Showing posts with label Self-Discipline. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Self-Discipline. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 07, 2012
The Genius of the Kibitzer, Part II
I think this is one of my better efforts ever. Here it is at The Chess Improver. My efforts to put this into practice, and the results, will be in some future columns. Hope you enjoy, comments here are much appreciated.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
A Brief Update on My Current Work
Since last October I've had no chance to play "live" tournament chess, and much of my chess activity has consisted of 3 0 and 0 5 at FICS. When I have 20-30 minutes of free time for chess it's been tempting to dash off a few quick games.
This has, predictably, done nothing for my development as a chess player. So, in the spirit of chess- and self-improvement epitomized by GM Nigel Davies and his Chess Improver blog, I am changing things up for awhile:
1) No blitz for the rest of the summer. If I have at least a 30-minute window for play, I'll play a minimum 15 0 game.
2) I purchased Ray Cheng's excellent Practical Chess Excercises for use in those short windows of time where otherwise no useful study could take place. This book has gotten great reviews as study material, and I think it is reasonable to expect to get through all the diagrams once this summer.
3) As a change of pace, I'm going to aim at being able to play the "Top 10" (K+P v. K, Lucena and such) most common endgame positions "like a machine" by the end of the summer. I worked on this briefly a couple of years ago and it helped a lot (especially at blitz!) and I think this is a basic that I'm still incomplete in.
4) Analysis of my own games. I will post some of them here, for you the reader's entertainment/instruction/amusement.
Unless I also get a chance to play some rated games, this will be my exclusive focus for the next three months. I will also be interested in seeing if this will result in a measurable increase in my blitz rating after that. Ought to be interesting!
This has, predictably, done nothing for my development as a chess player. So, in the spirit of chess- and self-improvement epitomized by GM Nigel Davies and his Chess Improver blog, I am changing things up for awhile:
1) No blitz for the rest of the summer. If I have at least a 30-minute window for play, I'll play a minimum 15 0 game.
2) I purchased Ray Cheng's excellent Practical Chess Excercises for use in those short windows of time where otherwise no useful study could take place. This book has gotten great reviews as study material, and I think it is reasonable to expect to get through all the diagrams once this summer.
3) As a change of pace, I'm going to aim at being able to play the "Top 10" (K+P v. K, Lucena and such) most common endgame positions "like a machine" by the end of the summer. I worked on this briefly a couple of years ago and it helped a lot (especially at blitz!) and I think this is a basic that I'm still incomplete in.
4) Analysis of my own games. I will post some of them here, for you the reader's entertainment/instruction/amusement.
Unless I also get a chance to play some rated games, this will be my exclusive focus for the next three months. I will also be interested in seeing if this will result in a measurable increase in my blitz rating after that. Ought to be interesting!
Friday, January 01, 2010
ACIS 2010
I'm back, I'm excited and let's get right to it--to really be one of the ACIS, by Blunderprone's definition, one must post about goals, plans and methods and then follow up with progress reports. So here I go, taking the plunge...
True Confessions
First off, some brutally honest history. I've mentioned here a number of times that I'm really into human performance and "self-help" books and materials. Back in 1995 I was in Northern California, working at a low paying job and basically just getting along when I revisited Tony Robbins' book Unlimited Power, a book I'd owned for several years and had read, but hadn't taken much action with. Rereading the book one night, I sat down and started doing some of the exercises, including thinking about what I really wanted and how to get it. I decided to move back to Juneau, Alaska, go to the university and get a degree, get married and have children and get into politics and government. It took longer than it might have, there were some bumps in the road along the way but I did all of those things, and now enjoy a great job, pretty good income and a great family. You may well think of Tony Robbins as some guy on late night infomercials but lo, he has put out some things that work, if you actually do them. And he learned a lot of them from NLP and through the pioneer Richard Bandler. I'm currently working with Bandler's latest book, Get the Life You Want, which I highly recommmend.
That's all fine, you may be saying, but where's the brutal honesty? Here: I've never faithfully, consistently applied these methods and techniques to chess improvement! Most of my improvement came from playing good players from 1982-90, and that's it! Oh, I have plenty of chess books, and I've intermittedly studied endings, done tactical exercises and looked at some master games, but I've never really applied what I know about performance psychology to my chess in a consistent way. Perhaps chess improvement is not quite as important as work, health, marriage and family, but now is the time, friend, now is the time. I think that I must either just play chess and enjoy it, which is great, or go for the gusto and do the improvement thing to the utmost of my ability:
I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. So because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. (Rev. 3:15-16). I will not let that be me!
So here goes.
