Lines of vulnerability, QGD, and CT-Art

A couple of other points I don't want to forget about the lesson this week. In a tournament game we went over, I missed a beautiful pin. Coach urged me to imagine not just lines of force emanating from my pieces, but lines of vulnerability from my opponent's pieces. E.g., imagine lines radiating outward from the enemy king, traversing through all the pieces on the board. If that line only intersects one enemy piece, that means a pin might be possible. You get the idea. I'll start trying out these visualization tools in real games.

Also, we've decided I should play the QGD rather than the QGA. This is somewhat of a relief, as the QGA seems like something I should put off until I am have matured more at the game. I got McDonald's book Starting Out: Queen's Gambit Declined, which seems like an excellent introduction. He even explains why in certain lines h6 is played and in others it is not.

I glanced at all the QGD games in Chernev's Logical Chess. There are 10 such games (almost a third of the book!), and every one of them is a win for white. This shows he did not put enough effort into choosing his games. QGD is a solid opening for black, and there are plenty of wins (or at the very least draws) from which he should have chosen. Given his proclivity to describe the game from the winner's perspective, someone reading his book would think the QGD is a slam-dunk for white.

Also, as part of my upping the tactical intensity, I have started working on CT-Art to supplement my circles with CTB. At level 10, the problems are about the same level of difficulty of those in Stage 3 of CTB. When I first began all this, even Level 10 CT-Art was a bit much for me. This is encouraging as it shows I have grown tactically, but I must remember that I am still but a wee pup.