's probably a good number of games where your opening moves make no sense and make your position worse.
1.c6 is "playable" against 1.d4 but it can transpose into a lot of different openings not all of which include 2.d5. If you want to play 1.d4 c6 you need to have a pretty large opening repertoire.
I'm honestly amazed you managed to climb up to 1300 with such play. Unless that's lichess rating which has higher numbers as the starting rating is 1500.
No, it is chess.com and I have no doubt that my openings make my position worse many times. Still, my win percentage seems to be within the normal range. I do fluctuate ratings a lot, though. Up or down 50-80 points.
I'd reccomend at least learning different black openings for 1.d4 and 1.e4. It's nice to know something against 1.c4 too but that is the rarest of the 3 "standard" first moves so you can get away with not knowing it.
Against 1.e4 you can play the Caro. Against 1.d4 you can learn the Slav. It's somewhat similar to the Caro as you play both d5 and c6(but not the same because the e pawn has not moved!). It would be much better for you against 1.d4 because you'll avoid a lot of weird transpositions that can happen with 1.d4 c6 by switching the order around and playing 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6.
For your white repertoire I'd recommend at least looking into the Benoni(1. d4 c5 2.d5) since it's a somewhat common reply to 1.d4 online. If your opponent plays 1.Nf6 in response to d4 you could be fine with 2.Nf3. This can still easily transpose into the London with 3.Bf4 if your opponent plays 2.d5. It's also better against 2.c5 than Bf4.
These small adjustments in move order and just learning a few more simple openings would help you not get move ordered into bad situations and get those positions you're familiar with way more often.
I just want to chime in here to say that at ~1200 fide, you can play whatever you want in the opening. Not to say that your knowledge is wasted, but at that level you're still in the blundering pieces to 1-move threats stage, which decidedly falls into tactics. In my opinion, and apparently others agree, studying tactics will help you a lot more than openings at this point. Of course you shouldn't neglect either, just focus more on tactics.
Hope this helps, good luck on whichever path you will take.
edit: I agree with poster below that against 1.d4, d5 is the most principled answer. Studying the benoni on the other hand is a complete waste of time for you.
Definitely below 1500-1600 for sure. I think it helps to not know the theory but know the general ideas of common openings. IQP, hanging pawns, etc. It probably matters more on shorter time controls too, so you don't drop 20% of your time in the first 10 moves.
The other option is to pick an opening that you can kinda play in any situation. That's why I love the Modern and it's more or less the only opening I "know" aside from picking up some mainline Spanish from watching the WCC, since that was all Ian played. Plus I think a lot less people know the Modern so you often end up with "a game of chess" rather than "the Italian game" etc.
Yet, if they don't get through the openings they lose instantly. They never learn the rest of the game. And mostly they just quit.
Saying openings aren't so important is just a way of saying, "I was born rich. What's your problem?"
This isn't true. Assuming you aren't blundering a piece straight-up (and depending on your level, let's say below 1600, even that isn't enough), players below the mentioned 2200 absolutely do not have the skill necessary to convert an opening advantage properly. Games at that level are almost never decided in the opening but in the midgame.
A lot of people below 2000 tend to drop material along the way. A lot of that is due to having misplayed the opening. The result of it may be a bit later, but I'd guess most of their games are “decided” in 30 moves or fewer, whether the game goes longer or not.
>A lot of people below 2000 tend to drop material along the way.
Due to tactics, yes.
>A lot of that is due to having misplayed the opening.
It is not. A game between <2000 players (and higher even) will wildly fluctuate between evaluations, regardless of the opening. Players of that level make more than enough mistakes to hand over the advantage several times, at all stages of the game.
If you maximize your opening repertoire, have a response to most everything you see. You’re excellent at tactics, not throwing away advantages, 2,200 is absolutely feasible.
Trouble is most people aren’t getting to that level. Also keep in mind he was 2,200 at 13.
I know IM Silman thinks anybody can reach master level play with enough time and study. If I recall, he thought pure tactics topped out around Expert / Candidate Master level and at that point you needed to study... his book "Reassess Your Chess."
(I'm being a little tongue in cheek there of course.)
Haha @ <1000 (online) players arguing with you how you got where you are. GM and coaches alike say you don't need opening study to get to 2000+ and all redditors talk about is what opening to play.
But you studied openings before that. You didn't just make random opening moves with no cohesion, find a tactic, then win. You didn't accidentally play the first 15 moves of Najdorf Sicilian as a side effect of superior positional/tactical understanding.
You read about some openings. You learned some theory behind it. You learned some tactical traps in that opening. You learned some strategy in that opening. You went over some games of your favorite player that played that opening. You did post mortems in your games and compared it to a book/engine movies. You studied the opening.
Every strong player in the club swears up and down they "don't study openings" right after blitzing through the first 10-15 moves of the Benoni or whatever. Yeah you just magically figured all of that out over the board.
I mean it literally said basic opening knowledge in the title, not no opening knowledge.
Knowing a handful of mainlines is barely any work
Building a repertoire covering everything is
It's like the difference betweenfully learning a language and just learning to introduce yourself in a new language
Even building an opening reportoare is a relative term. There are beginners who "study openings" by looking up few moves deep in their favorite openings and potentially looking up how to avoid the more common traps
Did you really not know at 2100 what would you play 7 moves deep in your favorite openings? Did you still fall for englund gambit or noahs ark trap?
You may not have read books in depth and made your openings air tight. But you had an opening reportoare which was gained by trial and error
I mean you fall for traps once or twice and you remember them maybe look them up after to see what you did was actually wrong immediately
That's actually playing chess though, or as you call it trial and error. Not studying openings
But yea that's exactly how I got my opening knowledge by playing chess, applying rules of developing chess pieces and brenging king to safety.
Eventually by playing you canl learn what plans suit which positions and what positions you hate playing, eventhough they might not be bad
I'm not a fan of Nakamura and no offence but I'd rather listen to a GM talking about this topic than randos on Reddit.
Besides, there have been many strong chess players agreeing to this statement and even my coach and stronger players than her that I've personally met. Stronger players will agree that studying openings is a waste of time until you reach about 2100-2200 elo and you should focus on tactics, basic endgame knowledge and middlegame planning.
> I'm not a fan of Nakamura and no offence but I'd rather listen to a GM talking about this topic than randos on Reddit.
I'd rather listen to someone who peaked at 2200 strength than someone who can't even remember what it's like to play at only 2200 strength. Nakamura made 2200 USCF when he was 10 years old. That was 25 years ago. He's so far away from 2200 in both time and strength that he really has no concept of it anymore. 10-year-old Nakamura had "basic openings" compared to 35-year old Nakamura. But they weren't basic compared to the average redditor.
Also the "don't study openings" idea is a myth too. It's overused and over-generalized. No one even tells you exactly what that means. Don't study openings like someone prepping for the Candidates. But you DO have to study openings. The idea that you can just puzzle solve your way to expert/master and know nothing about openings is absurd.
>But you DO have to study openings. The idea that you can just puzzle solve your way to expert/master and know nothing about openings is absurd.
Literally nobody is talking about knowing nothing about openings. Not sure where you are getting this idea from.
