Speak chess fluently

[piggypiggy]

I've been watching Sean Godley's YouTube videos on Nimzowitch's My System. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLrNC9Rskww&list=PLW-ubDuosu7UKDXI6KF7XIMdzaStaVEIL

He summarizes each section of the book and goes through Nimzowitch's examples. He does not try to critique the text, just present it.

I read this book many years ago. I really did not understand it then. The points Nimzowitch makes are quite subtle, not what someone who needed to learn the basic vocabulary of tactics needed to spend time on. I read Reuben Fine Chess the Easy Way before that, but it has been criticized for being inappropriate for beginners, too. Chess Tempo is a godsend, but Chess Steps confirms for me that the tagging system needs improvement.

One point of interest from Nimzowitch is his idea of exchanging off defenders. Chess Tempo, of course, labels it "capturing the defender" which is fine. (I think it's one of the best tags to study for a beginner--more important than checkmate tags.) Nimzowitch applies the concept tactically and strategically. I'd summarize it as trying to trade off your opponent's best pieces.

[kharv]

Sounds like you are improving! Keep up the good work and good luck on those tournaments!

Re: Correspondance

I used to play 10-20 correspondance games simultaneously (that was too much of course), and relied heavily on the opening explorer for all of them, since it was permitted. I was hovering around 1800-1900 on chess.com, but in the end I don't think I remembered much from the openings. I would select them based on percentages rather than understanding or preference, and sometimes end up in positions I didn't like and didn't comprehend.

The danger (and advantage; it is a double edged thing) with using an opening book is that if you follow mainlines whenever possible you will end up with solid positions all the time, but by no real merit of your own. Of course, you will also be potentially learning the main lines and that's what any opening study should focus on, and if your opponent is using book, you would be at a huge disadvantage not doing so yourself.

Ultimately though I found that my understanding of the openings remained superficial. With two amateurs using book, my conclusion is that it was just a matter of who made the first critical (and usually tactical) mistake

If you read my blog, I have been trying out a new method (Kindle e-books called "ReViewing Chess") which I find very satisfying right now. I have played both sides in 4 games of the Classical Sicilian and I find that I am making huge leaps in understanding key themes - leaps that I am not being spoonfed by an author or a database (White's e5 break, Black's small center, double c-pawns, the d5 square, and so on). At the same time, as I plan to attend a few tournaments this fall, I plan to resume my new year's resolution - switching to 1. e4 and the Sicilian with minimal preparation, and learning from my mistakes, just as I learn from master's mistakes in the "ReViewing" e-book.

Re: My System

My System and Re-Assess your Chess were the first two books on strategy which I read as an adult trying to learn chess in my early 30's. As the years pass, and I come up with new ideas on how to improve, I am not sure this was the right starting point for the class E player I used to be. It did orient my play in a good direction, I suppose, but I think I have failed to integrate proper ways to think about positions. I've made it all the way to class B using these books, some endgame study, a lot of tactics, and a lot of opening theory - and I've been stuck in a plateau, namely 1600-1700 rating, for years now.

I'm good enough not to get murdered in just a few moves, and I don't give up obvious tactics, but I feel like something is lacking. I'm currently trying to re-do my chess education as if I were a young child - learning mating combinations, endgames, and studying master games, all the while playing 1. e4 and the Sicilian (open and semi open) in the opening. I think strategic books, which might be more for masters or experts trying to get to the next level, may have got me off on the wrong track - playing 1. d4 and trying to be a strategic mastermind when my tactical and endgame skills are really not that good.

I believe that playing the more tactical openings and studying combinatory basics (mates) may help me to rebuild my understanding of the games from a tactical foundation. I look at masters who stream online and they just have this innate ability to find the "best moves" from their opponents - and I think this comes from first playing a lot of open games with tactics around every corner. Then as you mature as a chess player, you can start to play a more "strategic" kind of game.

For example you talk about "exchanging the opponent's best piece". This makes total sense from both tactical and strategic perspectives. But if you're learning how to survive tactical melees, your first instinct will be that a bishop on a murderous diagonal towards your king is going to eventually create a tactical opportunity for your opponent - so you will try to blunt it or exchange it with a precise series of moves. In one sense this could be seen as both tactical and strategic - but I would like to see if I can first just handle the tactical issues before moving to the more profound "strategic" issues.

