Author: Marc van Hal
Date: 17:56:35 02/04/02
Go up one level in this thread
On February 04, 2002 at 12:42:52, Uri Blass wrote: >On February 04, 2002 at 11:54:18, Miguel A. Ballicora wrote: > >>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!!! > >Understanding what to aim for is totally unimportant when you are weak in >tactics. > >If the target is to increase the rating then it may be important for masters but >not for the novice players. > >Uri I also can recommand Capablanca's book too And not only because it is great for learning but also because of historical grounds. If you read it you realy come in the time spirit he was playing. And you find the mistakes in some databases hehe Pointing and the historical game Marshall -Capablanca in the chessmaster database. And what he would have played in 1942 instead of how he played it then. Marc
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