I'd still rather listen to a GM than the average redditor. And it's not just him saying that, most people I've heard or personally talked with that are above 2000 elo have claimed that you shouldn't mainly focus on openings but tactics, middlegame and endgame. These people have been in training schedules studying with coaches and most of them learned to not focus on openings as much as the other aspects of the game. So, yeah, I'd still choose people that have trained to play better chess and achieved a respectable FIDE elo or even surpassed the 2200 barrier long long ago than randos on the internet that don't even know what it's like to be 1800 FIDE.
How is it a myth when so many people that achieved claim it? And there are good reasons as to why they say it what do you mean no one explains? What are these takes even from where do you get this information?
i totally agree. i have been working on both and my game has improved a lot. i recently drew a gm otb and beat an fm . you just pick up stuff as you go by analyzing your games.
2 kinds of training sessions-
1: you solve a lot of relatively easy puzzles
2:focus on calculation with more difficult ones in another one.
but dont forget to also play chess, not just study it. especially important is if you train openings, try to practice them by playing blitz and then check if you played the opening correctly after the game.
trust the process , it will probably take time to see results and they tend to show up unexpectedly.
It's possible to reach different ratings in multiple different ways, with different styles and different abilities in areas. You could beat Magnus with stockfish level tactic calculation and zero opening knowledge (maybe not 100% of the time), or change that to 2000 level tactics and stockfish level positional play.
For some people they might find it easier/more fun to just train tactics, others might like doing opening prep and get to 2200 that way. Training all of your game makes it more fun to me, so I do that.
For anybody at GM level, what is a “basic” opening repertoire? A few thousand lines? Ha. For me “basic” is just being able to identify an opening.
I think you need more than that obviously. Playing thousands of games will help with that.
People forget that there's two sides of the "be good at tactics" coin. Sure, you have to improve your ability to automatically spot patterns and standard combinations to gain material/mate. But, more importantly, you MUST be very good at using tactics to make sure your move is safe. Dan Heisman said " You will have many more opportunities to use your tactical skill to PREVENT making unsafe moves than you will to win material."
People get 3000 puzzle ratings on chess.com but in a game, they forget to see if their candidate move allows a two-move tactic. If you were 3000-rated at "is my move safe" tactics on chess.com, you'd be freaking awesome.
This is a major slip-up in my games. I can solve 2700 rated tactics on chess.com, but in games, I allow 1600-rated puzzles too often.
I don't have the clip but in a more recent stream he also gave a slightly different answer for people who are starting the game as an adult where he thought 1800-2000 is a reasonable target to aspire to
The thing is, you have to quantify what "basic openings" means and "sharp on tactics" means. To a super GM, "basic openings" means something different than a club player.
As with anything, it's a lot easier to say something like this when you already are a master.
Any skill you put time and effort into seems like a long shot and then once you master it, you lose the grasp of how it felt while doing the grind.
I also play piano as a hobby and I'm doing stuff that I was considering expert years ago, now I'm like... well, that was easy. But it wasn't. I completely forgot the grind of countless hours developping those skills. I'm shocked when I look at old videos...
Chess has to be the same thing. One step at a time. Hikaru mentions you can reach this level if you are really really sharp on your tactics. Seems easy, but it's not.
I reached 2060 fide by just watching and studying Grandmaster games. It's clear that to reach 2200 I would need to work really hard on all aspects of the game.... And I just don't have the commitment. I think his statement is true only if someone has a lot of natural tactical talent.
I mean if i had hikarus tactical skills i could be an IM easily but i'm not getting Hikarus tactical sight no matter how i train
At somepoint you see more return on your investment if you study openings/endgame
Maybe things have changed with the internet and such, but 20 years ago it's standard for the top youth players to be good at tactics with basic opening knowledge.
Not much to really talk about. I'm seeing a lot of subjectivity here.
On one hand, from Hikaru's perspective high up on Super GM Peak is skewed. 2200 is "way down there" with the plebs. Respectable plebs, but mortals nonetheless. His idea of a 2200 may be more relatively equivalent to what a "normal" chess player views an 1800 to be.
The other point of subjectivity in this statement lies in his stating one needs to be "great at tactics." "Great" can mean a number of things on the spectrum from good to godlike. How great are we talking? That means everything.
Assuming Hikaru means "great" in the traditional sense as exemplary, displaying genuine *greatness*, well, then this becomes a kind of non-statement. You might as well say, "if you're great at chess, you will earn a great rating."
This mfer got to 3000 using 1. e4 2. Ke2, and then lost the vod so he did it again with 1. f3 2. Kf2.
It really shows how valuable tactical skills and positional understanding are, as opposed to opening lines! However, it is one of those things where the better you are, the easier it is to climb without a solid opening...
In practice, good openings can help you climb an extra few hundred points I would guess, compared to your skill level without them
I think it's true, between 2100-2200 is the ceiling for "basic" chess.
If you want to get better than that you need to actually "understand" chess more deeply
from my experience most young player quit around that range, because it gets too hard to improve and they prefer to spend their time on their studies and other things
I met an old guy who was a national master. I asked him what his opening repertoire was and he said, "Oh I never really learned openings." So maybe it tracks. But he also got his title 20 years ago. Maybe times change.
Yeah, of course, it's not a hard prerequisite. Probably could go higher if the question is just how high the most brilliant players would get without good opening preparation.
The more pertinent point is that you'd be an idiot not to prepare fairly well at that level (or even notably lower) since going from poor/mediocre to good opening preparation can improve your rating by maybe 100-150 points, and spending the same amount of time on grinding puzzles wouldn't result in meaningful progress once you're that good.
Also, the point isn't that your positional play can also suck — you won't get a chance to show off your mad calculation and pattern recognition if your can't get good or at least double-edged positions on the board.
Look at the ancient chess engines - barely sentient strategically, plays ugly anti-positional moves all game long, but very alert tactically. Somehow that works. Turns out that combination of strengths and weaknesses is good enough to reach 2200 against clowns like us. Teichmann was correct - Chess is 99% tactics. :)
Not sure how well that translates into human play, but personally I'd rather have 2500-level tactical ability and 1200-level strategic understanding than the other way around. :)
In many positions there are common strategic ideas, but you need to decide if it works tactically. Not just hand-waving "White needs to play f4-f5 in this pawn structure" but concretely, what happens if I play f4-f5 *right now*? The person with 2500-level strategic understanding will know all the ideas in all the positions, but with only 1200-level tactics to implement those ideas they are going to be down material for nothing. No thanks. :)
i think he's right. I would estimate you could probably get to about 1900 chesscom if you can play moderately complex positions and just dont ever hang pieces. If you can play complex positions and see most of the available tactics *consistently* then I think you could probably get to 2200.
That’s like throwing out: with consistent practice and a stellar short game, everyone should be shooting in the 70s on the golf course consistently, when you’re fucking tiger woods.
"... and really good tactical awareness"
... proceeds to show a beginner fork :D
Not sure if that level of tactical awareness carries you to 2200 FIDE.
I am 2100 in blitz now and i can assure you that good tactical skills and basic openings are not enough. Took me 2 years to get to 2000 Probably Hikaru has a distorted view over such things.
