How to prepare for a chess opponent

When you know who you will play, whether it is a club match, a league game or a tournament round with pairings published the night before, a little preparation can give you a real edge. You do not need to be a professional with a team of seconds. An hour of focused work is enough to avoid surprises in the opening and to steer the game towards positions you understand better than your opponent does.

Step 1: Collect their games

Start by gathering as many of your opponent's games as you can find. Useful sources include:

• their games on online sites, if you know their username,
• published tournament and league games,
• games against you or your clubmates.

Fast online games are a good guide to openings, because people tend to play the same first moves at every time control. They are a weaker guide to how someone plays a long game, so be careful drawing conclusions about their middlegame from bullet.

If your opponent plays online, the opponent prep tool can do much of the collecting for you: enter their username, choose the time controls that matter, and use the research it builds as your starting point for the steps below.

Step 2: Map their openings

Sort the games by colour, then by first moves. You are looking for answers to a few simple questions:

• As White, what do they open with? 1.e4, 1.d4, or something else? How consistent are they?
• As Black, what do they play against your first move? Against 1.e4, do they play 1...e5, the Sicilian, the French, the Caro-Kann?
• Where do their games leave known theory? Many club players know the first 6 to 10 moves of their main lines and then improvise.
• Where do they score badly? A line where they keep getting worse positions is a good target.

Suppose your opponent plays the Caro-Kann in 40 of their last 50 games as Black and usually reaches this Advance position. That is more than enough information. You do not need to prepare against the Sicilian. You need one good, well-understood line here.

Step 3: Look beyond the opening

Openings are the easiest thing to prepare, but habits often matter more. While you go through the games, note things like:

• Time use. Do they spend a lot of time early and get into time trouble? Then a complicated, slow middlegame may suit you.
• Results by type of position. Do they win sharp attacking games but lose long endgames? Aim for simple positions and trades.
• Reaction to surprises. Do they play badly when you leave the main line early? A sideline might be worth more than the strongest theory.
• Typical mistakes. If a game review of a few of their losses shows the same kind of error, such as weakening their king or overextending pawns, keep that in mind during the game.

This is not about exploiting a weakness in a single game. It is about choosing, between two roughly equal plans, the one your opponent is likely to handle worse.

Step 4: Choose your lines

Now decide what you will play. A good preparation choice is a line that is:

1. Sound. Do not rely on a trap that fails against correct play. Your opponent may know the refutation.
2. Comfortable for you. A line you understand beats a stronger line you have memorised the night before.
3. Awkward for them. Ideally it leads to the kind of position they handle less well, or avoids their best-prepared territory.

If your opponent is a Sicilian expert with years of theory in sharp lines, meeting them head-on in their main line plays to their strength. The Alapin, 2.c3, aims for a central pawn on d4 and leads to quieter positions where general understanding matters more than memory.

Step 5: Build or adjust your repertoire

Preparation works best on top of a stable repertoire. If you already have one, you are adjusting it. If you do not, each preparation session is a chance to build one piece at a time.

Some principles:

• Prepare ideas, not just moves. For each line, know the typical pawn breaks, the best squares for your pieces and one or two model games.
• Learn the critical branches. You do not need every move your opponent could play, only the ones they have actually played and the most dangerous replies.
• Drill it. Repeat the first moves until you can play them without thinking. Opening training lets you rehearse a line from both sides until it is automatic.
• Have a fallback. If your opponent surprises you on move 3, know what you will do. A simple, solid set-up is a good backup.

Step 6: Practical preparation on the day

The last part of preparation has nothing to do with moves.

• Stop studying a couple of hours before the game. Late cramming often leads to confusing two lines.
• Write a short summary. One page: your planned lines, the key ideas, and two or three notes about your opponent's habits.
• Plan your time. If you have prepared a line deeply, play those moves quickly, but think at the moment you leave your preparation, because that is where your opponent's experience starts to count.
• Expect surprises. Good opponents prepare too. If they play something new, do not panic. Your general understanding still works.

After the game

Whatever the result, review the game the same day. Did your preparation hold up? Did your opponent deviate? Where did the game leave your notes, and what happened next? Add what you learned to your repertoire files. Over a season of club matches or tournaments, these small updates add up to a repertoire you trust and a much clearer picture of the players you meet again and again.

Preparation is not about knowing more moves than your opponent. It is about walking into the game with fewer unknowns than they have.

Published 2026-11-01 · 22Softwares