There are an awful lot of holes in my bucket. I'm trying to fix them systematically. The first areas are the tactical issues. Mates, gaining wood, promotion and preliminary moves. I'm working my butt off to fix these. The mates are pretty much fixed, the wood gaining techniques are under way.
It are always the lowest holes that determine the waterlevel in the bucket. When you fix holes of a certain type (tactical combinations), your other weaknesses with lower holes will show themselves.
The past months, the holes in my openings repertoire showed themselves. Especially with black. I got the feeling that I was rated 100 points lower when I played with black. Despite my new openings with black (the HAD and the Leningrad Dutch) I performed miserably. This was especially due to the anti-HAD and anti-Leningrad attacks that I faced. The Alapin, the Smith-Morra gambit, the Staunton gambit and the like. These attacks need not to be a problem, but you need to prepare yourself by memorisation of those lines, otherwise you are simply rolled up. Which happened quite a few times to me.
It is frustrating to be forced to pay attention to your openings with black, while you are fixing the holes in your tactical ability. With white, I dared to play the London System with knowing only the first three moves, and I had never problems with it. I looked for something alike with black.
But since I wanted unbalanced positions with black in order to be able to play for a win, I had trouble to find openings that weren't flooded with obscure anti-black attacks which needed ample memorisation as preparation.
So I forced myself to look further, and found the French and the Classical Dutch. However these defenses still need some serious preparation, they are avoiding a lot of the lines that need tons of memorization. So far, the new black repertoire seems to be working.
Now some of my tools are fixed, the question arises "what am I going to use them for?".
The natural answer is: for an attack on the King. So I bought the Chessable book "the art of the attack" from Vukovic, with exercises and 30 hours of video by GM Simon Williams.
But again, I'm disturbed by a nagging feeling. A few other big holes are spilling the waterlevel in my bucket. I'm terrible at endgame strategy. In the past months, I outplay 2000 rated players tactically in the middlegame on a regular basis. I even was three times a rook ahead, and still I didn't manage to win the game. Since I had to give up the advantage in order to prevent them from promotion. They all admitted they were lost, but I failed to convert it into a win.
So again I'm forced to divide my attention. I MUST fix the holes in my endgame strategy first. Sigh. I would be glad once I have a stable base to work from, when skills only need refinement and not a constant overhaul. When I can focus my attention at one area at the time.
OTOH, its fabulous that matters become so clear now.
Would you please post the three games in which you were a Rook ahead but then you misplayed the ending?
ReplyDeleteI know that request may seem as if I'm asking you to be publicly masochistic, but I'm pretty sure that something valuable can be learned from them - perhaps for all of us, as well as for you. I'd prefer to see the entire game scores, not just the positions where the games switched from a win to a loss. I know I have had winning positions against experts, and then flubbed the ending, usually with an "obvious" (I WISH!) oversight.
Thanks!
Sorry for responding out of time on this post.
ReplyDeleteThe metaphor of the mind as a “bucket with a lot of holes” is common.
GM Rowson in his book Chess for Zebras: Thinking Differently about Black and White titled Chapter 1 as “What to Do When You Think There is a Hole in Your Bucket”.
Since I don’t know if you’ve read this book, I won’t bore you with the details of the song “There’s a hole in my bucket” that he uses as a descriptive metaphor for our improvement dilemma. (It can easily be found using Google Search). Suffice it to say that after a long-winded sequence of proposals to religiously ‘solve’ the ‘holey’ bucket problem, the song circles back to the original problem with no actual solution in sight.
It seems that we also circle around and around the adult chess improvement problem in similar fashion, trying the same approaches over and over but without getting closer to a solution. Changing the descriptive metaphor from a holey bucket which must be ‘filled’ with knowledge to a more nuanced idea that knowledge is constructed rather than fetched might help us get away from this Catch-22 situation.
“Minds are not empty spaces to be filled with new chess knowledge. Our minds cannot be ‘filled’ at all. New information does not follow a seamless path to a comfortable destination. . . . To put it more technically, we construct our understanding of positions, which means using what we have, however imperfect, to make sense of what we’re given. We con (with) struct (structure) our understanding. We learn ‘with-structure’.”
I think the old aphorism that “Chess is 99% tactics” contains an essential truth (even if it is exaggerated): we are not likely to be able to develop skill using other (more nuanced) concepts unless we can reliably SEE the tactical ramifications of our choices at least a few moves into the future. Work on tactical sight (based on in-depth knowledge of specific tactical themes/devices) will always have a beneficial effect on our overall skill.
When I have blown an ending, it is usually because I am short of thinking time, and I overlook 'obvious' tactical shots rather than misplay a strategic concept..
For essential endgame knowledge, I highly recommend IM Jeremy Silman’s book Silman’s Complete Endgame Course — from Beginner to Master. It’s structured by class level rating, identifying the common knowledge/skill that should (must?) be acquired at each rating level. The basic idea is that you need to acquire knowledge/skill in improving spirals, but only as much as you need to play competently at your current rating level or (perhaps) at one level higher. More advanced concepts can be learned when needed after your overall skill level increases.
Crawl before you walk, walk before you run, run before you fly.
In essence, there is no need to attempt to drink from the ocean of theoretical endgame knowledge until you need some specific aspect of it — and that will usually occur immediately following a game when you did NOT have that knowledge/skill readily available . You certainly need not worry about ‘holes in your bucket’.
I know I have made many mistakes in my approach to improvement. Two of the most egregious are (1) trying to learn material WAY over my head (without the proper foundational knowledge/skill), and (2) continually searching for a “magic bullet” solution that will kill the adult chess improvement problem once and for all time.
TANSTAAFL
It's just irritating. I look forward to study the art of attack from Vukovic. I already had made a serious start. And there are about seven games or so lately where a higher rated player told me that I let him off the hook. Mostly by poor endgame play below all standards. Of course I can ignore it and study the art of attack anyway. Plugging the endgame hole later. But then a nagging voice will keep me awake at night.
ReplyDeleteI just finished a lot of hours watching video's from Gm Keith Arkells Endings from Chessable. That gave me a clear impression how big the hole in my endgame bucket is. I estimate that it is going to cost me at least two years to fix it in a proper way.
ReplyDeleteThat frees me from the duty to try to plug the hole instantly. Since that is not going to happen anyhow anytime soon.
So I pick up the Art of Attack from Vukovic again, but now with a peaceful mind. I'm mentally prepared to drop points against higher rated players for the coming three years. (a year for studying the Art of Attack and two years to fix the endgame hole in a proper way.