Temposchlucker

J'adoube has choosen an interesting approach lately. If I'm asked to summarize (ok, nobody asks, but nevertheless) he is trying to emulate his computer. Computers make the best moves, so this sounds like a good idea. But is it? Correctness. Everything you can think of can be programmed in a computer. The computer is a tool, and a tool has it's limitations. It is good to know what the limitations of a computer are beforehand. I found these: The computer isn't making the best move in all situations. The reason is that chess isn't solved. We humans don't know what the best move is, so we can't program a computer to find it. Programmers make mistakes. Working as quality manager I found that an average programmer makes about 3 errors a day. That is about 600 errors per year per programmer. If the coding of a good engine takes 5 manyear, the code contains about 3,000 errors. When an engine is used in brute force mode, all possibilities are evaluated. The downsid...

I tried to see everything that's going on in the complex position of my previous post . To be honest, I didn't quite succeed, even after researching the position for about 10 hours. I see the most basic structures, but it is too mind-boggling to overview all interference between the structures. I don't think that it is impossible, even to my mind, but I estimate that it will cost me another week, and I don't think it's worth the effort right now. The position stems from a correspondence game, which permits more complexity than you find in OTB games usually. So in these situations I intend to use a derivation of the Law of conservation of threats/attacks *) That is, if you have two more threats/attacks*) than your opponent you will win a piece. Say, you threaten to capture 3 pieces while your opponent threatens to capture 1 piece, he can only parry one of the two extra threats with common moves. Counter attacks only delay the final execution of the threats. *) strike...

Disclaimer: this post is going to be extremely vague. So don't expect a result with what you can do something. It are just whirling thoughts that hopefully will lead to something useful in the future. Yeah, I know, I did better not to post it. But to write it down helps me thinking. I have looked close at the position of the previous post. What I found the most astonishing in the position was that in every single line of white black wins a piece. I think I know how that works approximately. There are different kind of moves. Common moves. The one-threat move . If you move a piece, you can use it to threaten something. The un-one-threat move . If a piece is threatened, you can escape the threat with this move. Most of the times it delays the threat. The non move . This move doesn't threaten anything nor does it relief a threat. Usually it hands over the initiative to the opponent or it allows him to cash in the threat. Rare moves. The duplo-threat move . With this move, you thr...

What exactly makes a position too complex to handle? What causes the memory to blockade? These questions must be answered first before an attempt can be made to cure the problem. The diagram of yesterday contained 4 lines. The first line was 9 ply deep and lead to mate. Since it was forced, it was easy to see. Especially if you are familiar with the standard trick. So there is no problem to look deep in the position when everything is forced. The second line was 3 ply deep and forked the king and queen. Easy to spot. The third line was a mate in two. Easy to see. But the fourth line is the one which causes the problems. Below you see the situation after 3 ply: Black to win. White to move. Blacks last move was Ne1 (after 1. ... Nf3+ 2. Kh1 Ne1) Here white has 6 plausible replies (3.Bg5 3.Qd1 3.Qd2 3.Nxc8 3.Nxe8 3.Qe4) All lines lose material for white. I have the greatest problems to keep track of all the possible trades in these lines. To know if I'm ahead or even behind in materia...

Papa Polgar has written another brick, what is less known. It consists of 4158 middlegame problems. Frustration about that book was the immediate cause that I joined the Knights two years ago and started the circles with George Renko's Intensive course tactics I and later on TCT. To be more precise, this was the diagram that made me throw the towell in the ring. Black to move and win. It stems from a correspondence chess game. What I thought was: this is way too complicated. This I will never see or learn in a real game. I must learn the more simple things first. And so I joined the Knights Errant and did the circles with simple problems. Compared with Polgars book, that is. Later on I started with CTS, with even simpler problems. In those 2 years I gained about 50 rating points, which is not so bad, but way below expectation or hope. The past months I even started to adopt a Karpovian style of play, which basically consists of avoiding difficulties and complex positions, trying to...