My Personal ACIS Program
As I noted in my last post, I have decided to base my ACIS plan on Jeremy Silman's How to Reassess Your Chess (3d. ed). A funny coincidence--this is one of the few well-known chess books I've never owned, but while I was in Anchorage, Alaska recently I dropped in at the fabulous Title Wave used book store and browsed the book for awhile, finally paying just $7.95 for a nice copy. It struck me that one of my weak points as a chess player is the lack of a consistent, cogent thinking process as I consider my move. Though I'm experienced enough to know about weak pawns, weak squares, dropping in a killer knight at d6 to paralyze Black's position, etc., I all too often go pretty much straight to "What threats can I make and how must he repsond to them?" and choose my moves almost exclusively on that basis. Also, I've been playing mostly internet blitz over the last months since I left Reno and its strong club tournaments. The "Reassess Your Chess" method does not lend itself, nor really apply, to blitz. It's about taking the time to really look at the "imbalances" in a position and considering how to nurture the ones favorable to your side, and to neutralize the opponent's. As I browsed through the book it dawned on me that perhaps this was just the approach I needed in my own unique situation--other people may best be served by another book or focus.
While there is a thorough and quite critical review of the book on the Amazon page that might give one pause, I decided that the reviewer's (apparently) legitimate criticisms of some errors in the book shouldn't really be a problem with my intended use of it. I will work my way through every line of "Reassess Your Chess" on a board, and perfect the thinking process presented, and any errors and ommissions I find on my own will just be great practice. After I have made it through the book (and can finally say that I have done so with at least one chess book) I will apply the process to games and positions from other books--games collections, opening books etc.
One other thing that struck me as I looked into the book is a Silman recommendation that I've seen in one form or another many times in many places: to take a rich position from a master game, set it up on a board and really get into it deeply, for 20, 30, 40 minutes or more, writing down all your thoughts, plans and calculated lines. Blue Devil Knight called it Rowsonalysis (see Chess for Zebras), Michael Goeller and Dan Heisman have called it the "Stoyko excercise" after Massachusetts FM Stephen Stoyko. By any other name, this is something I've never really done. I am going to do it as much as time allows and publish the results here.
Playing games is, of course, the other thing one must do to actually improve, well, results in actual games! I'm going to try to play at least two games on FICS at 15/5 or longer each week. That may be all I can fit in. I am going to avoid blitz for three months as an experiment, and see if the ACIS work will result in some significant improvement at blitz. As Heisman says, the best blitz players are the best slow players. I am intrigued by the possibility that this may or may not happen in this case.
Measuring Progress
Only ratings can really say whether one's strength has increased over time. My current ratings:
USCF - 1629 (all-time best 1825)
FICS Standard - 1606 (all-time best 1800+)
FICS Blitz - 1328 (all-time best 1442)
I plan to post something once a week about the ACIS plan and what I actually accomplished. If I miss a week I'm not going to freak out, however. From mid-January to April I am extremely busy in my professional capacity. Any time studying or playing chess will, however, be quality time.
Isn't that really what this is all about?
True Confessions
First off, some brutally honest history. I've mentioned here a number of times that I'm really into human performance and "self-help" books and materials. Back in 1995 I was in Northern California, working at a low paying job and basically just getting along when I revisited Tony Robbins' book Unlimited Power, a book I'd owned for several years and had read, but hadn't taken much action with. Rereading the book one night, I sat down and started doing some of the exercises, including thinking about what I really wanted and how to get it. I decided to move back to Juneau, Alaska, go to the university and get a degree, get married and have children and get into politics and government. It took longer than it might have, there were some bumps in the road along the way but I did all of those things, and now enjoy a great job, pretty good income and a great family. You may well think of Tony Robbins as some guy on late night infomercials but lo, he has put out some things that work, if you actually do them. And he learned a lot of them from NLP and through the pioneer Richard Bandler. I'm currently working with Bandler's latest book, Get the Life You Want, which I highly recommmend.
That's all fine, you may be saying, but where's the brutal honesty? Here: I've never faithfully, consistently applied these methods and techniques to chess improvement! Most of my improvement came from playing good players from 1982-90, and that's it! Oh, I have plenty of chess books, and I've intermittedly studied endings, done tactical exercises and looked at some master games, but I've never really applied what I know about performance psychology to my chess in a consistent way. Perhaps chess improvement is not quite as important as work, health, marriage and family, but now is the time, friend, now is the time. I think that I must either just play chess and enjoy it, which is great, or go for the gusto and do the improvement thing to the utmost of my ability:
I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. So because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. (Rev. 3:15-16). I will not let that be me!
So here goes.
My Personal ACIS Program
As I noted in my last post, I have decided to base my ACIS plan on Jeremy Silman's How to Reassess Your Chess (3d. ed). A funny coincidence--this is one of the few well-known chess books I've never owned, but while I was in Anchorage, Alaska recently I dropped in at the fabulous Title Wave used book store and browsed the book for awhile, finally paying just $7.95 for a nice copy. It struck me that one of my weak points as a chess player is the lack of a consistent, cogent thinking process as I consider my move. Though I'm experienced enough to know about weak pawns, weak squares, dropping in a killer knight at d6 to paralyze Black's position, etc., I all too often go pretty much straight to "What threats can I make and how must he repsond to them?" and choose my moves almost exclusively on that basis. Also, I've been playing mostly internet blitz over the last months since I left Reno and its strong club tournaments. The "Reassess Your Chess" method does not lend itself, nor really apply, to blitz. It's about taking the time to really look at the "imbalances" in a position and considering how to nurture the ones favorable to your side, and to neutralize the opponent's. As I browsed through the book it dawned on me that perhaps this was just the approach I needed in my own unique situation--other people may best be served by another book or focus.
