Moves and landscape
In the previous post, I tried to make a distinction between the chess moves and the landscape on the board. What is it that I'm after? The reasoning is as follows. Chess moves come in pairs when you have the initiative. Chess moves are balanced or unbalanced. If chess moves are balanced, you initiate a move and the opponent answers to that move. Every move has one or more purposes. Every purpose must be met. A dual purpose move must be met by a dual function answer. A triple purpose move must be answered by a move that meets all three purposes.
Mistakes will accumulate into the position. Every time a multi purpose move can't be fully met, it is reflected in the position. Every unbalanced move should make you aware of the altering of the landscape. These mistakes provide the salient visual cues for the win. Be it the gain of wood or the mating of the king. These crystalized limitations of the pieces are the words that you must learn to recognize.
This means, that you must look at every unbalanced move with argus eyes. At the same time, your move became much simpler. There is no need for long calculations. You judge a move simply by: is it balanced?
All this is quite theoretical of course. I don't know if it is even possible. But let's find out.
r2q1rk1/p2nbpp1/4pn1p/1pp1P3/8/6PN/PPPN1PbP/R1BQR1K1 w - - 0 13
Black has just made a mistake. He had to save his undefended bishop from b7. But this is the wrong way. If white makes a balanced move, he would take back with Kxg2 and black is fine. But white can make an unbalanced move with an additional punch, and make use of the oddities that have accumulated in the landscape. Being the line of attack which is the e-file, and the lack op space for the bishop after 1. ... Bxh3
I'm going to try to solve a series of problems, and define the details of the landscape that leads to the demise. I don't know whether that works, but I'm going to find out. That way, calculation will become easier. Since you don't have to crawl through the thickets of the tree of analysis.
And the words you have to learn are not the pairs of moves, but the salient cues of the landscape.
What I'm trying to say, is that looking into the future seems illogical. Since for your combination you make use of elements from the past. The only reason that it seems like the future, is when you were sleeping in the past. Or you lack the ability to infer the past from the current position.
ReplyDeleteRegarding “words” [language], I am reminded of something Dr. Lasker said [Lasker’s Manual of Chess]:
ReplyDelete"He who does not comprehend the language of the moves that maintain the balance is unable to read the signs which predict the advent of great events; he who knows that language understands also the logic by which such events are brought about."
Let us do as the GMs do and shuffle the pieces around to SEE what else can be learned from this position.
FEN = r2q1rk1/p2nbpp1/4pn1p/1p2P3/2p2P2/6PN/PPPN1PbP/R1BQR1K1 w - - 0 14
There are two minor(?) changes from the original position: the BPc5 has been advanced to c4; the WPf2 has been advanced to f4. Could such a change affect the outcome if the same “word” is applied to this slightly different pieces-on-squares position?
Going back a few posts, I found an idea in Nimzovich’s My System, Part I, Chapter 1 regarding the intermezzo. The context of Nimzovich’s remarks is limited to simple opening moves. We should never restrict our application of ideas to a specific context. The very notion of abstraction is to broaden our categories, pushing the boundaries, moving to a higher level of abstraction which will enable us to strengthen our recognition capabilities via System 1.
4. Exchanging followed by a gain of tempo.
The previous game, short though it may be, contains a manoeuvre which we can describe as a compound one. [I do not give the game moves; it is a typical 1.e4 opening sequence.]
It is as follows: what was the reason for 2.exd5? The answer is to attract onto a compromised square the piece which will be making the recapture. The second part (3.Nc3) then consisted of the exploitation of the position of the queen which has been thus in a certain sense compromised.
The compound manoeuvre which has just been described is of VERY GREAT IMPORTANCE FOR THE STUDENT.
[Skipping forward in the book:]
A possible intermezzo between exchanging and gaining a tempo
In order to explain to you how the intermezzo works, let me tell how Russian peasants had an intermezzo between their engagement and their marriage...in the form of 5-6 children born out of wedlock, who constituted a mere intermezzo which in no way affected the idea that engagement and marriage belonged together. In our case, we see the same thing: exchange, intermezzo, gain of tempo; the exchange and gain of tempo were part of a whole, and the intermezzo changed nothing.
Do we SEE “the same thing”?
If we are looking strictly for POS (pieces-on-squares) relationships, it defies all reason to claim that engagement and marriage, having children in-between those two events is “the same thing” as an intermezzo gaining a tempo in chess.
In order to make this categorization work, a conceptual slippage must occur. Go back to the position given in the Chess Vocabulary post. Now apply the same concept (exchange, intermezzo, gain of tempo) to it. Allow “gain of tempo” to slip toward “gain of wood.”
Now what do you SEE?
If you can grasp the analogy, then you should easily grasp the idea behind the minor change in the position given in this post. Two small changes, and the result may turn out differently. The same motifs are available, but additional possibilities are available.
It all depends on where you stop SEEing, assuming there is nothing else to be SEEn.
This is the logical genesis of the notion of extending what you SEE at least one move beyond quiescence, and also SEEing potential intermezzos which can change the evaluation of a particular position.
Your FEN has a pawn too many r2q1rk1/p2nbpp1/4pn1p/1p2P3/2p2P2/6PN/PPPN2bP/R1BQR1K1 w - - 0 14
DeleteThe landscape is described with PoPLoAFun
DeleteThe moves are described with CCT (tempi)
I talked a lot about postponement moves in the past. And about moves with additional punch.
Carlson made a strange confession about his Kryptonite:
Delete"In terms of calculation, that’s always been a weird issue for me. I’ve always been really, really bad at solving exercises in chess. That’s been a blind spot for me. First of all, I find it hard to concentrate on them, and to look deep enough…
Usually, you have to look deep, and then when I get these lines during the game I very often find the right solution, even though it’s still not the best part of my game, to calculate very deeply.
For me, it’s more that I’m at the board trying to find the solution. I understand the training at home is trying to replicate that, you give somebody half an hour in a position — in this instance, you might have thought for half an hour if you played the game. I just cannot do it!"
This seems as if he is aware of when the landscape is build, but has trouble to infer it from a provided from a static position. We are trying to do it the other way around.
Meaning, that we must learn to see how the moves build the landscape slowly during the game.
DeleteMoves have the following components:
Deletethey form the landscape
they make use of the landscape
they are designed to have multiple purposes
they have a tempo component which prunes the tree of analysis
Sorry: I forgot to remove the f2 pawn when I moved it to f4. Should read:
DeleteFEN - r2q1rk1/p2nbpp1/4pn1p/1p2P3/2p2P2/6PN/PPPN2bP/R1BQR1K1 w - - 0 14
Thanks!