And, as I said before when I talked about my concept of DTE (dynamic tactical equilibrium), is it possible that a master, having internalized a deep knowledge of tactics at an instinctive level, might just be using concepts to explain something that he in fact experiences as instinct?

I feel there may be 2 kinds of annotators, the "conceptual" ones who try to explain things to amateurs, and the "variational" ones who will give you lists of moves with very little "speech" intertwined. Isn't that in fact the major division in schools of chess teaching, Nimzowitsch/Silman vs Dvoretsky et al., if you will? And, ultimately, aren't ALL masters thinking in terms of concrete variations, but some of them are just poorer teachers for amateurs because they take us down the confusing of "explanation" instead of the highway of "concrete" variations?

[piggypiggy]

Came across an excerpt from Studying Chess Made Easy by Andrew Soltis about correspondence chess. https://books.google.com/books?id=bB-_CAAAQBAJ&pg=PT74&lpg=PT74

He mentions how Paul Keres played it, up to 150 games at a time when he was young. Of course Keres was talented.

Keres often adopted offbeat openings and took outrageous risks to see what he could get away with ... "I sought complications in practically every game at any price in order to develop still further my combinational powers"

Correspondence players say you should try to think for yourself. After you've found a move you like you can look for further help from books. ... If there are alternatives to your moves that are evaluated as good, consider playing them. If the books don't consider your move at all, try to figure out why. And if there doesn't seem to an appreciable difference in quality between the book move and the one you favor, play your move. Force your opponent to start thinking on his own.

Soltis relates that Max Euwe cited three areas benefitting from correspondence chess: openings, end games and calculation. You are more emotionally invested in your studies because you want to win a game. (The ratings on Chess Tempo serve a similar purpose ... but I don't do rated problems. Go figure.)

The excerpt from Soltis' book goes on to discuss what he considers to be the biggest myth in studying chess: learning the right way to think.

Masters claim they discovered the right way. They describe it in books with titles like How to Think in Chess and Think Like a Grandmaster. But the truth is quite different: It's better to learn how to spot the good and bad moves without thinking.

Silman and Nimzowitsch are quite different in this regard. Silman preaches a thinking method that he contrasts with The Amateur's Mind. Nimzowitsch merely reports on ideas he has gleaned. Silman gets around to talking about the same kinds of things, but one has to overlook the fluff.

[kharv]

Soltis relates that Max Euwe cited three areas benefitting from correspondence chess: openings, end games and calculation. You are more emotionally invested in your studies because you want to win a game.

That's a very powerful statement. Essentially, it pins down neatly the source of motivation: emotional investment. And I would perhaps even venture to say that the only thing that is necessary is to generate this investment one way or another. If correspondance does it for you, do it. Personally, I'm finding that my ReViewing books get me very involved into the games. To my surprise and delight, I found that the ones I studied last weekend stuck in memory. I was waiting for a bus to get back home after a long walk at dawn. I had a good 15 minutes to kill. Well, I mentally pulled up the games and played through them in my head. They were like precious things that I wanted to look at again.

In a way this circles back to my recent ideas about trying to find fun ways to study chess by trying to pretend I'm a kid, which lead me to decide to solve only mates for a while because they're just fun.

The excerpt from Soltis' book goes on to discuss what he considers to be the biggest myth in studying chess: learning the right way to think.

That's precisely the point I'm trying to make in my latest posts. I agree completely with the idea that learning how to think is a myth. You need to get a "feel" (by extensive training which builds a large pattern bank in your procedural memory), and learn to trust your instincts, i.e. let the good moves show themselves to you, rather than look for them consciously. Then accurate calculation is absolutely essential to proof any ideas. So you need to be able to let good moves float up from your subconscious, for BOTH sides, and calculate correctly from these base points.

[piggypiggy]

For about two months I haven't worked on exercises like those people do to begin playing blindfold chess--only, for now I just want to be more efficient in scanning the board. I did an exercise on naming square colors today and made a couple errors, but I noticed that my thought process has changed some for the better.

I first approached the square color task by focusing on files, e.g., odd number d-file means light color, even number h-file means dark color. Today I noticed that I was thinking more in terms of diagonals, like "c5 is on that dark square diagonal". I don't have names for the diagonals which is in keeping with the mental infrastructure idea I've had in mind. It is kind of like knowing when a sentence in a language is or is not grammatical without being able to verbalize any grammatical rules that justify the conclusion.

