Retrograde analysis

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The approach I advocated in my previous post has proven to be very valuable for assessing pawn moves. For other moves it is not very suitable.

At the moment I'm analysing my lost games by identifying the point where I'm lost.
Then I try to identify what the seperate elements of my demise are.
After that I follow the footsteps of these elements backwards and try to find the moves that are the cause. This way my defeats don't come out of the blue anymore.

It is obvious that this is the right way to analyse a game. Why become obvious matters only obvious after a daunting process of reasoning? After all they must have been obvious all the time!

Stretching positional knowledge towards the opening

While thinking about the opening I return to an old idea of mine. It should be possible to base my positional thinking not on the characterististics of the position but on what a single move actually accomplishes. Since one single move has a vast amount of consequences, that is a challenging approach. Yet it might be the only one that is actually doable.

To chart the consequences of a single move can easily take hours, as I found out. Since you have only 3 minutes to think at average during a game that doesn't sound very promising. There is more to it, though.

First of all, it is the only way to notice all changes of the position immediately. Compare that with my normal way of moving. If I play 1.f4 I'm totally unaware that I weaken the diagonal where my future king will be after castling short. Twelve moves later, out of the blue as it seems, I am bitten from behind by it since my opponent has a terrible threat due to that weak diagonal. So theoretically, thinking of the effects per move might be the only way to not constantly fall victim to your own sown seeds of positional destruction.

A second point is, that you don't have to calculate every position as if it were new over and over again. Our usual way of thinking isn't very productive, to put it mildly. Theoretically you have to find every consequence of a move only once. You only have to think about single moves. (And remember the consequences which simply accumulate over time).

Thirdly, the effects of a single move are vast, yet finite. Both finite in the amount of effects as in the sort of effects.

Let me give an example.
A straight forward move of a pawn has always the same 3 sets of effects:

• It closes a set of diagonals
• It opens a set of diagonals
• It uncovers two squares
• It covers two new squares
• It frees a square
• It occupies a square
  

Look here where I elaborate on this.

The only thing we have to look at is how these 3 sets of effects influence the 3 positional elements of attackers, targets and the roadmap. There can't be no more to it.

I expect a huge amount of overlap once you become familiar with these finite effects of a single move. Thus saving time after a lot of exercise.

So is it doable?
I have no idea but I'm going to find out.

Too much uncharted territory

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Yesterday I read my blog posts of the past half year. There is really a wealth of knowledge in them. If I look at my recent games, I simply forget to apply that knowledge though.

How come? A few reasons:

• Old habits are strong.
• The area covered by the knowledge is too broad. There isn't simply enough time to evaluate everything. What you don't do automatically you can't do at all during a game. Due to lack of time and short term memory overload.
• On the other hand there are area's in the game that aren't covered at all. Examples are openings and dynamic positions.

Let's talk about the opening. There is quite a bulk of so called openingtheory. For some reason I always have difficulty with the word theory here. I can't see a tree of variations with an assesment at the end as theory. To me it is not connected to the knowledge I mentioned above. It remain variations.

I play the Polar Bear. That sometimes means that I play 10 or 12 bookmoves in a row and then all of a sudden a weak diagonal (c5-g1) has befallen upon me. Where did that come from?

Actually it is the first move (1.f4) that already weakens that diagonal. Since most theory puts the black bishop on g7, the weak diagonal is usually no problem. But when black doesn't know the theory he often puts his bishop on c5. "Theory" of the Polar Bear doesn't take this into account. So I'm on my own. Maybe a Stonewall renders this bishop useless, but I'm not very familiar with that type of positions.

What I don't like in this scenario is that I make openingmoves that lay the seeds for future characteristics of the position while not knowing the moment I do this. It simply can't be good to start to play chess at move ten. It should start at move one!

Today I started to think about the first move. If the knowledge I have formulated the past half year is any good it should be applicable to the opening too. Indeed it is, but it took me about 6 hours to formulate the answer to 1.e4 f5. To find a narrative in concord with my theory that gives the best reply.

If it takes 6 hours to formulate a move, the theory isn't ready for application yet. So it isn't very strange I don't apply the new knowledge in my games.

Dutch politicians obviously are no chessplayers.

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When Osama Bin Laden managed to trick some people to fly airplanes into the WTC for him, he had a certain goal in mind, of course. To accomplish his goal he has set out a cheap trap for the western society.

Yesterday we had elections in the Netherlands. Dutch politicians are obviously no chessplayers. They weren't able to avoid the trap.

Just a few thoughts

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When I want to judge if a bishop is good or bad, I look at the pawn structure. But not every pawnstructure is suited for such verdict, I realized today. Only when the pawns are fixed such judgement has a long term value.

If there is a fixed state of pawns, there must be a pre-fixed stage. Usually that is a state where the pawns are under tension. Solution of the tension can go in two directions. Either the pawns become fixed or the position becomes open. When the position becomes open, the habitual look for good and bad pieces is often useless because all pieces have become active to a certain degree. In those positions it is more important if there are targets and who has the initiative. Tempo's start to count again, so it is in essence a second round of development which has started.

If there is a state of tension. there must be a pre-tension stage for the pawns. This is what we usually call development. In order to design development, one must know which tension-states are benificial and which are not.

And I have no idea about that.

Perhaps a lack of midichlorians

I have tried to put positional knowledge into practice during my games. Allthough I feel a lot of potential in it it still doesn't boost my performance. The problem is that if you have to do 65 things well in a game and you do only 6o well, you are not going to win the game.

It feels a bit the same as when I started with tactics years ago. Then you could hear me whining "I'm the only one who worked this game, I have to do everything myself. Even loosing. . .!!"

I have to study for my work so there's not too much time left for blogging. But I expect that to change after the summer.

Margriet on the other hand is doing extremely well with the new knowledge. I expect her to cross the 1600 line soon. Every seasoned tournement player knows that it is extremely rare for women at age 50 to increase from 1150 to 1600. Usually 1400 is an unbreakable barrier. So I'm very proud.

Space

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Margriet and I just finished the book of Michael Stean "Simple Chess". We played through all the games. Margriet's play immediately made a huge progress by incorporating the idea's and she started to beat 1700 players one after another. I need more time to digest the matter since I always want to test ideas by stretching them to the extreme and beyond. But once I get the hang of it I'm sure the same will happen.

The most difficult was the last chapter, about space. It takes time to get a feeling for that, while it certainly plays a big role in my games.

The book didn't mention initiative as a factor. By applying the ideas I noticed time and again that the initiative crops up slowly as a result. Quite mysterious.

Chesstiger asked me about colorcomplexes. As soon I have found the game I want to show him I will post about that.

We will reread the book again soon.