The book Practical Chess Analysis from Mark Buckley is very disappointing. It is a nice read, but the exercises aren't checked with the computer. I have a second hand version from 1999, may be there is a newer version? I have done 2 exercises, costing me 2 hours each. I couldn't find my way in both problems. When I checked the solutions from the book with Rybka, the solutions were flawed. Again 4 hours spilled by an incompetent author. Before I adopt mature man's play and a mature man's opening repertoire I want to investigate the road of brilliant chess. So I'm looking for complex problems from real games with lots of lines to calculate and a clear solution in the end. Computer checked. Suggestions anyone?

What have I found sofar? There is indeed a broad area of chess between tactics and positional play (to improve your position). In this area are such complex positions that you need special skills to cope with it. I can't possibly estimate in which amount of my games this plays a role. Somewhere between 25% and 60% of my games I guess. It is quite evident that I MUST get these special skills in order to play some decent chess. Otherwise I convict myself to "mature man's play" and " a mature man's openingsrepertoire" for the rest of my life, being in trouble everytime when my opponent lures me into complexity. It took me 10 hours to analyze the complex position from my previous posts. Now I have the feeling that I "understand" it. That I can play it against a higher rated player and still win, so to say:) I try to imagine what is needed to learn to do the same analysis in 20 minutes in stead of 10 hours. First what is NOT necessary: Do more tacti...

Blue Devil asked me why I didn't hire a grandmaster to do the dirty work. The problem with that is, as often, that the process of searching attributes more to my developement than finding the answer. It took me for instance a few weeks to find out that piece activity is the main goal for positional play. Ever since I cannot open a book or read an article or that advice stares me in the face. The problem is that there is an abundance of good advice around, but without making efforts, you can't distingiush between them (it). So I'm afraid I have to ask you again to bear with me the coming time. In the standaard testposition (below) I discovered the following issues to be important. The initiative is paramount. Who is to move in the position wins. You can't permit to lose the initiative. Further thoughts on this revealed that you can only keep the initiative if your move is a check, a capture or a threat. That already limits the amount of candidates. It would be best if yo...

The past few days you witnessed the working of my mind. I'm very well aware that it looks very unscientific, subjective, vague, theorethical etc.. About the most qualifications you will give it I have to agree with you. Except for two. To me it is not theoretical and not vague but very concrete and crystal clear. Since you are still reading I assume you still bear with me, to which I'm very gratefull. The thoughtprocess has lead to a conclusion. I hope you don't reject the conclusion beforehand because of it's conception looks suspicious. Between tactics and positional play lies a broad area which is widely neglected by literature. At least to my knowledge. Common thought about a position is: look for tactics and if there are no tactics around, improve your position. I call this area brilliant chess. Because it is the place where brilliancy prizes are won. Of course you can make brilliant moves in the opening or the endgame. But with those you win no brilliancy prize. S...

Nomenclature. The terms I used in my post yesterday can easely lead to false associations. That's why I want to propose to use the following nomenclature: Laminar chess - Opening or endgame. No special name needed, since the term was only introduced to express the analogy with ideas from the chaos theory. Turbulent chess - Subtle chess. The piece activity is still below a certain treshold. Play is characterized by gaining little advantages which build up to a great advantage. Chaotic chess - Brilliant chess . The piece activity is beyond a certain treshold. Resulting in a complexity beyond the limits of the brains of mortal man. Here are brilliancy prices to be won. Of course subtle chess can be brilliant (but you will not win a brilliancy prize with it) and brilliant chess can be subtle, but hey, it's just an agreement in nomenclature. Subtle chess and brilliant chess are used to express the difference in style what usual is expressed by a positional style and a tactical styl...

Chaos theory. Fierabras said that chess is a chaotic game. That made me think. Say, you use a set of equations in a mathematical model to predict the temperature of the weather for the near future. Say, the model is based on the current temperature, which you read from the thermometer as 13.345423 degrees Celsius. Say, you get the blue line in the graph as prediction. Say, you do the same again with 13.345 (rounded) degrees Celsius as current temperature. Say, you get the red line in the graph as prediction. You see that even the slightest difference in begin temperature will lead eventually to a huge difference in prediction in the long run. The graph can be divided in three parts. The left part is quiet. There isn't much difference between the two predictions. The middle part shows a difference, but is still ruled by an overal tendency. In the right part is no correlation between the two predictions at all. All of a sudden chaos rules. This principle was first discovered in (we...

