Author: Odd Gunnar Malin
Date: 11:48:07 02/05/02
Go up one level in this thread
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. > >>Anyway, my point isn't that everything he says is true. The point is that there >>are almost no books that shows a practical tangible studying _technique_. What >>to do when practicing. How to practice. In every other sport, it is not enough >>to show people how the masters do things, and what not to do. It is a very >>important part for the all beginners and immediates, that they are shown _how_ >>to _practice_, not only what to practice or what to aim for with practice. If >>you want to get better at running, you don't just put on some shoes and start >>running. On the other hand, you don't just view some videos of great runners >>winning races. The most valuable advice you get, is _how_ and _what_ to >>practice. No chess book that I know of does that. At least not very much. What >>should I do with my time, to develop? How _do_ I play over games from books? Do >>I do it on a board? On a computer? In my head? Do I think about each move for 5 >>seconds or 5 minutes? Do I play out variations on the board? A lot of very >>basic, repetitive excercises are needed to "train" in chess the same way as all >>other things. And we're never told what or how to train. > >I understand. Chess books have always centered around "chess" and not around >the "players". The books that might come close to what you want could >be "Training for the tournament player" by Dvoretsky et al. >"Improve your Chess Now!" By J. Tisdall and a little less "Secrets of >Practical Chess" by J. Nunn. >However, the Russian school had their methods for teaching kids and we >have seen the results. > >Regards, >Miguel Since David is Danish and understand Swedish there was a book last year that set focus on this theme 'Träna schack med Jesper Hall' I have not seen this book in other language than Swedish. Odd Gunnar (The headline of the tactic chapter is: The common sence have an elder sister, she's name is Intuition.)
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