Experimental thoughts
There seems to be the following levels of abstraction:
Level 1 the purpose of existence
What a piece wants regardless the position
Attack
What a pawn wants:
- invasion
- clear the path to promotion
- attack a target
Defense
- prevent invasion
- prevent promotion
- defend a target
What a pawn wants:
- to promote
- to keep invaders out
- give room to its own pieces
Summary
A piece wants to invade, a pawn wants to promote. No matter the position.
Level 2 Invasion
A specific position poses limits and restrictions to the pieces. Not everything that they want is possible.
An invasion square:
- on the other side of the board
- cannot be defended by a pawn anytime soon
- is in contact with a target or focal point
The concepts that revolve around invasion are about creating an invasion point and getting your pieces there
Level 3 Defending an invasion square
Pawns are the best defenders of invasion squares. Invasion squares that are not covered by pawns must be covered by pieces. The usual concepts involving annihilation of the defender do apply.
All these thoughts are inspired by the previous post.
ReplyDeleteThe coming time I'm going to investigate these ideas. They might look an oversimplification to you. But you can't diversify before you have simplified.
ReplyDeleteSofar, I had only two elements that constituted my framework: the PoPLoAFun system and the further specification of "piece activity", which must be related with a target of some sort (the sitting ducks).
München already made clear that he entered a void once he had activated all his pieces "like hell". He had to wait until his opponent made a mistake.
That picture can't be right ofcourse. He used the old definition of piece activity there. When you have a target, you can go for the throat. So how to get there?
This post gives the answer. When there is no target, you go for the invasion. You can always work on an invasion!
The previous post shows a position where my mind used to be totally numb. No idea arises whatsoever.
After analyzing the position, it became clear, that none of the ideas was unknown to me. They just weren't triggered by the position.
That is a sign that a mental framework is missing. The ideas are wandering around in my mind, but they have no connection with a coherent and consistent framework.
A framework provides a start position from where you start thinking. You can always ask "where can I invade?" or "where might my opponent create an invasion square?".
I'm going to test whether I can hang the lose ideas on this framework. I'll keep you posted.
While trying to figure out the reference to “München” (Munich, as Anglicized), I searched back through previous posts, and came across the “At the zoo” post on July 28, 2016, which has a lot of good information in the post and the comments. There is an excerpt from FM Weteschnik’s Chess tactics from scratch. I’ve expanded the quotation to include additional statements.
DeleteSome years ago I trained for about two years with the former trainer of Peter Leko, Tibor Karolyi. With Tibor I mainly studied openings, middlegame strategy, and endgames. During this time I also solved a lot of combinations to develop my tactical skills. I had developed my own little routine. Whenever I thought I had discovered some mechanism or characteristic of a position, I started taking notes. The work on thousands of positions grew first into a collection of unsorted tactical insights, but finally resulted in a structured overview of tactics. Over time seemingly unconnected information turned into a coherent concept. The book you are now holding in your hands is my attempt to communicate this understanding of tactics.
It might be insightful to see the progression over time of the emergence of coherent concepts in Weteschnik’s notebooks. Unfortunately, we only have the final abstracted concepts in his book.
He investigated (worked through) thousands of positions. If he discovered some mechanisms and characteristics in a position (heretofore unknown to him), he noted that information in his own words along with the position and the solution. If the concept(s) matched those which had been previously recorded, he added this new position to his set of examples associated with those concepts. Given time, eventually most (if not all) useful tactical concepts were encountered, classified and placed in proper relation to other similar positions, with the similarities and context noted.
The sentence Over time seemingly unconnected information turned into a coherent concept. is easy to gloss over. His SKILL in SEEing the concepts and connections between them developed over time through the process of abstraction, generalization and categorization of all the positions he encountered during his training as well as his playing games.
Consider what might have happened if he had merely” solved” many thousands of positions (perhaps using the MdlM or Woodpecker method of iteratively solving the same set of problems in ever decreasing amounts of time)—without the associated process of carefully digging out the essence of each position and noting it in a library of his conclusions. We are certainly aware of how that “quantity over quality” process fails to work out for most of us.
There are no shortcuts to be gained by reading and “nodding along” with someone else’s book (or blog posts) containing the derived conceptual ideas.
It takes time to gather the appropriate example set. It takes time to conscientiously work through that problem set and abstract, generalize and distill the essential framework and concepts, along with the associated context for the concepts. Even if one has a coach with a compilation of the requisite “minimum” (whatever that means) problem set that was necessary to develop his skills, the student must distill his own insights from the problem set, not memorize and regurgitate the coach’s insights on demand. The coach’s role is to provide appropriate material to be studied, not to provide the “answers to the exam.” It’s one thing to memorize sufficient knowledge to pass a one-time exam, and something entirely different to acquire SKILL which can be applied in myriad (perhaps entirely novel) situations.