While there is a thorough and quite critical review of the book on the Amazon page that might give one pause, I decided that the reviewer's (apparently) legitimate criticisms of some errors in the book shouldn't really be a problem with my intended use of it. I will work my way through every line of "Reassess Your Chess" on a board, and perfect the thinking process presented, and any errors and ommissions I find on my own will just be great practice. After I have made it through the book (and can finally say that I have done so with at least one chess book) I will apply the process to games and positions from other books--games collections, opening books etc.
One other thing that struck me as I looked into the book is a Silman recommendation that I've seen in one form or another many times in many places: to take a rich position from a master game, set it up on a board and really get into it deeply, for 20, 30, 40 minutes or more, writing down all your thoughts, plans and calculated lines. Blue Devil Knight called it Rowsonalysis (see Chess for Zebras), Michael Goeller and Dan Heisman have called it the "Stoyko excercise" after Massachusetts FM Stephen Stoyko. By any other name, this is something I've never really done. I am going to do it as much as time allows and publish the results here.
Playing games is, of course, the other thing one must do to actually improve, well, results in actual games! I'm going to try to play at least two games on FICS at 15/5 or longer each week. That may be all I can fit in. I am going to avoid blitz for three months as an experiment, and see if the ACIS work will result in some significant improvement at blitz. As Heisman says, the best blitz players are the best slow players. I am intrigued by the possibility that this may or may not happen in this case.
Measuring Progress
Only ratings can really say whether one's strength has increased over time. My current ratings:
USCF - 1629 (all-time best 1825)
FICS Standard - 1606 (all-time best 1800+)
FICS Blitz - 1328 (all-time best 1442)
I plan to post something once a week about the ACIS plan and what I actually accomplished. If I miss a week I'm not going to freak out, however. From mid-January to April I am extremely busy in my professional capacity. Any time studying or playing chess will, however, be quality time.
Isn't that really what this is all about?
Sunday, December 14, 2008
On Giving Up Internet Blitz (Again)
Since I last played in the five hour marathons at the Reno Chess Club (see here for my rather whiny farewell) most of my chess activity has consisted of blitz on FICS. While I've certainly gotten some satisfaction and enjoyment from these games, I've also gotten into some pretty bad habits.
As James Stripes writes in this post at his excellent Chess Skills blog, "Blitz and rapid chess involve a lot of smoke and mirrors, while standard chess is a quest for truth." I have seen that in the evolution (devolution?) of my "style" over the last months; I developed the typical blitzer's habits of playing trap chess and "hope chess," always pushing forward and doing very little consolidation, rarely playing for an "edge" or going for a superior endgame. I have had some nice artistic successes, learned a lot about the openings...and hung a lot of pieces.
Last night I had a good winning streak, ran my blitz rating up to a reasonably respectable 1377, and having a desire to get back to the "quest for truth" have decided to play only 15 0 or longer (the minimum for standard rated games) for the present. My FICS rating at that is 1686, and I figure I could get that quite a bit higher by playing serious, real chess.
Meanwhile, I've gone to a couple of meetings of the Juneau Chess Club, which is a laid-back affair for two hours at the library, once a week. There are several pretty decent tournament players in my town, in the 1400-1600 USCF range, so I'm going to get busy organizing a "stimulus package" and start playing rated games again. Game in 90 minutes to be the maximum, if I have my druthers. There are also several tournaments a year up in Anchorage and starting next summer I expect to have the time and money to travel to something in the "Lower 48."
So right now I'm headed off to get back to "real chess," because I've gotten a bit shallow, and hope is not a plan.
As James Stripes writes in this post at his excellent Chess Skills blog, "Blitz and rapid chess involve a lot of smoke and mirrors, while standard chess is a quest for truth." I have seen that in the evolution (devolution?) of my "style" over the last months; I developed the typical blitzer's habits of playing trap chess and "hope chess," always pushing forward and doing very little consolidation, rarely playing for an "edge" or going for a superior endgame. I have had some nice artistic successes, learned a lot about the openings...and hung a lot of pieces.
Last night I had a good winning streak, ran my blitz rating up to a reasonably respectable 1377, and having a desire to get back to the "quest for truth" have decided to play only 15 0 or longer (the minimum for standard rated games) for the present. My FICS rating at that is 1686, and I figure I could get that quite a bit higher by playing serious, real chess.
