Temposchlucker

Today I finished the third and last strategy module of PCT, before the end of the year as I intended. They had a little "surprise" for me in store since their latest units all existed of 30-60 problems while the last unit contained 240 problems! Since it were all familiar problems, I had a chance to take a good look at the retrieval of the answers. This is my experience: Scanning. The eyes scan around the board and testmoves are executed before the minds eye. The eyes always follow the same route at every repetition of a problem. The same moves are tried, the same errors are made. Only from time to time, usual after more repetitions, some flaws in the route are corrected, some unnecessary eye movements are eliminated. Time 0-30 seconds Pattern recognition. All of a sudden a part of a geometrical pattern is recognized. Time less than 1 second. Retrieval of associations. Immediately the whole pattern is retrieved, along with all associated thoughts, idea's and patterns. ...

This is going to be a weird post. Because I want to find out some chess fundamentals I take matters to the extreme. I don't care that some positions aren't even possible in a game. I take Rybka as the final judge of every position. Which is questionable but as close to objectivity as I can get. Diagram A White to move The pawnstructure is symmetrical. If there were no bishops Rybka would score it 0.00 in the end. No advantage from the pawnstructure alone exists. I experiment with extreme piece placement in order to get some insight in the influence of pawnstructure on piece activity. In the position above Rybka scores +0.12 for white. Indicating that the pawnstructure has about equal influence on both bishops, no matter their initial placement. If I use bishops of different color makes no difference too, no matter where I place them. If it was black to move in the position above it would score -0.10 for black, suggesting some hindrance of black's bishop. The figures are...

If you don't know what to do in a game you can simply improve your worst piece. The same is true with chess study as a whole. Improve where you are the weakest. In executing tactical combinations I'm at least at 1800 level, maybe more. But when I can't crush my opponent I tend to panick and to go for the nearest draw, no matter the level of my opponent. If there is no direct tactical shot, I more act as a 1500 player. It feels a bit as if I'm a kickboxer with only one trick, a deadly overhand right. But when I can't make it, it shows how limited I am. All that is changing lately. I have thrown my whole gambit repertoire out of the window and I play solely the Polar Bear with both black and white. In the cases that isn't possible (with black against 1.e4 1.f4 or 1.g4) I play the Lion . Both openings are rather slow and positionally. Since I come from so far (low) positionally I can't say how much my game is improving. The strategy module of PCT is a very goo...

When I do the exercises of PCT for the first time, I score about a measly 20% correct. The bright side of course is that there is a lot room for improvement. . . Often I tend to deny the solution of GM Milos from PCT. Usually after a few repetitions my resistence starts to break down and I begin to appreciate the idea which is shown in the exercise. I think this is a normal reaction of the mind when it is confronted with a very alien way of thinking. The mind just needs some time to adapt. To give you an idea which problems I face while adapting (and to help me in the process) I show you a few problems that feel very counter intuitive to what I'm used to think. Diagram A White to move While I'm thinking about queenside expansion and creating a passer PCT comes up with move g4 and adds the following comment: g4 seems to me to embody all that is ugly in a move: played at the wrong side of the board weakening the king position without reason creating ugly holes like h4 where I ima...

Working on pawn skeletons. Christmas is a good time to catch up with exercises. I'm about halfway the third and last strategy module of PCT. If I compare the amount of themed exercises of PCT with the positional ideas I use in my own games then I can get an idea which positional ideas are underrated and which are overrated by me. Spot on. My ideas of increasing the relative piece activity are right on the mark. It comes in several kinds of flavours: Opening lines Occupation of open lines Challenging of occupated open lines Creating outposts Maintaining outposts Improve your worst piece Pawn sacs to open lines and to clear squares Restrict the pieces of the opponent Claim space Overrated. The following positional ideas have only a few or no exercises devoted to them by PCT so I probably overrate them in my play: Bishoppair Inflicting a bad pawnstructure on behalf of the endgame (double pawns, pawn islands etc.) Underrated. The following positional ideas I use hardly at all in my pla...

This is a position from PCT strategy module 3. White to move According to Rybka there are at least 4 moves that lead to a win. That this often happens in the more difficult modules doesn't make training easier, but I can live with that. That is not what I want to talk about. The move that PCT happens to advocate as the best is 1.g4 And that is interesting. That pawnmove does two opposite things. It restricts black's knight and white's bishop. And that is the bane of the positional player. The choice between two or more ideas. Often there is a difference in time between the ideas. As it is here. The restriction of the white bishop has no direct consequences, while the restriction of the black knight has. So the valuation is based on the question if the advantage now is decisive or will the disadvantage backfire later . There seems to be a tendency that the effect now is very often (but not always) more important than the effect later . That clarifies why most amateurs incl...