Hofstadter’s Law:
It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's law.
Crane's law:
TANSTAAFL or TINSTAAFL
Funny, I wasn't aware that I didn't wrote Munich.
DeleteI'm reading a lot about AI lately. One thing a human is good at and AI is not, is hierarchical planning. If you want to plan a trip from Amsterdam to Munich, then you start with an overall concept of the trip. Then you decide by train or by plane. And then you plan how to get at the train station. After that, you refine your planning further with "what shall I take with me for three days", "which suitcase is suited", "should I give some tip", where is my wallet, ""what can I do while the taxi isn't here yet" et cetera.
The same is true for chess. You start with "where is my opponents king going to be after castling", "I want to assault his king", "which LoAs can I use", "How do I get my pieces on the LoAs (lines of attack)", "How do I plan to get my attackers on their respective LoAs", "what are the pivot points", "how to invade", "how to get rid of those defenders", "how to breach the walls of his castle".
It takes time to get an overall concept with hierarchical conceptual structure of an assault. That is what this post is about. Now that is beginning to emerge, it is time to fill in the details.
The connection of piece activity with the necessity of a target, gives a tool to judge any positional idea. Does it contribute to piece activity or not?
ReplyDeleteAn invasion square is the third duck. We identified already two sitting ducks (slow moving targets): the king and weak pawns.
The invasion square is closely related to the PoPLoAFun system too: it is the pivot point. A pivot point is a bend in the line of attack (LoA).
The endpoint of a LoA is a focal point or PoP (point of pressure)
Probably the next node of the framework can be postulated too now:
ReplyDeleteThe opening phase should revolve around getting the pieces towards the begin point of the LoA.
This should provide a robust framework where you can hang on every idea. Only with such framework (or another one of your personal liking), you can get feedback from your play. Since you can compare every move against that framework.
Finally I can begin to try to play chess!
PART I:
ReplyDeleteTwo of Frank Erwich’s books 100 Tactical Patterns You MUST Know: Learn to Recognize Winning Chess Moves and The 100 Tactical Patterns You Must Know Workbook: Practical Exercises to Spot the Key Chess Moves have an interesting conceptual taxonomy.
Erwich states that he offers a unique perspective (and he’s correct; I’ve never seen it before in any other books):
“While presenting a diverse array of tactical themes, I focus not only on general positional features like undefended pieces or an exposed king, but also on the specific arrangement of chess pieces, a crucial factor in executing successful tactics. Focusing on typical piece configurations allows you to evaluate and decide more quickly and efficiently in certain positions.”
“Having more specific knowledge about patterns facilitates the process of finding the right moves. Instead of struggling with different candidate moves, the specific positions of the pieces can immediately tell you what you can and cannot do in a given position. In short, to become a more balanced and effective player in terms of tactics, it is important not only to practice general tactical concepts, but also to specialize in specific patterns. These two aspects reinforce each other and contribute to an overall improvement in your chess skills.”
DOES THIS MAKE THE LEVELS OF ABSTRACTION AND ASSOCIATED CONCEPTS CLEARER?
Here are the chapter titles and the designated patterns associated with that title. Both books use the same taxonomy. [This information is available in the sample available on Amazon.]
