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Subject: Re: Chess improvement method and CC

Author: Uri Blass

Date: 22:35:35 02/04/02

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On February 04, 2002 at 18:56:51, Marc van Hal wrote:

>On February 04, 2002 at 17:13:35, Uri Blass wrote:
>
>>On February 04, 2002 at 16:37:53, Miguel A. Ballicora wrote:
>>
>>>On February 04, 2002 at 16:19:04, Uri Blass wrote:
>>>
>>>>On February 04, 2002 at 16:04:52, Miguel A. Ballicora wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On February 04, 2002 at 15:37:38, David Rasmussen wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>On February 04, 2002 at 11:40:07, Miguel A. Ballicora wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>On February 04, 2002 at 10:38:04, David Rasmussen wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Thanks for the link. Great article! I too am a weak chess player, and I have
>>>>>>>>also recently had an insight about focusing on tactics instead of positional
>>>>>>>>knowledge. I have 40 chess books or so, and of course some of them are about
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>I found this kind of things too dogmatic.
>>>>>>>The most important part of learning is interest and motivation. If you despise
>>>>>>>going through thousands of tactical exercises with nothing in between for
>>>>>>>a year most probably your are going to quit after two weeks. This is like
>>>>>>>the magic diets where you have to juggle your day around the diet.
>>>>>>>As always, improvement is an individual effort and depends very much on the
>>>>>>>individual. That's where the importance of the teacher comes, NOT TO EXPLAIN
>>>>>>>WHY Ba4 is better than Bxc6 in the Ruy Lopez.
>>>>>>>Tactics will be a key for a player, but might not be for another. There
>>>>>>>hundreds of details that are important and some of them are not even related
>>>>>>>to chess (like attention etc.). In general, tactics are very important
>>>>>>>particularly at that level, but it is not wise to separate it from everything
>>>>>>>else.
>>>>>>>Tactical exercises are good, but it is never good to be 100% of the training.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Ah! do not forget to play real OTB chess, but not too much. 60-80 slow paced
>>>>>>>(anything that last more than 3 hours) games a year, select some and analyze
>>>>>>>them to death WITHOUT A COMPUTER, show it to a stronger player or a friend.
>>>>>>>Share analysis... Then, use your computer. Keep a notebook with everything...
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Regards,
>>>>>>>Miguel
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I know what you mean, and I generally agree. I too find the article dogmatic,
>>>>>>but that doesn't matter, IMO. Sometimes that's needed to fight another (older)
>>>>>>dogma. The articles is even wrong at some points: It is not necesarily better to
>>>>>>be able to look 5 moves with "no positional knowledge (not even material?)",
>>>>>>than to look 4 moves with Grandmaster level positional knowledge. In chess
>>>>>>programming terms: There are a lot of evaluation terms that makes up for search
>>>>>>depth: If you have a passed pawn on the 6th rank supported by your king in an
>>>>>>endgame, with positional knowledge, you will know with a 0-ply search that this
>>>>>>is strong, whereas it takes a 3-ply search with "no knowledge" to see this.
>>>>>
>>>>>Besides, a GM can play a full game without calculating at all (say just 3-4
>>>>>plies) and outplay a 1900 player that spend 2 hours for the game.
>>>>>That's what happen in simuls.
>>>>
>>>>I think that you are wrong to assume that the GM does not calculate at all.
>>>>I believe that few seconds of GM's calculation is simply often better than few
>>>>minutes of 1900's player calculation.
>>>
>>>Players in simuls against much weaker players do not calculate a damn thing.
>>>They just play the first move that pop into their heads. Once in a while they
>>>stop to calculate to finish up a game but that is the minority of the cases.
>>>
>>>You are less likely to blunder when your pieces are in the right spot and you
>>>follow plans that you did hundreds of times before. Not to mention if you
>>>managed to trade queens and went into an endgame. You can go into cruise control
>>>against a lesser player.
>>>
>>>Regards,
>>>Miguel
>>
>>
>>I can give a simple example
>>
>>I know about the idea of the following simple mate:
>>Qc4+ Kg8-h8 Ne5-f7+ Kh8-g8 Nf7-h6+ Kg8-h8 Qc4-g8+ Rxg8 Nf7#
>>
>>Suppose that I play a simultan game against weak players and my opponent blunder
>>and give me the opportunity to use that idea.
>>
>>In this case I win the game.
>>Did I win thanks to tactics?
>>yes.
>>
>>Did I play the first move that I think about?
>>Yes
>>
>>Playing the first move that you think about does not mean that you cannot
>>outsearch the opponent.
>>
>>I suspect that in part of the games the GM simply outsearch the opponent inspite
>>of the fact that it is a simultan game.
>>
>>Uri
>
>Actualy this is precisely what a diagramplayer thinks
>You say did I play the first moves I was thinking of yes
>Not looking at where Black's pieces where standing.
>I can give you a precise position where Qc4+ does not win and Qd5+ does win.
>Near the fact that my pawn on b5 can capture your queen hehe

It is not going to happen to good players.

They are usually careful not to do stupid blunders and putting a piece at a
place that it can be captured not as part of a combinatopn is not going to
happen if they are good on tactics and tactics is not only combinations.

Uri



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