It becomes obvious that with the battle of the pawns I touched the core of positional play. I tried to get the hang of pawnmoves in openings like the French and the Caro Kan. Soon it became clear that this is very complicated matter. This lead me to the conclusion that you can't study a pawn formation without studying the opening. And that is what I intend to do. I decided to take up the Polar Bear with both black and white, since they lead to similar pawn formations. That leaves me with finding a new answer to 1.g4 1.f4 and 1.e4. For that I give The Lion a try. That is a dutch invention with often a somewhat similar pawn formation as the Polar Bear (except for f5) This means a renewal of my complete opening repertoire! From 90% fast gambits to 100% slow positional openings. I like extremes, that makes it easier to learn from it and to reach definite conclusions. The Polar Bear so far suits me well. Early assaults to my king usually grind to a hold soon. My fear for the initial h...

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The "artist" is obviously no chessplayer:) To come any further I feel always very gratefull for usefull comments. Thanks guys! On my previous post drunknknite suggested to study the difference between 1.e4 and 1.d4 In terms of piece activity it is evident that 1.e4 is the move that improves whites piece activity the most. It open diagonals for the Queen and the bishop, giving indirect access to f7, the weakest spot in blacks camp at the moment. With 1. ... e5 blacks improvement in piece activity is no less though. With 1.d4 white abstains from the move that improves his piece activity the most. At the same time he prevents that black plays the optimal move 1. ... e5 (again in the sense of piece activity) So it is not about improving your piece activity the most but about improving your piece activity relative to the opponent. If 1.d4 d5 then white has more chance to play e4 later on than black to play e5. So 1.d4 is a tricky attempt to get an advantage later on. I think it ...

Disclaimer: my thoughts haven't cristallized yet. Changes of view can happen during the writing. To simplify matters I'm talking only over the opening and the middlegame. My previous post lead me to the conclusion that there can be only one reason for a pawnmove: it's effect on the relative piece activity. So far as I can tell there can't be no other justification for a pawnmove. To simplify matters I'm not talking about pawn promotion. A pawn is the trickiest piece since a move has such complex effect on the activity of all pieces on the board. There is a simple method to assess the effect of a pawnmove though. By looking to all pairs of pieces from you and your opponent. Compare the dark squared bishop of yourself and of your opponent before and after the pawn move. Is the activity of your bishop improved relatively or not? If the above is true, then automatically another question is raised. "what exactly is the effect of the initiative ?" In the begin...

While investigating pawnmoves I'm impressed of the effects of a single pawnmove. It is much easier to calculate the effects of the move of a piece than of the humble pawn. What does a pawnmove do? The effect of a single pawn move is felt in 3 area's: Opening and closing of diagonals Opening and closing of files Giving up the control of squares while getting the control of new squares Take for instance the following simple move forward: The move e4-e5 opens two diagonals. If this is beneficial or not depends on who's bishop is on those diagonals. At the same time another set of diagonals is closed. Assuming that the pawn is well defended on the new square. If the closing of the diagonals is beneficial or not depends on who's bishop is on those diagonals. In general can be said that the white squared bishops have become more active while the black squared bishops have become less active. Moving the pawn loses the control of d5 and f5 while it acquires control over d6 and ...

I read the book of Jacob Aagaard "Excelling at positional chess". It is a good read. This is what I distilled out of his idea's for my own use. When looking at a position three questions suffice to know what to do. Is there a weakness? If it is not evident what to do in a position, you have to ask yourself first "is there a weakness?" A weakness can theoretically be everything, but in practice it most of the time boils down to "are there weak pawns?" A pawn is weak when it cannot be protected practically by a buddy pawn AND it can be attacked. If there is a weakness you must fix it, and then attack it. The usual scenario isn't that you conquer a weak pawn before the endgame. But the weakness ties down the defending pieces. In general it is possible to defend one weakness. But two weaknesses often proof to be to much. The art is to alternate your attack between both weaknesses, so that the defending pieces can't follow you. Can there a weakness ...

