Wednesday, December 05, 2007

One size fits all. NOT.
























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 a reference point. One different move of black at move 2-5 and you get a game that is quite different. When everything is volatile, it is easy to drown in the variations.

In the Polar Bear there can be defined an "ideal position". For me it would look something like the following diagram:






















You can reach this position with black remarkebly often, allmost no matter what white plays. And in a way that it keeps Rybka satisfied. Black can play 1. ... f5 as an answer to almost all opening moves of white except 1.e4, 1.f4 and 1.g4. The goal in this position above is to force e5 which is "usually" possible and gives "usually" black a good game.

There are a few openings that invite to strive for such static position, almost no matter what the opponent does. I mention the Colle system, the Smith Morra and The Lion. Allthough it cuts down the efforts of openingstudy drastically, to accept the invitation for lazyness and to ignore the moves of the opponent and missing subtleties of the position usually leads to disaster in long games.

I intend to use the "ideal" position above as my fixed reference point and I will try to formulate when moves of white makes the position "less ideal". If you look for instance at c6 in the position above, than you will see that it is only of use if there is a white knight on c3 which mobility it can restrict. If the white knight is developed to d2, c6 is rendered useless, only preventing Nc6 for black. The same kind of thing can be said for the knight on a6. If there is a bishop on that diagonal f1-a6, white can inflict you with an awkward double pawn by Bxa6. This way I hope to improve my positional insight.

I intend to use a static position as a fixed reference point to define the dynamics. Since without a static reference point "everything is dynamic" in chess. When everything is volatile, the mind cannot get grip. The result of no grip will be that you cannot learn something because of the volatility. It's like playing blitz without analysing the games afterwards: fun, but useless in the sense of making progress.

6 comments:

  1. If you look for instance at c6 in the position above, than you will see that it is only of use if there is a white knight on c3 which mobility it can restrict. If the white knight is developed to d2, c6 is rendered useless, only preventing Nc6 for black.

    Wow. These sorts of insights into a position blow me away.

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  2. you were probably using c6 just as an example of the way of thinking, but I'd like to mention that holding the Nc3 at bay is only a tiny aspect of why c6 is good. the bigger points are restricting the Bg2, defending b7 & Ra8 so that you can move the Bc8 away if/when the annoying enemy knight lands on e6 forking your Q+R, or to develop it into the midst of a raging kingside pawn storm, or to push e4 in certain situations (quite often). c6 is the cornerstone which holds the queenside together to facilitate all that.

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  3. Gorckat,
    this way of thinking is pretty new for me too. If you can find the logic behind the moves there is no need anymore to learn opening variations by heart. As Botwinnik said to Kasparov: you must become the master of the variations in stead of the other way around.

    The Polar Bear is ideally suited for this kind of openingstudy since it is so less volatile as for instance the KG.

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  4. There may be similar positions against 1. e4 by playing 1. ... g6, then Bg7, d6, Nh6 and f5. The bishop on g7 ties down white's queenside development (sometimes in conjunction with Qb6). I think if white plays d4 this pawn should be poked with ... c5 (before black plays d6 so that dxc5 can be recaptured with the queen).

    I don't really know enough about it to recommend, but if you're looking for something against 1. e4 where you can learn some structures, you might enjoy a few games with that.

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