Meanwhile, I've gone to a couple of meetings of the Juneau Chess Club, which is a laid-back affair for two hours at the library, once a week. There are several pretty decent tournament players in my town, in the 1400-1600 USCF range, so I'm going to get busy organizing a "stimulus package" and start playing rated games again. Game in 90 minutes to be the maximum, if I have my druthers. There are also several tournaments a year up in Anchorage and starting next summer I expect to have the time and money to travel to something in the "Lower 48."
So right now I'm headed off to get back to "real chess," because I've gotten a bit shallow, and hope is not a plan.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
A Clear-Eyed Analysis of My Shortcomings
The time has come for a reality check.
Liquid Egg Product had a thought-provoking post a few days ago, How bad do I want it?:
Right now, I’m 1600-ish, the same as 10 years ago without putting effort into improvement. What would happen if I tried? Does the thought of “maybe there’s an Expert somewhere in here” motivate me enough to work?
More likely, the “I’m sufficiently skilled so most people can’t dismiss me; that’s good enough” win out (again).
This is something to be considered seriously; I'm pretty confident I could just play a tournament game most weeks at the Reno Chess Club, play a few blitz games at FICS when I have the time, and still have a lot of fun with chess while maintaining my rating at approximately its current level. Hell, I have a 1600 USCF floor, so I could go to the club and play gambits and weird, wild openings all the time, move fast and get the game over with in a couple of hours and go home to a good night's rest. As everyone who's tried it knows, to maximize your score in tournament play you've got to be willing to sit and sit and sit, grinding out tiny edges for a win or grimly defending lost positions with chances, you've got to use most or all of your clock time and be willing to play out the full five hours (at my club) if necessary.
Sometimes, it's a lot more like work than playing a game.
Drunknknite makes some great points:
I am REALLY tired of players who will blame a loss on one move or even worse, the opening. Sentences like "Well I blundered and then the game's pretty much over." really mean 'and then I pretty much stopped playing'. "I messed up the opening" means 'He surprised me and I stopped playing chess and watched him beat me'. A won position does not equal a win. No one loses when they deserve to win. Every point is earned. If you are not willing to own up to mistakes then you will never correct them and your development as a player will be severely stunted. Everyone makes mistakes, that's part of the game.
Okay, accept the fact that if you really enjoy playing tournament chess (and I do) then it's a titanic struggle, with yourself and your fatigue and your personal weaknesses as well as with an opponent that would like to (symbolically) chop off your head. I believe I've improved that part of the equation lately, in that I'm trying hard, I'm not being lazy at the board, never saying "The hell with it, let's just get this over with!" after a long, grinding struggle (admit it, you've said this to yourself at least once in your life if you play long games!).
Away from the board, I've fallen down on the job.
For the last two months of 2007 I had a Plan (thanks dk, for the gentle prodding), I was posting weekly on my working of the Plan, then I fell down on the job once I got back to playing in tournaments every week. Besides the sins of omission, there have also been sins of commission; I have gone back to playing occasional blitz sessions at FICS (the horror, the horror). I've been scattershotting around, solving occasional tactical diagrams sitting on the john, playing over the games of my rivals on their blogs and worst of all, for the last six weeks not analyzing and posting each tournament game as promised.
Making a plan and sticking to it has never been one of my strong points, which is too bad since it is probably the most important factor in long-term success; "studies prove" and all that. I've fallen back into old habit-patterns.
So, this is a decision point, right here, right now--do I just go "chess for fun" and play around and enjoy it and not worry too much about improvement? Or do I get back to writing down and posting my plan, staying with it, striving to rise through the ranks despite any and all challenges, setbacks and disappointments?
Ad astra per aspera!
Despite my laziness, my other failings and shortcomings, the weaknesses of the flesh, I'm still up for having written goals and plans, and reporting progress here. Look for an update every Tuesday.
Improvement (to the stars!) is a long (rough) road. There's probably nothing I can do to drastically increase my chances to win my game this Thursday except to get physically prepared, play over a few games and do some tactical exercises just to get in the flow. It's how much better I can get six months, a year, two years out that will pay off the steady, consistent work.
I have 3-5 hours, most weeks, to study and a game at the Reno Chess Club to put it into practice. This 8-10 hours of chess a week is a precious resource, not to be squandered.
After careful consideration, I'm going to (with an average of four hours/week) spend:
1) Two hours of analyzing my own games, getting into the backlog of the last six weeks and posting them here, then once caught up, analyzing the current week's game or an older one I never looked at when it was played.
2) One hour looking at two master games (30 minutes each) in openings I play, trying to "guess the move." As little as it is, this at least touches on all phases of the game.
3) One hour of tactics study, starting with the 203 positions not grouped by theme (in other words, no clues) in Neishtadt's Test Your Tactical Ability. I'm going to go through them, writing the lines in pencil, not looking at the answers in the back until I've worked through all 203. Besides tactics, this will train patience, perseverance and "backbone." I need all three.