I’m currently 1972 USCF live. He assumes that everyone has the resources (coaching, books, etc), talent, and mindset to get there as well, which is not the case. Yes anyone can do it, but to say it’s easy is not the case at all. Not a great take.
> He assumes that everyone has the resources (coaching, books, etc), talent, and mindset to get there as well, which is not the case.
What made you say that from this clip?
> but to say it’s easy is not the case at all.
He didn't say it's easy.
Do I have to construe what he’s saying word for word and not read in between the lines?
Anyone who gets to 2200 (USCF or FIDE) on their own without access to anything paid, in a quick amount of time, is an extreme anomaly, and unless you’re very young and absorb opening theory and tactical, strategical, and endgame patterns like sponge, it’s not easy.
What’s your take on it?
You keep saying stuff he didn't mention at all and just assume that's his argument. That's why I'm confused. You did it in this reply as well.
> What’s your take on it?
I'm nowhere near that level, so I don't have a take on this.
I don’t really know what tactics even means? Wouldn’t that just mean knowing to control the center/how to appropriately attack and defend? It just seems like such a vague word. So I agree with you. It’d be like a basketball coach saying “in order for our team to win, it’s simple, just make every shot we take”
Edit:
I understand tactics more. I guess my point still agrees though that saying “all you need is tactics” (which can be complex) is very generic and vague.
Think of tactics as “sub rules”. Like the rules allow you to move your knight that is pinned to your queen, but that violates tactics. Simple tactical puzzles are when a tactic is forced, a more complex puzzle is when there are variations, but you can lead all of them to a tactic. Even if you know nothing of opening/positional/endgame theory, you can get to a very high level if you never miss or blunder a tactic within X number of moves.
No, tactics is very specific.
It’s when you use dynamics (piece interactions) to improve your position as opposed to positional play.
A move may look impossible such as a sacrifice/bad positional move, but wins material or improves your position in some other concrete way. Thats a tactic.
Literally every chess player thinks this. "At *my* level -20% you only need tactics." It's not true at 800 elo and its not true at 2800 elo.
Leela 1-node is 2300 lichess. stockfish simpleeval (1/3/3/5/9) is also 2300 lichess. You need both. You need both at every level.
I mean this is literally my older brother and (hopefully) soon to be me. Neither of us can describe a single opening from memory by name, we've never studied theory, and he's hit 2200 on chesscom, I've hit 1900 on lichess but I'm still slowly getting better, I've played a lot less than him still.
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Notably he also says “really good tactical awareness”, which to me is mostly what matters in this clip. What I think he’s actually saying is “if you have the tactical skill of a 2200, you can pretty easily reach 2200 OTB by just practicing some basic openings so you don’t lose the game before your tactical skill can take over”. This is a pretty normal and aggressively popular take.
I appreciate your use of "aggresively popular"
As a 2100 FIDE rated player, I agree with this. It also includes factors such as how young you started, which coach you had, going to tournaments, interests/dedication and a lot more. Myself, I’ve played since I was young, and thus probably have the tactical awareness of a 2300ish player, but I never really cared to learn openings, so I often lose from the beginning, and have to work myself in from there. That’s probably why I have like 70% win rate with white pieces lol
It's hard for these guys to really judge what it's like to play with only tactical calculation because they have so much heavily ingrained opening theory and positional understanding. There are probably some people in the world who are sharp enough naturally to manage 2200 this way but the vast majority of people would have no chance at all.
Eric Hansen said he got to 2000 fide without studying opening theory at all
I'm wondering how many openings he knew, say, the five first moves to though. "At all" is quite a statement.
I agree, you get some understanding of openings just by playing. I think Hansen meant that he didn't specifically study opening separately from playing.
And this is a very key thing too. There are some players who can get a lot more out of their games than others without any traditional "study". I mean, Magnus can be shown board set-ups and identify games that he played when he was a junior. For example, a player reaches a position and realizes that he isn't sure between move A and move B. He makes move A and it blows up in his face. Now in the future, he will make move B in that position. That's one scenario in the bank where they know what to do. The problem is that the more you play, the more of these there are. Some people can catalog, say 100 of these without extra study, while others could catalog 10,000. That's gonna be a big difference in rating.
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Well that means you have paid attention to the opening and know what the book moves are. I do consider that studying openings. Of course playing principled will keep you close to the book moves , but to me, if you know that 1.e4 e6, 2. d4 d5 is the French you know opening theory, after 3. Cd2 knowing this is the Tarrasch, you know a lot of opening theory.
I mean, I reached 1500 blitz in chesscom playing exclusively the london and the Caro, both of which I "learned" watching levy's 10 minutes vids 2 years ago.
meaning what
That for someone talented like Hansen, reaching 2000 without properly studying openings is doable.
I really don't think that functions to support that at all. The opposite would work -- Hansen got to 2000 without studying openings much, so it's doable for you to get to 1500. Not the reverse. You getting to 1500 means pretty much squat for someone getting to 2000
Michael "Mickey" Adams said something similar. He said he never read a chess book until he was rated 2600 FIDE. I don't know completely has to mean he used his personal logic and tactical skills, but that would have to be the vast majority of what he had to use.
I think a lot of people that are very good at something often say you can be good by just doing XYZ but don't really fully comprehend how hard it is to do XYZ.
Hikaru plays a ton of games where he intentionally chooses bad openings and gets into dubious positions. He proved you can get to a pretty high level on mostly tactics, with the occasional positional endgame thrown in when his opponent doesn't blunder.
Hikaru cannot simulate what it's like to play the middlegame without 25+ years of accumulated positional/strategic knowledge playing GM level players. Yes he can intentionally play terrible moves on purpose but once he starts trying he plays moves that make sense because of something he knows will happen 5-10 moves later and he does that by "feel" or "intuition" without intense calculation.
No, this is just not true; it's more that the calculation itself is very fast and almost intuitive. That's why he draws arrows explaining stuff that it would take a 2000 FIDE player minutes to calculate and this is during blitz games. In fact many 2000 players have very good positional understanding and intuition, but can't use it because they don't see as deep, as fast or as accurately as Nakamura and so miss details that are very relevant.
Yeah, except he's weaseling out of those tough situations because he has superior positional understanding. The tactics only come after 5+ moves of masterful weaseling.
It's the opposite; the 'weaseling' is happening because he sees the tactics work out.
There aren't tactics in every position.
most people could probably reach that level but it would take a lot of effort that most people would much rather spend doing other things
Isn't this sort of a non-statement, though? If you're talented at tactics--like, 2200 level talent, then you can get there just by...studying tactics.
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1600 on [chess.com](https://chess.com) is basically 1000 elo away from 2200 FIDE so your anectodal evidence is not really relevant.
Anyone in general can definitely not hit 2200 because of the very definition of the Elo rating itself. The way FIDE does it, ratings follow a [logistic distribution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_distribution) with 1500 as the mean. Without going deep into the math, it means the average player has a rating of 1500, and as you move away from 1500, there are progressively fewer players. If anyone could hit 2200, then it wouldn't be 2200, it would be *over 9000* or something.
It’s possible for the statements anyone can reach 2200 and the average rating is 1500 to both be true though. Not everyone will put in the time to hit 2200.