Taking a break makes differences in thinking more noticeable but may also directly aid in pruning away inefficient connections, like square color to file.

If I do more of my worksheets on diagonal intersections, I'll probably start to readily name the diagonals. I finally figured out the best way to make a worksheet on intersecions: list two same colored squares on the edge of the board and name the square (usually unique) where diagonals emanating from the edge squares intersect.

I'm still figuring out the best worksheet(s) for knights. I can see three skills in using knights that such worksheets might improve: forks (of course), maneuvering knights in general (especially end games), and knight forays in the middle game. I noticed the knight foray idea in a few games I looked at. A knight is resting innocently on your side of the board and in two moves is threatening havoc deep in the enemy position.

[piggypiggy]

I am looking for a quote of Capablanca. I seem to remember him saying that it is by studying endgames that you can learn what each piece is capable of. FWIW, I did custom sets of tactical problems where I restricted the number of pieces on the board, no more than 8 or 12 (part of the advanced search). Some of the problems I got were simple end game studies. Now I do custom sets with lots of pieces on the board: because I've noticed that a full board is harder for me to process. I'm not sold on Capablanca's idea of studying end games. I've played exactly one Lucena position in over fifty years. I've played one bishop and knight checkmate. I'm sure that if I were a better player that the story would be different.

In my search for a quote I ran across some quotes comparing chess to language, in particular Reti: "Chess was Capablanca’s mother tongue."

I also found this quote of Capablanca: "Chess books should be used as we use glasses: to assist the sight, although some players make use of them as if they thought they conferred sight." I would add that sometimes the authors themselves seem to think that their books confer sight. Of course, I am thinking of Jeremy Silman.

I like Tartakower.  "The mistakes are there, waiting to be made."

[asterion]

When people think of studying endgames, standard positions come to mind (Philidor, Lucena & co.). But I think the real value of endgame studying lies in 'practical endgames' (some authors call them 'strategical endgames'), ie. positions with reduced material but where you don't know the exact method to win. In these positions, you practice a lot of fundamental chess skills such as short calculations, board visualization (that's what the B+N mate is good for), planning and prophylactic thinking in an environment which is less chaotic than your typical middlegame position. These endgames are also a surprisingly fertile ground to discover the importance of piece activity !

Unfortunately, it's very difficult to play these endgames correctly without a knowledge of the standard positions. That's why many chess teachers teach those first, but they are a bit like reading music when you want to learn how to play an instrument  

[kharv]

I also found this quote of Capablanca: "Chess books should be used as we use glasses: to assist the sight, although some players make use of them as if they thought they conferred sight." I would add that sometimes the authors themselves seem to think that their books confer sight. Of course, I am thinking of Jeremy Silman.

I like that citation a lot. One could see books as an older form of the chess engine: someone else is thinking for you. They really don't make you smarter, and that's why a feature like GTM here, analysis of your own games without assistance or just solitaire chess like I've been doing with master games (ReViewing Chess) series, will develop your chess thinking ability much more solidly and profoundly.

When people think of studying endgames, standard positions come to mind (Philidor, Lucena & co.). But I think the real value of endgame studying lies in 'practical endgames' (some authors call them 'strategical endgames'), ie. positions with reduced material but where you don't know the exact method to win. In these positions, you practice a lot of fundamental chess skills such as short calculations, board visualization (that's what the B+N mate is good for), planning and prophylactic thinking in an environment which is less chaotic than your typical middlegame position. These endgames are also a surprisingly fertile ground to discover the importance of piece activity !

Thanks asterion. That's precisely what I meant about studying endgames, although I still think the standard positions like Philidors or Lucenas are worth studying. It's just nice to get some variety in there and have something other than rook and pawn endgames, but in the end, any study time spent on endgames will have profoundly beneficial aspects on one's game.

[piggypiggy]

I don't see chess engines as analogous to books. Chess engines are transformative in ways books never could be.

Speaking of analogies, I stumbled across a YouTube video about the question of what it takes to be fluent in a language. The video is in Japanese with English subtitles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihkSH4T0F_U&t=386 (No, I don't speak Japanese though the New Zealander in the video is quite fluent in it.)