I'm also going to use a board and pieces rather than the computer where possible--at this point, I'm still playing my serious games the old fashioned way, and I've rarely studied without the computer recently. Seeing and feeling the pieces can only help when real game time comes. I rarely have a chance to use them at home, but I'm going to devote two lunch hours to study per week, and that is a nice opportunity to find peace and quiet and work with the "real thing."
I've got my score sheets, board and set and books with me today.
Reports here next Tuesday.
Excelsior!
Liquid Egg Product had a thought-provoking post a few days ago, How bad do I want it?:
Right now, I’m 1600-ish, the same as 10 years ago without putting effort into improvement. What would happen if I tried? Does the thought of “maybe there’s an Expert somewhere in here” motivate me enough to work?
More likely, the “I’m sufficiently skilled so most people can’t dismiss me; that’s good enough” win out (again).
This is something to be considered seriously; I'm pretty confident I could just play a tournament game most weeks at the Reno Chess Club, play a few blitz games at FICS when I have the time, and still have a lot of fun with chess while maintaining my rating at approximately its current level. Hell, I have a 1600 USCF floor, so I could go to the club and play gambits and weird, wild openings all the time, move fast and get the game over with in a couple of hours and go home to a good night's rest. As everyone who's tried it knows, to maximize your score in tournament play you've got to be willing to sit and sit and sit, grinding out tiny edges for a win or grimly defending lost positions with chances, you've got to use most or all of your clock time and be willing to play out the full five hours (at my club) if necessary.
Sometimes, it's a lot more like work than playing a game.
Drunknknite makes some great points:
I am REALLY tired of players who will blame a loss on one move or even worse, the opening. Sentences like "Well I blundered and then the game's pretty much over." really mean 'and then I pretty much stopped playing'. "I messed up the opening" means 'He surprised me and I stopped playing chess and watched him beat me'. A won position does not equal a win. No one loses when they deserve to win. Every point is earned. If you are not willing to own up to mistakes then you will never correct them and your development as a player will be severely stunted. Everyone makes mistakes, that's part of the game.
Okay, accept the fact that if you really enjoy playing tournament chess (and I do) then it's a titanic struggle, with yourself and your fatigue and your personal weaknesses as well as with an opponent that would like to (symbolically) chop off your head. I believe I've improved that part of the equation lately, in that I'm trying hard, I'm not being lazy at the board, never saying "The hell with it, let's just get this over with!" after a long, grinding struggle (admit it, you've said this to yourself at least once in your life if you play long games!).
Away from the board, I've fallen down on the job.
For the last two months of 2007 I had a Plan (thanks dk, for the gentle prodding), I was posting weekly on my working of the Plan, then I fell down on the job once I got back to playing in tournaments every week. Besides the sins of omission, there have also been sins of commission; I have gone back to playing occasional blitz sessions at FICS (the horror, the horror). I've been scattershotting around, solving occasional tactical diagrams sitting on the john, playing over the games of my rivals on their blogs and worst of all, for the last six weeks not analyzing and posting each tournament game as promised.
Making a plan and sticking to it has never been one of my strong points, which is too bad since it is probably the most important factor in long-term success; "studies prove" and all that. I've fallen back into old habit-patterns.
So, this is a decision point, right here, right now--do I just go "chess for fun" and play around and enjoy it and not worry too much about improvement? Or do I get back to writing down and posting my plan, staying with it, striving to rise through the ranks despite any and all challenges, setbacks and disappointments?
Ad astra per aspera!
Despite my laziness, my other failings and shortcomings, the weaknesses of the flesh, I'm still up for having written goals and plans, and reporting progress here. Look for an update every Tuesday.
Improvement (to the stars!) is a long (rough) road. There's probably nothing I can do to drastically increase my chances to win my game this Thursday except to get physically prepared, play over a few games and do some tactical exercises just to get in the flow. It's how much better I can get six months, a year, two years out that will pay off the steady, consistent work.
I have 3-5 hours, most weeks, to study and a game at the Reno Chess Club to put it into practice. This 8-10 hours of chess a week is a precious resource, not to be squandered.
After careful consideration, I'm going to (with an average of four hours/week) spend:
1) Two hours of analyzing my own games, getting into the backlog of the last six weeks and posting them here, then once caught up, analyzing the current week's game or an older one I never looked at when it was played.
2) One hour looking at two master games (30 minutes each) in openings I play, trying to "guess the move." As little as it is, this at least touches on all phases of the game.
3) One hour of tactics study, starting with the 203 positions not grouped by theme (in other words, no clues) in Neishtadt's Test Your Tactical Ability. I'm going to go through them, writing the lines in pencil, not looking at the answers in the back until I've worked through all 203. Besides tactics, this will train patience, perseverance and "backbone." I need all three.
I'm also going to use a board and pieces rather than the computer where possible--at this point, I'm still playing my serious games the old fashioned way, and I've rarely studied without the computer recently. Seeing and feeling the pieces can only help when real game time comes. I rarely have a chance to use them at home, but I'm going to devote two lunch hours to study per week, and that is a nice opportunity to find peace and quiet and work with the "real thing."
