Author: Peter Berger
Date: 14:54:07 12/30/01
Go up one level in this thread
On December 29, 2001 at 14:57:29, Miguel A. Ballicora wrote: >First, let me rephrase my english since I introduce a double negation: > >"NOT even amateurs are taught to think like a tree nowadays, and the >best book about it is "How to reasess your Chess" by J. Silman." > >So, the influence is less and less to think like a tree. Still, there is >tree component in the teaching but is limited to purely combinatorial >situations. > >>I have read "How to reasess your Chess" and my impression was that the main >>procedure Silman explains that is different to Kotov is how to get the candidate >>moves and how to evaluate the resulting positions ( imbalances etc). > >I think is more than that. >All the analysis with the imbalances is a non-tree approach and that is the core >of the book. After that, you come up with a very good plan that will be tried in >an analytic fashion (extremely reduced tree). Still, there is an emphasis in >when NOT to calculate. See for instance part III (calculations) >page 37 that the first two examples of this chapter is how NOT to calculate!! >"... To calculate any variation at all would be a complete waste of time". >Diagrams 28 and 29. Then, it goes to analyze a complex analytical situation >but see what is says at the end: >"Old experienced dogs like myself, will often avoid calculation even in this >type of complicated situation and just play Rc5 cold turkey (of course, we would >still use the thinking technique to find the correct plan! [MY NOTE: which is a >non-tree approach])" >The he explain why he would do that an adds >"...Normally, you may want to look a couple of moves ahead to make sure that >everything is in order..." > >The point is, sometimes you need to calculate, sometimes you need NOT to. >Silman quoted a funny remark by R. Reti. Whe he asked how many moves ahead >a GM usually calculates, he replied "one move". This is an exageration but >sometimes it is true. > >>Or to put it in different words: I thought his work was mainly about reduzing >>the tree size and getting more selective. > >Kotov's is supposed to be very selective! >I think is the opposite, set your mind to a "non-tree thinking way" to see the >truth of the position and later, if needed, calculate as in Kotov's. >See that this book if for beginners, Nunn's and Tisdall's particularly, present >a more elaborate way of calculation. Even in wild positions they are far from >Kotov's "selective alpha-beta" approach. > >>I remember the first position in the book with the Qa7 move. It has been my >>impression that it should be possible to teach a computer to think exactly like >>this. > >What position is that? I cannot find it. > >Regards, >Miguel > I am talking about the very first position in the book ; now I think it was something like Qc2-a4-a7 but it should be easy to find as it is the first one. My problem is I have borrowed the book to a friend a few years ago and never got it back. I have saved the rest of your message to think about it more thoroughly later. Thanks and kind regards, pete
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