While I think the analogy of chess as language is only notional, I do like the idea the video's author has of fluency being situational and a matter of perception. For instance, compared to the strongest chess engines, grandmasters are not fluent at chess, but compared to lesser mortals they certainly are.

A chess player should ask in what game situations they want to be perceived as fluent. Endgames are on the bottom of my list.  It is a practical decision. If I cannot survive until the endgame, then no amount of endgame theory will help me. Capablanca, who favored studying endgames first, lived in a time with fewer resources for studying the middle game and openings. Also, he was exceptionally talented and had his own priorities. Capablanca's priorities do not apply to me.

[kharv]

I don't see chess engines as analogous to books. Chess engines are transformative in ways books never could be.

The analogy I am establishing is that in both cases someone else is doing the thinking for you.

While I think the analogy of chess as language is only notional, I do like the idea the video's author has of fluency being situational and a matter of perception. For instance, compared to the strongest chess engines, grandmasters are not fluent at chess, but compared to lesser mortals they certainly are.

Not only are they more fluent at calculating accurately, but their approach is dialectic, i.e. they are finding good moves for both sides. They are in essence playing solitaire chess at all times. The greatest amateur pitfall is failing to consider your opponent's ressources, i.e. playing one color only.

A chess player should ask in what game situations they want to be perceived as fluent. Endgames are on the bottom of my list.  It is a practical decision. If I cannot survive until the endgame, then no amount of endgame theory will help me. Capablanca, who favored studying endgames first, lived in a time with fewer resources for studying the middle game and openings. Also, he was exceptionally talented and had his own priorities. Capablanca's priorities do not apply to me.

You would be surprised at how much endgames can improve your thinking process. They are intensely tactical, the slighest mistake makes you lose a won position. I would even say that if you can survive endgames, you will breeze through middlegames. As far as openings are concerned, playing is the best way to learn them. Unless you have intensely considered the possibilities during a real game, and then after that game look up the theory to be better prepared next time, the study will hardly stick to your memory, and even if it does, what do you do when your opponent goes off book on move 8, or plays a line you haven't studied yet?

[piggypiggy]

You would be surprised at how much endgames can improve your thinking process.

Capablanca would surely agree with you.

Edit: Capablanca was perhaps the greatest genius to ever play chess. I checked his bio. He learned the moves by watching his father play chess. It is said that at age four (!) he was watching his father and accused him of breaking the rules. His father clarified the rule in question for Capablanca, and Capablanca then immediately played two games against his father and won both. Chess came so easily to him that throughout his life he was accused of being lazy. It seems that the only things he ever studied were endgames--probably early in life. If I had a mind like his, maybe that should be my highest priority, too.

Capablanca distinguished himself from other grandmasters of his day most as speed chess. He could give odds of 5 minutes to 1 against grandmasters and win.

Meanwhile, I am orders of magnitude less talented. I cannot be lazy (though I have been), and I need to apply my resources towards concrete goals. Despite the clear ties between the openings and middlegame to the endgame, it is unrealistic for me to expect that studying endgames will transform my skill at chess. Such an expectation is magical thinking. I have tried studying tactical problems in endgame positions on ChessTempo, but I find that the skill I gained does not carry over as well as I would like to positions with lots of pieces on the board. Also, I would emphasize that studying tactical problems with few pieces on the board is not the same as studying end games, which are rich in strategy based on pawn structure and piece activity.

[kharv]

Meanwhile, I am orders of magnitude less talented. I cannot be lazy (though I have been), and I need to apply my resources towards concrete goals. Despite the clear ties between the openings and middlegame to the endgame, it is unrealistic for me to expect that studying endgames will transform my skill at chess. Such an expectation is magical thinking. I have tried studying tactical problems in endgame positions on ChessTempo, but I find that the skill I gained does not carry over as well as I would like to positions with lots of pieces on the board. Also, I would emphasize that studying tactical problems with few pieces on the board is not the same as studying end games, which are rich in strategy based on pawn structure and piece activity.

Of course if you have tried and not felt any great impact on your playing skill, I can't argue with that Do you study master games then? Those tend to give a complete workout with opening, middlegame, endgame, and tactics - like GTM here is great for that.