Chapter 1 — Double attack
Pattern 1 Increasing pawn tension for a pivotal pawn fork
Pattern 2 Releasing tension for a pivotal pawn fork
Pattern 3 An anti-positional capture to fork or trap a piece
Pattern 4 Sacrificing the rook for a bishop fork
Pattern 5 A queen sacrifice in the corner for a knight fork
Pattern 6 A queen’s attack on the central king and a loose piece
Pattern 7 Queenside castling with a double threat
Chapter 2 — Discovered attack and line clearances
Pattern 8 The B+P versus B discovery
Pattern 9 The Queen’s Indian discovery
Pattern 10 The carousel
Pattern 11 The knight and bishop collaboration
Pattern 12 The desperado capture sequence
Pattern 13 The Q+N versus Q discovery
Pattern 14 The Q+N double threat
Pattern 15 The Milner-Barry Gambit trick
Pattern 16 The reversed windmill
Pattern 17 The rook and bishop double check
Pattern 18 The windmill
Pattern 19 The counter-discovery
Pattern 20 The back-rank clearance
Pattern 21 Clearing with the queen and bishop
Chapter 3 — Skewers and pins
Pattern 22 The bishop skewer on the a3-f8/f1-a6 diagonal
Pattern 23 Sacrificing a rook for an absolute skewer
Pattern 24 Decoying for an absolute pin on the a2-g8/g1-a7 diagonal
Pattern 25 Exploiting a pin on the knight along the a4-e8/e1-a5 diagonal
Pattern 26 The back-rank pin
Pattern 27 Attacking the pinned g2/g7 pawn
Pattern 28 The pinned f2/f7 pawn is a poor defender
Pattern 29 The eternal pin
Pattern 30 Saint Andrew’s Cross
Pattern 31 The Maltese Cross
Pattern 32 The Oblique Cross
Pattern 33 Power play with queen and rook in the opening
Chapter 4 — Pinning bishop versus Q+N battery
Pattern 34 Moving the pinned knight with check
Pattern 35 Moving the pinned knight to attack f2/f7
Pattern 36 Moving the pinned knight to exploit the a4-e8/e1-a5 diagonal
Pattern 37 Moving the pined knight to open the e-file
Pattern 38 Moving the pinned knight with an attack
PART II:
ReplyDeleteChapter 5 — Elimination of the defense
Pattern 39 Deflecting the king’s queen protection with the bishop
Pattern 40 Deflecting the king’s rook protection with the bishop
Pattern 41 The hook-and-ladder trick
Pattern 42 The extended hook-and-ladder trick
Pattern 43 The dual back-rank rook sacrifice
Pattern 44 Deflecting the king’s queen protection with the rook
Pattern 45 Deflecting the queen’s bishop
Pattern 46 Deflecting the king’s bishop
Pattern 47 Exploiting the f3/f6 square
Pattern 48 The Smith-Morra Gambit trick
Pattern 49 Exchanging queens for a double threat
Chapter 6 — Trapping pieces
Pattern 50 The en passant trap
Pattern 51 The ingenious pawn thrust
Pattern 52 Noah’s Ark trap
Pattern 53 Shutting off the diagonal from the bishop
Pattern 54 Shutting in the Bobby Fischer bishop
Pattern 55 Trapping the knight on the edge
Pattern 56 The knight retreat
Pattern 57 Trapping the rook in the corner
Pattern 58 Trapping the queen in the corner
Pattern 59 Trapping the queen on b2/b7
Pattern 60 Obstructing the queen
Pattern 61 Trapping the queen with a twist
Pattern 62 Trapping the queen on the edge
Pattern 63 The Rubinstein Trap
Chapter 7 — Promotion
Pattern 64 Sacrificing the queen for a double promotion threat
Pattern 65 The Lasker-Loman tactic
Pattern 66 Luring the back-rank rook for a pawn attack
Pattern 67 The capture-ignoring promotion
Pattern 68 An intermediate check on the back rank
Pattern 69 Setting up a bridge by targeting
Pattern 70 Obstruction for promotion
Pattern 71 The skewer promotion tactic
Pattern 72 Two pawns on the sixth/third rank are stronger than a rook
Pattern 73 The powerful rook pawn versus the knight
Pattern 74 The minor-promotion knight fork
Chapter 8 — Drawing weapons
Pattern 75 A knight’s perpetual
Pattern 76 Nimzowitsch’s perpetuum mobile
Pattern 77 A rook’s perpetual
Pattern 78 The blocking perpetual
Pattern 79 The rampant rook
Pattern 80 Creating stalemate in a K versus Q situation
Chapter 9 — Defensive weapons
Pattern 81 Avoiding stalemate by underpromotion
Pattern 82 Defending against a pin on the e-file
Pattern 83 Defending with and against the counterpin
Pattern 84 Unpinning the knight by counterattacking the pinning bishop
Pattern 85 Pushing the b-pawn
Pattern 86 Defending against a double attack
Pattern 87 The ‘patzer’ interposition
Pattern 88 The seventh-rank clearance defence
Chapter 10 — Queen manoeuvres and the weak f2/f7-point
Pattern 89 The staircase manoeuvre
Pattern 90 The Qd1-h5-e5/...Qd8-h4-e4 maneouvre
Pattern 91 The Qd1-h5-d5/...Qd8-h4-d4 manoeuvre
Pattern 92 The straightforward Qd1-d5
Pattern 93 Sacrificing on f2/f7 to enable a knight jump
Pattern 94 The knight sacrifice on f2/f7
Chapter 11 — Attacking weapons
Pattern 95 Two rooks on the seventh rank
Pattern 96 The Greek Gift
Pattern 97 Lasker’s double bishop sacrifice
Pattern 98 Blocking the f2/f7 pawn
Pattern 99 The double rook sacrifice
Pattern 100 The magnet sacrifice
Chapter 12 — Pattern combinations