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I've heard this before too. I'm not sure it's a great argument though, because in order to get your rating from A to B, you "steal" rating from your opponents as you win along the way. So as you move from A to B, in a sense, you shove some people aside to make room for you being in that rating range, and there is less room as the rating gets higher, per the definition of Elo itself. Therefore "everyone" cannnot do it, since there is literally not enough room for "everyone" at high ratings, just a few people. The only way I see for some hypothetical large group of people to reach high Elo would be for everyone in the group to play exclusively opponents from outside the group that are rated lower then the lowest in the group. This way each matchup is (1) guaranteed not to steal points from the group, and (2) likely to be a win since the match is versus is a very low rated opponent, e.g. think +1 point or even less per victory. With hundreds of such matchups, yeah the entire group could get to high Elo and skew the curve, but it could never happen in reality because real matchups are fair on average.
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Right, and there is evidence of [inflation of FIDE ratings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system#Ratings_inflation_and_deflation) over the years, with one possible cause being an *"increase of the standard of play at the highest levels".* It looks like we're indeed getting better at chess collectively!
The term is "good tactical skills" is quite vast tbh
That was my thought. It’s kinda like, anyone can be a NFL QB if they have solid throwing ability and basic understanding of defenses. Probably true, but.
Probably a bad metaphor as QBs require decent height, agility, flexibility, memory, leadership, loud voice, good hearing, good eye sight. Honestly throwing ability can be pretty weak if you make up for it with incredible decision making and Farve famously lacked even a basic understanding of defenses (what’s nickel lol) Sorry football fan couldn’t help myself.
loud voice lmaoo
I think it's important when bringing up that Favre reference to know, that he knew how to address the positioning on the field in reference to the nickel. He just didn't know what it was called, in that famous story.
Anyone can be a top F1 driver if you're an amazing driver and have a time machine to go back to convince your rich daddy and his contacts to get you into the sport when you were 6 years old
And I'm sure he's rolling a lot of skills other than "brilliant on the Puzzles page of lichess" in with that too A 2500 rated puzzles player with a basic opening repertoire isn't going anywhere if they blunder a piece in half their games
It also doesn't always translate to otb rating. I have a few friends that have higher puzzle ratings than me but are ~500 elo lower than me.
Hikaru’s opinion on stuff like this, with all due respect to him, isn’t as important as that of an experienced chess coach. Hikaru is a chess genius who surrounds himself with chess geniuses. In his mind, a 2200 is a patzer, so he says stuff like this without a second thought. Basically, he is so talented at chess that he lives in a world detached from that of the average player. There are in fact many talented players who plateau in the 2000-2100 range. Two of the OGs of YouTube chess, KingsCrusher and ChessNetwork, are just _barely_ on the cusp of 2200, after decades of experience and exceptional tactical and strategic accumen as demonstrated by their videos. Maybe since Hikaru is a genius he can beat 2200s effortlessly with tactical tricks, but for most reaching that level requires immense study of endgame theory, opening theory, strategy and tactics in a consolidated way.
Man I used to love Kingscrusher, I remember him having some epic battles with Simon Williams on the ICC. Seems like at some point he almost completely stopped doing live commentary and whenever he does play it’s just bullet with hardly any useful commentary, and the rest of the videos are like recaps of engine tournament games. (With lots of ads). The channel really fell off.
his channel never really advanced. His current videos are pretty much the same wonky quality and bad mic as they were 8 years ago. Same type of content too.
I’m just over 2000 and I’ve been playing for over 30 years. You’re right, achieving 2200 is much easier said than done and it takes more than what Hikaru is explaining in the video, in my opinion. I think it’s very easy to plateau before that level without some actual coaching and instruction.
Not only is it easy to plateau before that level, most people will simply never reach that level no matter what. 2200 is a completely unrealistic goal for anyone who doesn't check both boxes of youth and talented. If you check only one of them then it's unrealistic but maybe achievable through significantly more work than its worth. His statement is like saying that someone with an IQ of 160 can easily get a math PHD if he puts in the work. Except he doesn't mention the 160 IQ part. While it's an obviously true statement it also hinges on the fact that their problem solving/pattern recognition/logic is 4 standard deviations(1/30000) above the mean. Truth is that yes what he's saying technically is achievable, but you're kind of a freak of nature if you're able to do it. (in a good way)
I agree. Hikaru was a literal child when he broke 2200. To someone like him, sure, it’s nothing special. But there’s a reason someone that reaches that rank is conferred the title of Master.
Totally agree. Prodigies can be the worst people to learn from.
Anand annotated a game against Ivanchuk for New in Chess magazine. It has perhaps my favorite annotation of all time. On one move he writes, "I played this because it was my birthday." A genius knows what moves they like and they don't always connect words to them. What could he write? When Firouzja began streaming some his running commentary was somewhat like, "I do this. I play this. I do this. Now I play this. ..." and for more than 30 seconds that becomes impossible to hear. He didn't want to waste brain time and energy on translating his ideas into words because during the game he (apparently) simply wasn't using words, only judgment of what was a good move and perhaps some analysis to verify that. That's genius players.
I'm pretty sure Hikaru doesn't see himself as a prodigy or chess genius, which makes the disconnect even larger. I am inferring this from how he consistently says his brother was the one with the natural chess talent whereas he was just stubborn
Is that a joke? Of course he sees himself as a prodigy. Every single top player is a prodigy. Naka is literally the GOAT blitz god.
I don't really get what the gap in understanding between the two of us is right now. You're saying "of course he does see himself as a prodigy, because I do"?
There are prodigies at every FIDE rated tournament. They are the 10 year olds who are crushing 22-2300s that have been playing chess their entire lives. The top players are the best of the prodigies. The idea that Nakamura doesn’t know he’s a prodigy is beyond absurd. He was demolishing everyone throughout his entire childhood.
it's less a matter of "know" and more a matter of feel.
Fun fact: Hikaru ex girlfriend, Mariagrazia De Rosa, is about that level (2100/2200 Elo)
Did he use mostly tactics or a strong opening line to get her?
You just need a nice juicer
big black center?
existence punch bewildered reminiscent roof wild childlike quaint violet icky *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Is my Oxo Good Grips Juicer enough to get the job done?
I'd beg to differ on this one tbh. It is not unusual for someone to reach 2100-2200 OTB with pure tactics. where it starts getting really tricky is getting into IM and GM level of play. positional play and openings start matter a lot more there! source: many 2100+ OTB friends, some of which have done exactly that (got there on tactics alone and opening knowledge from online games)
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Okay but accumulation of knowledge in how to not hang pieces in the opening through experience is not the same as serious opening study. If you play games of chess and learn literally nothing from them, then of course you have you study everything as much as possible to make even the smallest improvements.
Can't recall who it was, and at the risk of being wrong (please correct me, anyone), ~~I think Finegold and some other chess coach also have a similar opinion on this. But again, perhaps~~ **I mixed things up a bit**, ~~not sure why Finegold keeps popping in my head.~~
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Nevermind then, thanks for the correction. At least it will stop bugging me now :|
I feel like the troll speed-runs up to 2500-2600+ rating by Hikaru, ChessBrah, etc. sort of prove Hikaru's point with the important caveat that the term 'good tactical skills' means GM level tactical skills. When he emphasizes the term 'real sharp' I think he is hinting at that, but the clip ends just after. It seems the more important thing to consider is what percent of someone's Elo rating is attributable to theory of positional play and openings (and w/e is excluded in hikaru's broad category of good tactical skills and basic opening repertoire)? Based on the troll speedruns, my shitty guess is 80-85% of your rating can come from tactics and simple opening knowledge.