I've got my score sheets, board and set and books with me today.
Reports here next Tuesday.
Excelsior!
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
The Next Big Thing
It turns out that despite my devastating, heartrending (blah, blah) loss in the last round of the Reno CC Ch. Qualifier I'm not going to be taking six weeks off after all; due to a player dropping out I've been invited to join the fun in the Swiss that will determine who makes the "Elite Eight" and the match play portion of the event. The first round is Thursday, the pairings are up on the RCC site, and behold, I get to take on Kevin Gafni, aka drunknknite, in two days. Awesome! Playing with the best players in the club is and has been my goal, and now the opportunity is at hand.
I've been thinking about and working on the problem I had with "running out of gas" in the game mentioned above, and have come to some conclusions and taken some actions. First, I resumed running three miles three times a week; second, cut down on overall food and sugar consumption, and; third, have generally reduced my daily stress level through the use of various mental disciplines.
Even more important I've decided there will be:
!!!
In my Secrets of a Grandpatzer series I quoted the late, great Dr. Kenneth Mark Colby:
To be a master one needs good physical and mental stamina. But health, mental or physical, is not necessary for the grandpatzer.If you look at a group of us in a chess club tournament, you will observe what wrecks we are...Having problems is not the problem; it's what you do in spite of them that counts. To rise above physical illness and pain, to strive for your best in spite of these distressful states, represents a challenge for the aspiring grandpatzer with artistic goals.
There you have it--my opponents are probably tired, too! Whatever issues are going on before the game will be forgotten during the game, and will no longer be reported here. Having done what we could, let the chips fall where they may.
I'm really excited about my "second chance" to play in this tournament, and I'm going to give it everything I've got.
I've been thinking about and working on the problem I had with "running out of gas" in the game mentioned above, and have come to some conclusions and taken some actions. First, I resumed running three miles three times a week; second, cut down on overall food and sugar consumption, and; third, have generally reduced my daily stress level through the use of various mental disciplines.
Even more important I've decided there will be:
!!!
In my Secrets of a Grandpatzer series I quoted the late, great Dr. Kenneth Mark Colby:
To be a master one needs good physical and mental stamina. But health, mental or physical, is not necessary for the grandpatzer.If you look at a group of us in a chess club tournament, you will observe what wrecks we are...Having problems is not the problem; it's what you do in spite of them that counts. To rise above physical illness and pain, to strive for your best in spite of these distressful states, represents a challenge for the aspiring grandpatzer with artistic goals.
There you have it--my opponents are probably tired, too! Whatever issues are going on before the game will be forgotten during the game, and will no longer be reported here. Having done what we could, let the chips fall where they may.
I'm really excited about my "second chance" to play in this tournament, and I'm going to give it everything I've got.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Chess Inputs, Filters and Results (Part I)
In my post on my last round game in the Reno Chess Club Ch. Qualifier I promised an exploration of "other factors in the final result of a chess game" and today we'll take a shot at this; in the meantime the excellent Phaedrus of Chess Vision has provided a post and chart that will be helpful, so perhaps you'll hit the link and review that before continuing...
Back already? Okay, first, I hope he doesn't mind my linking his very useful chart so that you can refer to it without jumping back and forth:
In the comments I suggested that it might be instructive to have the green boxes placed in between the "transfer" and "playing" boxes; as I said there:
[T]he green boxes (concentration, stamina and time management) almost act as a filter or "bottleneck" to showing the level of patterns, calculation and visualization (after transfer). So the green boxes might be placed in line with and after transfer; if they are all 100 percent "open" then the player's full strength is available (and this would be rare or impossible); the more any one of these physical/psychological factors is "constricted" the smaller percentage of strength is showing in the play on the board.
___________________________________________________
I've read a lot of chess books over the years (probably too many), played over master games and done tactical exercises (probably not enough) and yet I've seen very little specific, useful material in the chess literature on the important topics, the filters that attenuate your results, of concentration, stamina and time management.
Now these things are not totally neglected, but some of the advice is obvious and trite, ("Eat well, exercise and get enough sleep"), some is conflicting ("Don't get up from the board often, it takes time to refocus, but do get up and stretch, keep blood flowing to the brain"), and some is confusing ("don't study openings, but if by studying openings you get into a playable middlegame having saved time and energy for later, why, DO study openings!").
I'm going to use my game with Chris Harrington, mentioned above, as an illustration of how all of these factors affect the results of the game, because for our purposes here it's going to be only the results that count; "playing well" for most of the game, getting "good positions" and so on are for all practical purposes useless. The concentration, stamina and time management "boxes" are where playing well becomes playing poorly and good positions are turned into losses. I'll be focusing on these things from that perspective.