Speaking of learning chess at a very young age, here's a 3 year old playing Karpov:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNm72VY6yfU

[piggypiggy]

Of course if you have tried and not felt any great impact on your playing skill, I can't argue with that

It had significant impact (rating jumped at least 250 points in correspondence), but it did not carry over well to exercises in other situations--so I practice other situations, too. Also, let me emphasize again that I do not view that as studying endgames (which are rich in strategy).

On another note, I was watching Primitive Technology on YouTube (highly recommend it) and noticed that the author states the following in his FAQ. (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAL3JXZSzSm8AlZyD3nQdBA/about)

Q.Why don't you talk in the videos?
A.When I watch how to videos I fast forward past the talking part to see the action part. So I leave it out of my videos in favor of pure demonstration.

Not totally pure demonstration: he includes descriptive captions along with the video, but they are terse and you can turn them off. Which brings me back to Capablanca teaching himself how to play chess by watching his father play--the players' reactions to certain moves providing important clues no doubt. His father was not trying to teach him but did provide demonstrations.

[berzerk1]

...it is unrealistic for me to expect that studying endgames will transform my skill at chess. Such an expectation is magical thinking. I have tried studying tactical problems in endgame positions on ChessTempo, but I find that the skill I gained does not carry over as well as I would like to positions with lots of pieces on the board. Also, I would emphasize that studying tactical problems with few pieces on the board is not the same as studying end games, which are rich in strategy based on pawn structure and piece activity.

I can't help but agree - only a handful of my games have ever reached the stage where my skills from CT Theory have been needed, and even then, not directly. For example, despite knowing stuff like the Lucena position and K+Q vs. K+p very well now, I've still yet to come across either in a real game. On the other hand, maybe this knowledge will come in handy some time down the track...

[kharv]

Q.Why don't you talk in the videos?
A.When I watch how to videos I fast forward past the talking part to see the action part. So I leave it out of my videos in favor of pure demonstration.
Not totally pure demonstration: he includes descriptive captions along with the video, but they are terse and you can turn them off. Which brings me back to Capablanca teaching himself how to play chess by watching his father play--the players' reactions to certain moves providing important clues no doubt. His father was not trying to teach him but did provide demonstrations.

That's a very good point. This is why I think it's important to include unannotated master games in your study time, just to "see how it's done" (and, most notably, a feature like GTM to actually try to "do how it's done"). Most books include a lot of talk and variations, and I'm more and more convinced that those interfere with proper chess learning.

When I start going over a lot of master games, I find that I get more and more a "feel" for positions, for the dynamic equilibirum of the pieces. It comes more naturally, as if it were some kind of dance, where each dancer is trying to throw the other one off balance. I see a lot of parallel with tennis or badminton when I'm able to get this kind of board vision, where you're not into strategic self-talk or wanting to accomplish goals because of principles. I find that one of my major flaws, after playing alot of tournaments and having read Silman and Nimzowitsch, was to "play dogmatic". I would play principles, and not positions.

And then of course, you don't want to be one of the dancers - you want to be the choregrapher - you want to feel the moves for both sides, all the time. Masters do this very naturally. Watching Nakamura's videos gives a good example. "I could play this... oh but then he has this... oh no that's ok cause then I have this". He misses a lot of stuff, too - he's playing 3 minutes time control after all - but the way his mind works is always "I do this, what can my opponent do? Then what can I do? He has no threats? Ok I do whatever I want".

t help but agree - only a handful of my games have ever reached the stage where my skills from CT Theory have been needed, and even then, not directly. For example, despite knowing stuff like the Lucena position and K+Q vs. K+p very well now, I've still yet to come across either in a real game. On the other hand, maybe this knowledge will come in handy some time down the track...

Indeed you won't often reach those positions. Since piggy brought up Capablanca, ironically enough, one of the only theoretical endgames I faced in a real OTB game was... Capablanca's pawn ending (2 white pawns on g2 and h2 versus a black pawn on uh, h6 I think). I had studied it, and should have known how to win it, but I made a mistake and drew the game.

The point I want to make about endgames is that it will hone other skills than the actual theory you are studying, i.e. precise calculations, always taking your opponent's ressources, tactical ability, planning, dividing a plan in smaller goals, envisioning a winning/drawing position etc. It will make your "chess muscles" stronger. I might have failed Capablanca's ending but I know that every time I study endgames my opening and middlegame play gets WAY better.