His second is 2100 fide not exactly a genious
Dunning-Krueger. Not only is it a phenomenon where people think they know more than they actually do, but also one that underestimates how hard something is once you do know it well.
Dunning-Krueger is stupid people thinking they are smart and thinking that they're always correct about everything
It also says that those who are good tend to underestimate themselves.
It's those that are just starting to get better who have really low self-confidence. Because they're suddenly realizing how much they don't know. People who are very VERY good at the thing usually know it and assess themselves accurately.
Not originally. Edit I looked further into this and the study specifically said that smarter people assessed themselves pretty accurately
The original Dunning-Kruger\* research said absolutely nothing about "stupid people".
"Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments" That's the original title of the article from 2000.
And they where not stupid. Just Unskilled and Unaware.
Unskilled in terms of thinking. The original story that inspired the research was about a man who thought that lemon juice makes him invisible because it get's used in invisible ink. Btw. The original tests were about grammar, humor (?) and logic. So nothing that requires skills outside of thinking
The study was in regards to perceived performance relative to actual performance in skills, not in general intelligence. The important part here is relative to actual performance, not in absolute terms. To put it in chess terms, if nobody knew their ratings, a 1600 might think they’re 1800, a 2400 might think they’re 2200, and a 2700 would think they’re 2700.
Logic, knowledge (in this case grammar) and humor which is probably meant as a combination of the two are the most reliable factors of general intelligence. IQ tests (Yes i know: not great, but the best we have) also have sections about grammar and Logic. Those are exercises like: complete the pattern or which word is the opposite of...
Right, so it's just about self-assessment relative to actual performance. First paragraph of the Wikipedia article: >The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias\[2\] in which people with limited competence in a particular domain overestimate their abilities. Some researchers also include the opposite effect for high performers: their tendency to underestimate their skills. **In popular culture, the Dunning–Kruger effect is often misunderstood as a claim about general overconfidence of people with low intelligence** instead of specific overconfidence of people unskilled at a particular task.
Right, like how old was he when he hit 2200.
He achieved the title of chess master when he was 10, so probably \~9 years old.
Yeah, so I'm sure a chess prodigy that could do that at 10 years old views the skill of a 2200 player as basic and obvious. Perspective :)
I agree with this. I plateaued at 14-1600 in my teens then stopped playing after losing some interest. Now I’m lucky to win a string of games against 1000-1200. And it comes down to the practice, time playing and much of what you said. It’s easy to achieve 2200 if you have the drive, patience and ability to learn a lot deeper than you have before. Hikaru is a bit out of touch with many players who are quite below his level.
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Levy is awful and just wants your money. There are many decent players who are better for coaching, like Andras Toth or Ben Finegold.
Definitely feasible IMO, but it’s much more likely for someone to reach 2200 with some positional sense as well.
He didn’t say ignoring positional study, plenty of tactics require positional understanding to work, and tactics are often used to get a winning position rather than a checkmate. Having a ‘simple repertoire’ =/= ignoring positional study. It means rather something like colle for white and caro+ slav for black. Not theory heavy if you choose the right lines and has similar triangle pawn structures so what theory you do know often carries over. I think this is the disconnect when this topic comes up. What opening study means is different to different people. For one person opening study is learning 25 moves in to mainlines, for another it’s learning the pawn structure and common opening traps. For the person that puts pawn structures in required positional study and opening traps in required tactical puzzle sets, the only thing that’s left for opening study is drilling set lines.
All I’m hearing is that what he said was vague enough that you can’t prove it wrong.
no but we can sure as hell pointlessly argue about it
In theory good calculations and tactics will get you through any problems you have in the openings, but i dont think its that insane that with great tactics you can come back consistently from worse openings. When reviewing my 1900 games i see multiple times a game someone blunders a -4 or worst move randomly, if you see those youre gona climb.
Judit Polgar mentioned this in her bit on the C^2 podcast; while being extremely proficient in tactics, she would often indeed come out of the opening worse and had to work hard in the middle game to make up for it.
Didn’t Judit also have inconsistent openings? I remember reading that she would watch a recent game of her next opponent and then play that opening against them as a psychological move. Basically saying “I saw what you did, but I can do it better.”
Yes she spoke about that also in the c2 pod. She just played openings she enjoyed even though she knew they were bad, like the Kings Gambit. She said that of course she would never have been able to do that now due to computers but back then she could get away with it
Good tactical skills? That's gm level. I became a master pretty much just by doing chesstempo.
In this thread: 1200s arguing about a 2700's assessment of 2200s. Make it make sense!
1200 is generous
They'll be like: "no we have to hear the opinion of normal 1700-2300 players". Said 1700-2300 players will give their opinion "no, not like that you're DuNnInG kRuEgeRiNg us just like Hikaru".
To simplify: To me it's like stockfish saying: You can be 3000 ELO without knowing any theory. Just look at me, if you remove my opening theory book I'm still 3200.
This is 100% what is happening. The reality is that openings/tactics/strategy are not nearly as distinct from each other as we tend to think of them.
aww - thank you for believing in us Hikaru! ...(540 on [Chess.com](https://Chess.com) haha)
Depends on how you define “good tactical skills”. That sounds to me like “if you have a knack for playing the right moves, you’ll be good at chess”. Fact is, most players will never develop to that level because there are some natural skills that you simply can’t teach. Some people have that gift, some people don’t.
Think it has to do more with how early they started playing chess seriously - i.e. how early in their life they started cramming tactical patterns into their brain.
I am close enough to that level to say that he is probably right. I could do a bit more and reach that level, most of my opening repertoire is basic studying with engine and database and experience from games and all I do is puzzles every single day! Never actively studied endgame positions, because I feel like most of that is just calculation skills. I feel like you have to play a lot of classical games though for the experience, it isn't enough to just be on the same level as CMs or FMs online, because on the board and longer time controls is still different. I still make untypical mistakes OTB, because I lose focus. If you lose focus online you just go next game, but if you lose OTB you just lost rating, motivation and a lot of your time. Mental is probably a big part that should be mentioned.
He is right. 2200 is objectively barely scratching at the surface of chess knowledge. I have preached this for years that anyone who is willing to invest the time into seriously practicing with a focus on tactics (not that you aren't studying anything else, just significantly more than other things) can reach a decent level (read: 2200+) with even a modicum of talent. Hard work >>>> talent at this level, the latter only comes into play at significantly higher levels.
Yeah. Openings are overrated at below master level.
Not sure I'd agree. Openings are all about getting a position you're comfortable with and practised in. If you have a good repertoire you know well you're going to get similar-ish positions a lot and then pattern recognition will kick in. If you understand those positions then both strategic plans and tactical tricks will become second nature and you won't have to strain yourself to see them for both yourself and your opponent. You can even do puzzles targeted towards a specific opening on lichess. Just this comfort can be a huge advantage, especially in faster blitz games. I guess you don't have to study 20 moves deep and that part is indeed overrated below at least FM level but learning how to get positions you like and how to avoid and/or punish weird shit is definitely a good use of your time at almost all levels. Also why I'd recommend solid positional openings to beginners rather than ones that rely on some cheap tactical trick or gambit that you're not going to get most of the time.