I don't know if there is any scientific base or any truth in this post or the previous. Luckily enough that doesn't matter. Since every conclusion based on a reasoning process will be tested anyway, whether the reasoning process is faulthy or not. From my previous hodgepodge I distilled the following idea's: The left hemisphere of the brain handles concepts, the right hemisphere handles chess intuition. Education is almost entirely aiming at the development of the left part of the brain. Once dominant, the left part supresses the right part. That's why adults have problems with chess improvement. The left eye is connected to the right hemisphere. Right now I'm experimenting with problemsolving while looking only through the left eye. I prevent thinking and conceptual reasoning as much as possible. Allthough it is way too early to draw any conclusions, my rating at CTS soon boosted to 1550, while 1530 was the average I had when I quit exercising after a very long str...

An idiot savant has an enormous memory for details while he has trouble to understand concepts. Typical tasks where savants are good at: Recognizing the #amount of dots on a screen. Say that there are 103 green dots on a white screen. A normal adult makes an estimation. A savant often knows directly the correct amount. Take the sentence: Beware of the the birds. Normal people tend to overlook the double "the" in the sentence since they look at the conceptual meaning of the sentence and not at the details of the actual words. A savant sees the details in stead of the concept. Dealing with concepts is a typical task for the left part of the brain. In scientific research where the left part of the brain of a normal adult is made numb by a magnetic field, the experimental subjects showed savant-like capacities. In another test young chimps outperformed students in a memory task showing a photographic memory for numbers. In yet another test adult dogs showed conceptual thinking...

This is an attempt to inventory the different themes in the Polar Bear. It is partly based on what I encountered in my cc-games as attempt from white to prevent me from reaching the standard position. I only give the essentials of a position. This is the standard position: Standard Polar Bear position. Theme: preventing black from castling. Option 1: Bc4 White can make it difficult for black to castle. Preconditions: white plays an early e3, while he omits c4. The knight on f3 can coöperate with the bishop perfectly well. A knight on e6 would be killing. Black can intervene the beam from the bishop by playing e6, but Ng5 would force Qe7 which looks rather ugly. The prepatory move h6 leaves g6 vulnerable for Nh4. Probably black must keep the control over e6 by postponing d6 when Bc4 is in the air. That way black can play safely e6, castle, and regain a few tempi and get some space on the Queenside with c6, b5, a5 kicking the bishop. The blue square doesn't mean anything, it is a res...

If you want to make a bathroom in the tower of pisa, you can't hang the mirror level since that wouldn't look good. You have to chose one wall as a referencepoint and say "this wall is straight". Everything what you build has to be measured from that fixed reference point. Otherwise you cannot work. You have to be creative with the shape of the bathtub, since a straight model will overflow on one side:) This example illustrates the problem I have with rule indepence in chess. Rule independence is as true as gravity is bolt upright. But you cannot work if you don't chose a fixed reference point from where you can measure everything back. And this fixed reference point isn't necessarily bolt upright. But you need it. For rule indepence you need to know the rules thoroughly. That is your fixed reference point. The mind needs that. Without a reference everything is volatile and the mind cannot get grip. If you look at the Kings gambit, it is very difficult to find...

Polar Bird? The past seven years I have played almost solely gambits. With white: King's gambit. Alapin Diemer gambit against the French. Caro kan with 3.Qf3 gambitline. Myers gambit against the Alekhine defense. Smith Morra gambit. Wing gambit against the sicilian. With black: Marshall gambit in the Scandinavian. Portuguese gambit in the Scandinavian. Icelandic gambit in the Scandinavian. Fajarowitsch variation of the Budapest gambit. Hartlaub-Bloodgood gambit against the QP. Albin counter gambit (a 20 or so cc-games) Benko gambit. Fromm gambit against the Bird. Bellon gambit against the English. Further I created a few gambits of my own on the fly. I always liked the description of Tim Harding how an opponent experiences a gambit: Move 5: I can refute this gambit in half a dozen ways! Move 10: Maybe my opponent has slight compensation, but I'll soon neutralize it. Move 15: Maybe one of the other refutations was clearer. Move 20: X is the best move, but if I play it my opponen...

Yesterday my opponent underestimated the Icelandic gambit. Or how to win in 13 moves . At the club I had my first win with the Polar Bear. Allthough I mistreated the opening (according to my own feeling, not according to Rybka) it was surprising how resilient the pawn structure is. I have to learn how to keep the hostile pieces out. That's doable perfectly well, I just have to learn how to do it under all circumstances. Often it even proves to be possible to drive invaded pieces back, as in this game. But preventing invasion in first place is much better of course. You can find the game here . I'm looking for a free chess client for someone for who Babaschess is way too complicated. It must have a simple possibility to chat. Idea's anyone?