I'm not a person that draws a conclusion easy. I always like to keep all options open and I like to think that everything is possible. In chess that might mean for instance that I am not inclined to trade off a bad bishop easy. Because who knows, it might become good some day. I have studied a lot of mastergames lately, which shows that most things from which I think that they might happen, are actual not bound to happen at all. I really have to learn to look different at the game. On another note, I have decided to change my opening repertoire. I have played about 8 different gambits and everything what was open and aggressive for both white as black during the past 4 years. Not because I liked that especially, but to learn certain aspects of the game. I have learned alot, and I have enjoyed it. But now it is time to focus on other aspects of the game. So I am going to play everything what is closed, slow, positional, leads to an endgame and solid for the next 4 years or so. I ha...

Disclaimer: warning, technical ranting below! In opposition to what one might think, I'm not ready with tactics. Not yet. For my level I'm a pretty good tactician. But if you compare it with masterlevel, then you can see that there still is a way to go. The circles are a good way to improve. I have reached the limits of what I can achieve with this kind of training. For now I focus on my other weak areas, but I'm sure there will come a moment in the future I will have to bring my tactics to a higher level. If I look at it now, doing the circles is a rather blunt method to ingrain only the lowest level patterns into the brain. Although it brought me to 1750, I doubt if it can bring me any further without modifications to the method. In what directions should I look for improvement of the method? The post of Blue Devil about guided pattern recognition as well as my own experience with Zent Larsen seem to suggest that there are higher structures needed in the brain to guide ...

If you play a repertoire during a long time, you become a person of habit. A lot of these habits have (has?) grown during a period with lesser knowledge of the game and have become counter productive. The advantage of a gambit repertoire is that you have to replace it some day by a more solid repertoire. At that moment you can get rid of those improductive habits and look with new eyes to the opening. That's the process I'm in now. Last week I followed a lot of video lectures from Mark Diesen, Pete Tamburro etc.. That is an excellent way to play thru a lot of grandmaster games in a pretty short time. The information is easier passed on than by a book. Especially what is important and what not. It is good to have some knowledge of the different styles of the respective grandmasters. I'm impressed by the style of Botvinnik which is consequent logical and good to follow. I'm impressed by the style of Kasparov who has very creative solutions for logical problems. I'm i...

This is a position from the beautiful game Kavalek-Kasparov which I showed you yesterday. White just played g3 to attack the black knight. In this position Kasparov played the incredible Nb4! When I looked first at this position it looked just like a bunch of clogged pieces. I have set it on a board and I look every now and then during spare minutes at the position. Slowly the position becomes more clear. First I started to look after variations, but there are so many that it is just mind boggling. When I resisted the temptation to get lost in variations and tried to look with a mere helicopterview I discovered other features of the position. When I looked at blacks pawns on f5 and e5, the advice of Blue Devil's coach came to mind: if a piece or pawn is very well protected, it probably stands in the way. If you think these pawns away, all blacks pieces can flood thru the gate. Kasparov decides that this uncorking of blacks position is worth a piece. Rybka thinks that he is right. I...

Today I studied an awesome closed game of Kavalek vs Kasparov. It was annotated by Mark Diesen from chess.fm who says that in closed positions often the usual value of a piece has no meaning. What matters is the total amount of attacking pieces that you can redirect to the side of the board where the action takes place. If that amount is greater than the amount of defenders, it is often time to sacrifice. Because the defender has little space at the side at which he is attacked, he cannot find always the right defending moves. Once the king is naked, the remaining attacking pieces can cash in. This is shown in this beautiful game here . So maybe the idea of steerability of a game in relation to closed games is just nonsense. What is certainly nonsense is that there are less possibilities for tactics in closed positions. Maybe even the opposite, if you look at this game and Mark's comment.