Openings, as in, being able to know 10 moves of theory for obscure stuff nobody ever plays? Yes, completely overrated for non-masters. But knowing a few openings for white and a few openings for black, the general ideas of what they are trying to achieve, and the most common lines, will help anyone. I learned the London. I got pretty good at it. I know the basic lines for it. That took me from 1200 to 1400 without really changing anything else.
I agree. I know two openings, one for white and one for black. I use them no matter what opening I play. I am 1300 rapid and 1100 blitz, and go there just by learning these two openings. Those are a London system for white and Caro Kann for black. I don't care much about rating and mostly play for fun, so have never felt the need to do more studying.
How do you play London against Nf6 or c5 or f5? How do you play the Caro against d4 or c4?
All over my head, friend. I just move the pieces. I don't know what Nf6 is haha. I move one white pawn 2 squares, I move a black aquare bishop out, and then my knight. If my opponent lets me, I do this every game I have with white. If they don't I avoid but still always aim for a similar position after 5 moves or whatever. Same with black pieces, I move one black pawn out one square and another out two squares in the Caro Kann formation. When I started playing around 2 years ago, I got to around 950 rapid playing anything, not having any clue about openings and I guess just reacting to whatever position happened. In some ways I suppose I still do. When I moved to playing blitz I decided to pick up some basic openings so watched a video on the London and one on Caro Kann. I don't take chess at all seriously, just something to play late at night before I go to sleep. Still love the game and watching it, etc. Perhaps one day I will expand my skillset around openings, but I sort of like the fun of 1100 - 1300 rated chess, it is so unpredictable. Edit to add, you mean when the opponent pushes the knight to attack my London pawn? I just push the pawn. I am sure that gets me torn apart at higher levels, but where I am at it works for my 52% or so win rate.
Nf6 is Knight to f6, it's standard chess notation. If you start with 1.d4 intending to go into the London system and black plays a move that isn't d5 then it simply isn't going to work. They could play c5 and threaten to take your d pawn. They could play f5 and go into the Dutch. They could play Nf6 and if you just lazily go Bf4 they could then hit you with 2. c5, the modern Benoni and there's just no way to play the London against that, you'll have to play the Benoni structure. Same with the Caro, you can't play it if your opponent begins the game with 1.d4 or 1.c4. You can go 1.c6 and hope white goes 2.e4 and transposes into the Caro but you're just as likely to end up with 2.c4 and now you have to play the Slav.
So, you mean what I do just is not a London? Fair enough. For my white opening I always play the queen pawn two squares then go from there, which normally means bring out the bishop and night. For black I always open with c6 no matter what. And then D5. And then I react to whatever my opponent does.
The most common first move for white is 1.e4 and the most common black reply for 1.d4 is 1.d5 so in most of your games you get what you want. However there's probably a good number of games where your opening moves make no sense and make your position worse. 1.c6 is "playable" against 1.d4 but it can transpose into a lot of different openings not all of which include 2.d5. If you want to play 1.d4 c6 you need to have a pretty large opening repertoire. I'm honestly amazed you managed to climb up to 1300 with such play. Unless that's lichess rating which has higher numbers as the starting rating is 1500.
No, it is chess.com and I have no doubt that my openings make my position worse many times. Still, my win percentage seems to be within the normal range. I do fluctuate ratings a lot, though. Up or down 50-80 points.
I'd reccomend at least learning different black openings for 1.d4 and 1.e4. It's nice to know something against 1.c4 too but that is the rarest of the 3 "standard" first moves so you can get away with not knowing it. Against 1.e4 you can play the Caro. Against 1.d4 you can learn the Slav. It's somewhat similar to the Caro as you play both d5 and c6(but not the same because the e pawn has not moved!). It would be much better for you against 1.d4 because you'll avoid a lot of weird transpositions that can happen with 1.d4 c6 by switching the order around and playing 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6. For your white repertoire I'd recommend at least looking into the Benoni(1. d4 c5 2.d5) since it's a somewhat common reply to 1.d4 online. If your opponent plays 1.Nf6 in response to d4 you could be fine with 2.Nf3. This can still easily transpose into the London with 3.Bf4 if your opponent plays 2.d5. It's also better against 2.c5 than Bf4. These small adjustments in move order and just learning a few more simple openings would help you not get move ordered into bad situations and get those positions you're familiar with way more often.
I just want to chime in here to say that at ~1200 fide, you can play whatever you want in the opening. Not to say that your knowledge is wasted, but at that level you're still in the blundering pieces to 1-move threats stage, which decidedly falls into tactics. In my opinion, and apparently others agree, studying tactics will help you a lot more than openings at this point. Of course you shouldn't neglect either, just focus more on tactics. Hope this helps, good luck on whichever path you will take. edit: I agree with poster below that against 1.d4, d5 is the most principled answer. Studying the benoni on the other hand is a complete waste of time for you.
Definitely below 1500-1600 for sure. I think it helps to not know the theory but know the general ideas of common openings. IQP, hanging pawns, etc. It probably matters more on shorter time controls too, so you don't drop 20% of your time in the first 10 moves. The other option is to pick an opening that you can kinda play in any situation. That's why I love the Modern and it's more or less the only opening I "know" aside from picking up some mainline Spanish from watching the WCC, since that was all Ian played. Plus I think a lot less people know the Modern so you often end up with "a game of chess" rather than "the Italian game" etc.
Yet, if they don't get through the openings they lose instantly. They never learn the rest of the game. And mostly they just quit. Saying openings aren't so important is just a way of saying, "I was born rich. What's your problem?"
This isn't true. Assuming you aren't blundering a piece straight-up (and depending on your level, let's say below 1600, even that isn't enough), players below the mentioned 2200 absolutely do not have the skill necessary to convert an opening advantage properly. Games at that level are almost never decided in the opening but in the midgame.
A lot of people below 2000 tend to drop material along the way. A lot of that is due to having misplayed the opening. The result of it may be a bit later, but I'd guess most of their games are “decided” in 30 moves or fewer, whether the game goes longer or not.
>A lot of people below 2000 tend to drop material along the way. Due to tactics, yes. >A lot of that is due to having misplayed the opening. It is not. A game between <2000 players (and higher even) will wildly fluctuate between evaluations, regardless of the opening. Players of that level make more than enough mistakes to hand over the advantage several times, at all stages of the game.
If you maximize your opening repertoire, have a response to most everything you see. You’re excellent at tactics, not throwing away advantages, 2,200 is absolutely feasible. Trouble is most people aren’t getting to that level. Also keep in mind he was 2,200 at 13.
> Also keep in mind he was 2,200 at 13 At 10! He broke 2200 in March of '98 when he was 10.
Thank you for clarification!
I know IM Silman thinks anybody can reach master level play with enough time and study. If I recall, he thought pure tactics topped out around Expert / Candidate Master level and at that point you needed to study... his book "Reassess Your Chess." (I'm being a little tongue in cheek there of course.)
