Author: Miguel A. Ballicora
Date: 08:54:18 02/04/02
Go up one level in this thread
On February 03, 2002 at 13:51:57, Otello Gnaramori wrote: >I had a confirmation of the importance of tactics (especially for class level >players) reading the article by Michael De La Maza in ChessCafe.com, titled "400 >(elo) points in 400 days". >You can have a complete look to it at >http://www.chesscafe.com/text/skittles148.pdf , but I would like to report an >excerpt very enlightening, IMHO ,here following: > >"Here are some other reasons to focus on studying tactics: >Tactical shots are easier to analyze. Suppose that you are reading a book >that discusses a position in which positional factors, not tactical ones, are >the over-riding concern. If you have a question about a variation that is not >covered in the book, what can you do? Not much, unless you have a chess >coach who is willing to answer questions ad nauseum. In contrast, you can >receive GM-level tactical analysis by using a computer and can fully >understand every variation. >There is an amusing experiment that you can try in order to verify the >difficulty of understanding positional evaluations. Pick any analyzed >position in Jeremy Silman’s Reassess Your Chess, the book that has >become famous for teaching class players positional concepts, set up the >position on your favorite computer program, and play the side that is >winning according to Silman. After a few moves the computer will deviate >from Silman’s analysis. Feel free to check Silman’s book or any other The computer finds ways to resist longer and make the analysis more complicated. That is exaclty what a novice should never try to do at first!!! That is a reason why studying the classics is good (as Dvoretsky explains well in "training for the tournament player"): Capablanca devise a wonderful plan that his opponent rarely contests. Capablanca carries out the plan flawlessly and the student understand exactly what happen during the game. Conclusion: the student understand what to aim for. That is the basis for the strategic knowledge. When the defense is tough, you get dozens of plans that never crystallized and the whole thing is a mess because everything goes on top of your head. But first, you have to understand what to aim for, not HOW TO CARRY OUT FLAWLESSLY AGAINST EVERY POSSIBLE DEFENSE!!! Regards, Miguel >source for advice on what to do about the computer’s "new idea." You will >quickly learn that the computer has *busted* Silman’s plan and a new plan is >required. Now what do you do? If you are a GM you can create a new plan >(provided that you didn’t reject Silman’s plan from the start), but if you are >a class player there is little that you can easily do to learn about the new >position." > > >w.b.r. >Otello
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