For reference, here's my game with Chris:
On the surface, here's a one-paragraph description of the game (from my perspective): We both played the opening by the book for 13 moves which left me 83 minutes for only 17 more moves; on move 21 he overlooked my tactical idea and I won a piece for two pawns with a "winning" (heh) position; on move 26 and 29 I don't play the good move Ne4 despite the fact that I looked at it, and lose most of my advantage; and after the time control at move 30 my play is pretty weak, my moves 33, 34 and especially 36 are all (?), meanwhile he plays well, knowing he's down material he activates his pieces against my draughty king position and takes advantage of the openings I give him to play a winning combination.
Under the surface: During the four days before the game my wife was working out of town and I had the entire responsibility for taking care of the home and our son, and though I got a decent amount of sleep the night before the game I had had less than adequate rest the two previous nights. As noted, I played the first 13 moves quickly but having plenty of time available I spent 7-12 minutes on several of the moves between 14 and 25, some of which could have been played more quickly, but I was sometimes looking at the same lines over and over, checking and rechecking since I was starting to feel tired and "vacant" and this led to even more fatigue. I felt pretty decent during the first part of the game, but even though my opponent was playing quite quickly (less than 50 minutes for the whole game) right around the critical point of move 26-30 I was already feeling dopey, though less than 2.5 hours had passed since the beginning of the game.
When we reached this position with White to make his 36th move:
I was sincerely trying my best, but I felt rather like there was a fog before my eyes; my focus was no longer on the whole board and my opponent's possibilities. As best I can remember I was looking at a small area of the board, roughly just his checking pawn, my king, his rook and his queen, and my confused thinking went something like "There are only two moves, after king takes I don't see anything immediately devastating but my king looks exposed there, his queen checks on h8 and he controls the file, whereas if I take with the queen my queen controls the file." Something shallow like that, not even considering his very next move, Rg2+ and wins.
So to sum up, the concrete results of declining stamina and concentration were scattered, completely inadequate calculation and the overlooking of the opponent's possibilities in a position where the result of game was in the balance.
Here's the post I wrote right after I got home from the game, (something I've never done before) a heartfelt expression of fatigue and frustration, not with the intention of excusing or alibiing my loss, but a genuine account of the way I felt at the time. I'm glad I gave credit to my opponent, where credit was due, because he played better and deservedly won; but I was just a little angry that this important game had been lost not because of any defects in my chess armory but because I hadn't been able to play up to the ability I knew I had. After all the work and planning and study, I hadn't been able to show what I was capable of.
Now that in my own long-winded fashion I've given some background and an example of the problem, in Part II we'll have a go at identifying what can be done about it.
Back already? Okay, first, I hope he doesn't mind my linking his very useful chart so that you can refer to it without jumping back and forth:
In the comments I suggested that it might be instructive to have the green boxes placed in between the "transfer" and "playing" boxes; as I said there:
[T]he green boxes (concentration, stamina and time management) almost act as a filter or "bottleneck" to showing the level of patterns, calculation and visualization (after transfer). So the green boxes might be placed in line with and after transfer; if they are all 100 percent "open" then the player's full strength is available (and this would be rare or impossible); the more any one of these physical/psychological factors is "constricted" the smaller percentage of strength is showing in the play on the board.
___________________________________________________
I've read a lot of chess books over the years (probably too many), played over master games and done tactical exercises (probably not enough) and yet I've seen very little specific, useful material in the chess literature on the important topics, the filters that attenuate your results, of concentration, stamina and time management.
Now these things are not totally neglected, but some of the advice is obvious and trite, ("Eat well, exercise and get enough sleep"), some is conflicting ("Don't get up from the board often, it takes time to refocus, but do get up and stretch, keep blood flowing to the brain"), and some is confusing ("don't study openings, but if by studying openings you get into a playable middlegame having saved time and energy for later, why, DO study openings!").
I'm going to use my game with Chris Harrington, mentioned above, as an illustration of how all of these factors affect the results of the game, because for our purposes here it's going to be only the results that count; "playing well" for most of the game, getting "good positions" and so on are for all practical purposes useless. The concentration, stamina and time management "boxes" are where playing well becomes playing poorly and good positions are turned into losses. I'll be focusing on these things from that perspective.
For reference, here's my game with Chris:
On the surface, here's a one-paragraph description of the game (from my perspective): We both played the opening by the book for 13 moves which left me 83 minutes for only 17 more moves; on move 21 he overlooked my tactical idea and I won a piece for two pawns with a "winning" (heh) position; on move 26 and 29 I don't play the good move Ne4 despite the fact that I looked at it, and lose most of my advantage; and after the time control at move 30 my play is pretty weak, my moves 33, 34 and especially 36 are all (?), meanwhile he plays well, knowing he's down material he activates his pieces against my draughty king position and takes advantage of the openings I give him to play a winning combination.