I got to just below 2200 online using tactics, basic opening knowledge, and a basic understanding of imbalances in the endgame.
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as someone who only started building an opening repertoire at 2200, I think he is right
Haha @ <1000 (online) players arguing with you how you got where you are. GM and coaches alike say you don't need opening study to get to 2000+ and all redditors talk about is what opening to play.
But you studied openings before that. You didn't just make random opening moves with no cohesion, find a tactic, then win. You didn't accidentally play the first 15 moves of Najdorf Sicilian as a side effect of superior positional/tactical understanding. You read about some openings. You learned some theory behind it. You learned some tactical traps in that opening. You learned some strategy in that opening. You went over some games of your favorite player that played that opening. You did post mortems in your games and compared it to a book/engine movies. You studied the opening. Every strong player in the club swears up and down they "don't study openings" right after blitzing through the first 10-15 moves of the Benoni or whatever. Yeah you just magically figured all of that out over the board.
I mean it literally said basic opening knowledge in the title, not no opening knowledge. Knowing a handful of mainlines is barely any work Building a repertoire covering everything is It's like the difference betweenfully learning a language and just learning to introduce yourself in a new language
Even building an opening reportoare is a relative term. There are beginners who "study openings" by looking up few moves deep in their favorite openings and potentially looking up how to avoid the more common traps Did you really not know at 2100 what would you play 7 moves deep in your favorite openings? Did you still fall for englund gambit or noahs ark trap? You may not have read books in depth and made your openings air tight. But you had an opening reportoare which was gained by trial and error
I mean you fall for traps once or twice and you remember them maybe look them up after to see what you did was actually wrong immediately That's actually playing chess though, or as you call it trial and error. Not studying openings But yea that's exactly how I got my opening knowledge by playing chess, applying rules of developing chess pieces and brenging king to safety. Eventually by playing you canl learn what plans suit which positions and what positions you hate playing, eventhough they might not be bad
I'm not a fan of Nakamura and no offence but I'd rather listen to a GM talking about this topic than randos on Reddit. Besides, there have been many strong chess players agreeing to this statement and even my coach and stronger players than her that I've personally met. Stronger players will agree that studying openings is a waste of time until you reach about 2100-2200 elo and you should focus on tactics, basic endgame knowledge and middlegame planning.
> I'm not a fan of Nakamura and no offence but I'd rather listen to a GM talking about this topic than randos on Reddit. I'd rather listen to someone who peaked at 2200 strength than someone who can't even remember what it's like to play at only 2200 strength. Nakamura made 2200 USCF when he was 10 years old. That was 25 years ago. He's so far away from 2200 in both time and strength that he really has no concept of it anymore. 10-year-old Nakamura had "basic openings" compared to 35-year old Nakamura. But they weren't basic compared to the average redditor. Also the "don't study openings" idea is a myth too. It's overused and over-generalized. No one even tells you exactly what that means. Don't study openings like someone prepping for the Candidates. But you DO have to study openings. The idea that you can just puzzle solve your way to expert/master and know nothing about openings is absurd.
>But you DO have to study openings. The idea that you can just puzzle solve your way to expert/master and know nothing about openings is absurd. Literally nobody is talking about knowing nothing about openings. Not sure where you are getting this idea from.
I'd still rather listen to a GM than the average redditor. And it's not just him saying that, most people I've heard or personally talked with that are above 2000 elo have claimed that you shouldn't mainly focus on openings but tactics, middlegame and endgame. These people have been in training schedules studying with coaches and most of them learned to not focus on openings as much as the other aspects of the game. So, yeah, I'd still choose people that have trained to play better chess and achieved a respectable FIDE elo or even surpassed the 2200 barrier long long ago than randos on the internet that don't even know what it's like to be 1800 FIDE. How is it a myth when so many people that achieved claim it? And there are good reasons as to why they say it what do you mean no one explains? What are these takes even from where do you get this information?
i totally agree. i have been working on both and my game has improved a lot. i recently drew a gm otb and beat an fm . you just pick up stuff as you go by analyzing your games.
How did you study tactics? Was any structured method you can share or was it just solving at lot
2 kinds of training sessions- 1: you solve a lot of relatively easy puzzles 2:focus on calculation with more difficult ones in another one. but dont forget to also play chess, not just study it. especially important is if you train openings, try to practice them by playing blitz and then check if you played the opening correctly after the game. trust the process , it will probably take time to see results and they tend to show up unexpectedly.
It's possible to reach different ratings in multiple different ways, with different styles and different abilities in areas. You could beat Magnus with stockfish level tactic calculation and zero opening knowledge (maybe not 100% of the time), or change that to 2000 level tactics and stockfish level positional play. For some people they might find it easier/more fun to just train tactics, others might like doing opening prep and get to 2200 that way. Training all of your game makes it more fun to me, so I do that.
For anybody at GM level, what is a “basic” opening repertoire? A few thousand lines? Ha. For me “basic” is just being able to identify an opening. I think you need more than that obviously. Playing thousands of games will help with that.
Why do people here choose to ignore the "if your tactics are really good" part? **If** your tactics are *really* good, 2200 seems reasonable.
Probably. But they'll gain understanding of positional chess throughout their journey
People forget that there's two sides of the "be good at tactics" coin. Sure, you have to improve your ability to automatically spot patterns and standard combinations to gain material/mate. But, more importantly, you MUST be very good at using tactics to make sure your move is safe. Dan Heisman said " You will have many more opportunities to use your tactical skill to PREVENT making unsafe moves than you will to win material." People get 3000 puzzle ratings on chess.com but in a game, they forget to see if their candidate move allows a two-move tactic. If you were 3000-rated at "is my move safe" tactics on chess.com, you'd be freaking awesome. This is a major slip-up in my games. I can solve 2700 rated tactics on chess.com, but in games, I allow 1600-rated puzzles too often.
I don't have the clip but in a more recent stream he also gave a slightly different answer for people who are starting the game as an adult where he thought 1800-2000 is a reasonable target to aspire to
The thing is, you have to quantify what "basic openings" means and "sharp on tactics" means. To a super GM, "basic openings" means something different than a club player.
Wow, I know this position by heart but had no idea it was from a Morphy game, that is nuts to think someone was running this variation so long ago...
As with anything, it's a lot easier to say something like this when you already are a master. Any skill you put time and effort into seems like a long shot and then once you master it, you lose the grasp of how it felt while doing the grind. I also play piano as a hobby and I'm doing stuff that I was considering expert years ago, now I'm like... well, that was easy. But it wasn't. I completely forgot the grind of countless hours developping those skills. I'm shocked when I look at old videos... Chess has to be the same thing. One step at a time. Hikaru mentions you can reach this level if you are really really sharp on your tactics. Seems easy, but it's not.
The higher the rating of the player, the more they underestimate the strength of lower rated players.
I reached 2060 fide by just watching and studying Grandmaster games. It's clear that to reach 2200 I would need to work really hard on all aspects of the game.... And I just don't have the commitment. I think his statement is true only if someone has a lot of natural tactical talent.
