Author: Lawrence S. Tamarkin
Date: 13:23:10 12/21/98
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Very excellent points. I always recommend stuff out of books, like, 'Think Like A Grandmaster' or Stuff Botvinnik wrote or Timman wrote, because I have never taken that good advise, and look where I am at today:) And as a matter of fact in the 7 years now that I have 'messed with' computer stuff, my rating has been totally stagnant. There are other reasons too, but my point is that computer programs do nothing on their own to help your game. Only you can do things to help your game, and mostly that is just to play as much as possible against other humans, because its hard to care about winning & losing against a machine. Here is what I hope will be a good example. I've been a member of the Internet Chess Club for about 3 years. Most of that time I did not play, and my ICC rating sunk to around 1850. Then a long time friend of mine from Long Island, finally got a computer, and started playing all the time. Suddenly I realized that I wanted to have the ego satisfying pleasure of having a higher rating then John! I resumed playing, suffered a lot of losses, but finally (and now for the 4th time), got my rating back over 2200! So a lot of this is the motavation & desire to improve. My believe is that all that playing against other humans, using completely my own brain, has produced the necessary climate for praticle over the board improvement. The other part of my 'expiriment', is that I will soon be returning to live in New York. I'm going to immeidately join the Marshall Chess Club, and play each Friday in their rapids tournaments. I know that I will lose a lot at 1st, but I feel very optimistic that the combination of playing there and on the ICC will compliment each other, resulting in a further rating gain, and more satisfying victories! mrslug - the inkompetent chess software addict! On December 21, 1998 at 14:10:17, Albert Silver wrote: >On December 21, 1998 at 03:41:00, Komputer Korner wrote: ><snipped the previous 10 pages> > >>I can't believe that 3 US masters are arguing against going over their games >>move by move when the whole chess world DOES this. Sure CM6000 can be used to >>play against and does have auto annotate, but are 3 US masters arguing that it >>is not necessary to go over their games move by move? If they think that just >>because they now have a computer to play against , that is enough ;they are >>sadly mistaken. Every chess player worth his salt looks at his games in post >>mortem. This happened before computers came along and it happens with them. So >>we now have the ridiculous situation that 3 US masters say that it is not >>necessary to do this. They say that All you have to do is play against a chess >>engine and use it's auto annotate overnight and that is all you need the >>computer for to improve. So they say no need to go over your games move by move. >>They say no need to use the computer in player player mode with engine PVs >>showing on screen. They say that the whole historical practice of players >>looking at their games after it is finished by taking back moves and moving >>forward can be thrown out the window. THIS IS NONSENSE. This is the single most >>important way to improve even for a 1500 player. The advantage now is that >>that player can use an engine to help him. Just playing is not enough. You have >>to study your games. Computers will never obsolete this practice. I can't >>believe I have to explain this to 3 US masters but sometimes life is strange. >>-- >>Komputer Korner > >One has to be very careful about these generalizations. "The single most >important way to improve" is usually a different story for different people. I >have a friend (French IM Francois Vareille) who turned IM a couple of years ago >but whom I knew from my first chess tournament back when he was rated 2295 FIDE >and prior to my first rating of 1580. I had asked him as just about every eager >beginner inevitably does: what was the biggest contributor to his present >strength? His answer was that around when he was rated 1800 or so, he had picked >up Ludek Pachman's trilogy "The Complete Strategy" published by Batsford, had >pored over the books questioning and analyzing every move for hours and when he >was through a few months later, he experienced a jump in rating that brought him >to around 2100+ or so. I followed this advice religiously, but had trouble >actually applying the knowledge of the book in my games. The fact of the matter >was simpy that I wasn't strong enough to properly benefit from the book. I >continued to pursue chess perfection in a very pele-mele manner still looking >for that magic formula, until I hit upon mine: Tactics. I studied successively I >book by Yaacov Neishtadt called "Lecons de Tactique" which brought me to about >1800 and then the books by Livshitz (Pergamon Press) called "Test Your Chess IQ" >volumes 1 and 2 (and some of the 3rd), which saw my rating jump from 1880 (my >national rating in France) to 2230 FIDE. Although I had all kinds of material >that I would still use here and there, these were the only books I actually >studied cover to cover. So when someone asks me what I recommend, you can guess >my answer. I have begun studying my games more seriously, but again, I will say >that computers are only allowed to opine AFTER I have put in my perspiration >into the matter. The reason is simply that I found that I was becoming (probably >the biggest reason for my stagnation in the last few years) increasingly lazy >about properly analyzing a position, and had stopped "pushing it" the way I used >to when I was studying the aforementioned books. Then, I would NEVER give up, >NEVER look up the answer, and would strain my neurons to the limit, now I have >to resist the urge to set it up in Fritz or another program, and must relearn to >think things out for myself. It's very dangerous to get into the habit of having >a computer do your thinking for you. So when I analyze a game, I put it in a >notebook (no easy ALT-F5 at my disposal this way) and have had to contend with >the difficult task (psychologically) of finding where my opponent could have >improved his play, maybe even won (this can be quite difficult as one NEVER >wants to admit that this was possible, especially if the opponent is one that >one deems weaker), and where I could have played better. You are right in that >few players make the most of their computer programs, but I would hesitate to >say that their training methods are weak or of no value. The Grandmasters around >have for the most part achieved the greater part of their playing strength >WITHOUT computers, plus I suspect that most of the ones that DO use computers >use them essentially for opening preparation, and not for all-purpose studying. >I'm certainly not claiming there is something wrong with your method, but surely >there is more than one road to perfection. > > Albert Silver
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