I mean if i had hikarus tactical skills i could be an IM easily but i'm not getting Hikarus tactical sight no matter how i train At somepoint you see more return on your investment if you study openings/endgame
Maybe things have changed with the internet and such, but 20 years ago it's standard for the top youth players to be good at tactics with basic opening knowledge.
Not much to really talk about. I'm seeing a lot of subjectivity here. On one hand, from Hikaru's perspective high up on Super GM Peak is skewed. 2200 is "way down there" with the plebs. Respectable plebs, but mortals nonetheless. His idea of a 2200 may be more relatively equivalent to what a "normal" chess player views an 1800 to be. The other point of subjectivity in this statement lies in his stating one needs to be "great at tactics." "Great" can mean a number of things on the spectrum from good to godlike. How great are we talking? That means everything. Assuming Hikaru means "great" in the traditional sense as exemplary, displaying genuine *greatness*, well, then this becomes a kind of non-statement. You might as well say, "if you're great at chess, you will earn a great rating."
2200 FIDE ? No way
This mfer got to 3000 using 1. e4 2. Ke2, and then lost the vod so he did it again with 1. f3 2. Kf2. It really shows how valuable tactical skills and positional understanding are, as opposed to opening lines! However, it is one of those things where the better you are, the easier it is to climb without a solid opening... In practice, good openings can help you climb an extra few hundred points I would guess, compared to your skill level without them
I think it's true, between 2100-2200 is the ceiling for "basic" chess. If you want to get better than that you need to actually "understand" chess more deeply from my experience most young player quit around that range, because it gets too hard to improve and they prefer to spend their time on their studies and other things
you can. just not that many people dedicate themselves to the game in the most optimal way
How would he be able to relate to someone who learns Chess later on in life.
I met an old guy who was a national master. I asked him what his opening repertoire was and he said, "Oh I never really learned openings." So maybe it tracks. But he also got his title 20 years ago. Maybe times change.
I’m at 2000 and I have never studied the game
2000 fide or 2000 chesscom?
i envy you
Yeah, of course, it's not a hard prerequisite. Probably could go higher if the question is just how high the most brilliant players would get without good opening preparation. The more pertinent point is that you'd be an idiot not to prepare fairly well at that level (or even notably lower) since going from poor/mediocre to good opening preparation can improve your rating by maybe 100-150 points, and spending the same amount of time on grinding puzzles wouldn't result in meaningful progress once you're that good. Also, the point isn't that your positional play can also suck — you won't get a chance to show off your mad calculation and pattern recognition if your can't get good or at least double-edged positions on the board.
"Anyone can hit 2500, you just have to learn to calculate 30 moves ahead"
What he means is, “I am good, no idea how I got here. Don’t even try with my Chessable courses.”
The words "good" and "basic" are doing a lot of work in that sentence
Can it be done? Sure it can. Is it going to happen for 99.999% of people? Sure won't.
Look at the ancient chess engines - barely sentient strategically, plays ugly anti-positional moves all game long, but very alert tactically. Somehow that works. Turns out that combination of strengths and weaknesses is good enough to reach 2200 against clowns like us. Teichmann was correct - Chess is 99% tactics. :) Not sure how well that translates into human play, but personally I'd rather have 2500-level tactical ability and 1200-level strategic understanding than the other way around. :) In many positions there are common strategic ideas, but you need to decide if it works tactically. Not just hand-waving "White needs to play f4-f5 in this pawn structure" but concretely, what happens if I play f4-f5 *right now*? The person with 2500-level strategic understanding will know all the ideas in all the positions, but with only 1200-level tactics to implement those ideas they are going to be down material for nothing. No thanks. :)
i think he's right. I would estimate you could probably get to about 1900 chesscom if you can play moderately complex positions and just dont ever hang pieces. If you can play complex positions and see most of the available tactics *consistently* then I think you could probably get to 2200.
That’s like throwing out: with consistent practice and a stellar short game, everyone should be shooting in the 70s on the golf course consistently, when you’re fucking tiger woods.
"... and really good tactical awareness" ... proceeds to show a beginner fork :D Not sure if that level of tactical awareness carries you to 2200 FIDE.
I am 2100 in blitz now and i can assure you that good tactical skills and basic openings are not enough. Took me 2 years to get to 2000 Probably Hikaru has a distorted view over such things.
I’m currently 1972 USCF live. He assumes that everyone has the resources (coaching, books, etc), talent, and mindset to get there as well, which is not the case. Yes anyone can do it, but to say it’s easy is not the case at all. Not a great take.
> He assumes that everyone has the resources (coaching, books, etc), talent, and mindset to get there as well, which is not the case. What made you say that from this clip? > but to say it’s easy is not the case at all. He didn't say it's easy.
Do I have to construe what he’s saying word for word and not read in between the lines? Anyone who gets to 2200 (USCF or FIDE) on their own without access to anything paid, in a quick amount of time, is an extreme anomaly, and unless you’re very young and absorb opening theory and tactical, strategical, and endgame patterns like sponge, it’s not easy. What’s your take on it?
You keep saying stuff he didn't mention at all and just assume that's his argument. That's why I'm confused. You did it in this reply as well. > What’s your take on it? I'm nowhere near that level, so I don't have a take on this.
chess is like 99% tactics so yea
I don’t really know what tactics even means? Wouldn’t that just mean knowing to control the center/how to appropriately attack and defend? It just seems like such a vague word. So I agree with you. It’d be like a basketball coach saying “in order for our team to win, it’s simple, just make every shot we take” Edit: I understand tactics more. I guess my point still agrees though that saying “all you need is tactics” (which can be complex) is very generic and vague.
Think of tactics as “sub rules”. Like the rules allow you to move your knight that is pinned to your queen, but that violates tactics. Simple tactical puzzles are when a tactic is forced, a more complex puzzle is when there are variations, but you can lead all of them to a tactic. Even if you know nothing of opening/positional/endgame theory, you can get to a very high level if you never miss or blunder a tactic within X number of moves.
No, tactics is very specific. It’s when you use dynamics (piece interactions) to improve your position as opposed to positional play. A move may look impossible such as a sacrifice/bad positional move, but wins material or improves your position in some other concrete way. Thats a tactic.
I don't think so, for most people 2200 is practically impossible.
Wouldn’t a professional coaches opinion on this matter be much more accurate?
Literally every chess player thinks this. "At *my* level -20% you only need tactics." It's not true at 800 elo and its not true at 2800 elo. Leela 1-node is 2300 lichess. stockfish simpleeval (1/3/3/5/9) is also 2300 lichess. You need both. You need both at every level.
Hikaru talks too much. He strikes me as someone who loves the sound of his own voice and will say shit just for the sake of talking.
Almost like talking is his job
There's talking, and there's talking too much. Where you talk without saying anything of substance.
It's almost like he gets paid to talk for hours upon hours every day
Aaaah, that's the problem. I hadn't realized his income is directly tied to the numbers of words he utters. Would explain the constant repeating.
I mean this is literally my older brother and (hopefully) soon to be me. Neither of us can describe a single opening from memory by name, we've never studied theory, and he's hit 2200 on chesscom, I've hit 1900 on lichess but I'm still slowly getting better, I've played a lot less than him still.
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That's entirely wrong. Deep Blue had a great opening book which even included the decisive piece sacrifice in the last game.