Under the surface: During the four days before the game my wife was working out of town and I had the entire responsibility for taking care of the home and our son, and though I got a decent amount of sleep the night before the game I had had less than adequate rest the two previous nights. As noted, I played the first 13 moves quickly but having plenty of time available I spent 7-12 minutes on several of the moves between 14 and 25, some of which could have been played more quickly, but I was sometimes looking at the same lines over and over, checking and rechecking since I was starting to feel tired and "vacant" and this led to even more fatigue. I felt pretty decent during the first part of the game, but even though my opponent was playing quite quickly (less than 50 minutes for the whole game) right around the critical point of move 26-30 I was already feeling dopey, though less than 2.5 hours had passed since the beginning of the game.
When we reached this position with White to make his 36th move:
I was sincerely trying my best, but I felt rather like there was a fog before my eyes; my focus was no longer on the whole board and my opponent's possibilities. As best I can remember I was looking at a small area of the board, roughly just his checking pawn, my king, his rook and his queen, and my confused thinking went something like "There are only two moves, after king takes I don't see anything immediately devastating but my king looks exposed there, his queen checks on h8 and he controls the file, whereas if I take with the queen my queen controls the file." Something shallow like that, not even considering his very next move, Rg2+ and wins.
So to sum up, the concrete results of declining stamina and concentration were scattered, completely inadequate calculation and the overlooking of the opponent's possibilities in a position where the result of game was in the balance.
Here's the post I wrote right after I got home from the game, (something I've never done before) a heartfelt expression of fatigue and frustration, not with the intention of excusing or alibiing my loss, but a genuine account of the way I felt at the time. I'm glad I gave credit to my opponent, where credit was due, because he played better and deservedly won; but I was just a little angry that this important game had been lost not because of any defects in my chess armory but because I hadn't been able to play up to the ability I knew I had. After all the work and planning and study, I hadn't been able to show what I was capable of.
Now that in my own long-winded fashion I've given some background and an example of the problem, in Part II we'll have a go at identifying what can be done about it.
Monday, February 04, 2008
The Inner Game of Chess
Since I haven't tracked down my score book quite yet, I won't be posting my game from last week for at least another day or so; but not having the moves in front of me has had an unexpected bonus. Reflecting on this game and my recent run of fairly good results, plus a few things I’ve read in the wonderful and ever-expanding chess blogosphere, has had led me to some insights that might otherwise have been lost in the details of “21. f4? (Ra4! Bxc3 22. Rxh4 and White wins)” or whatever. Having concentrated on my games for the last few posts, let’s get into something with wider application, and more universal interest, than just mememe—though since I’m intimately familiar with them, these provided the jumping-off point.
I’m +5 -3 =1 starting with the Western States Open in October, with a performance rating of about 1810 over those games. Not overwhelming, but a pretty good run. It just occurred to me that by an unusual string of circumstances, 7 of these 9 games had me playing Black, an oddity of taking some byes in the Swiss system events. As I go back over these games in my mind I’m struck by a couple of things; I feel like I’ve been “lucky,” for want of a better word, in several of the games, but I really don’t believe in luck, especially in chess. In my Chess for Humans post in October I wrote:
We all know, intellectually, that chess is just too hard for anyone not to make mistakes, and plenty of them, during a game, yet so many of us have a tough time really feeling that, and just looking at the position in front of us and doing the best we can, regardless of how we got there.
During this tournament I did a pretty good job of just playing the position--and I also noticed that there were more and longer periods during the games when the rest of the tournament room, and the world, sort of faded away, and all I saw was the board in front of me.
Now this didn’t have anything to do with studying openings (of which I’ve done little lately), endgames or tactics. These are valuable and important, especially the tactics, and I’ve definitely cut down on blunders lately partly due to tactical training. Out of the 9 games I count one real screamer (hanging queen), two “two-movers,” and one game against an Expert where I missed a winning shot and then, punch-drunk, a draw a few moves later. In 5 of the 9 games (4 wins and a draw) I made no serious mistakes, as far as I can see within my own limitations. Here’s the big insight, the common denominator that can teach me (and you) a lesson; most of the blunders came in the period between moves 22 and 30, and in all cases they came as I was beginning to tire from the calculation that had come earlier; also in most cases I had less than the ideal amount of time on my clock, though I rarely get into “serious” time pressure, which for me is less than one minute per move. The one blunder or serious mistake that was different came on move 10 of a game when I was pretty ill, and I later “woke up” and won that one.
I suppose my pattern of errors is different and unique, so maybe I can’t teach anyone else a “lesson,” but this examination has been really useful. It relates closely to something that the excellent Blunderprone referred to in a recent post about one of his own serious blunders, and a comment from FM Jon Jacobs that “anyone” will find useful:
This is related to how strong you are: At 1600 and above, most people already know enough chess principles that they probably defeat themselves (lose by making moves they already know enough to recognize were wrong) more often than they lose due to either lack of knowledge or an opponent's superior play.
And above 1900 or so, I am convinced that nearly everyone is knowledgeable enough that they'd get far more benefit from working primarily on understanding and improving their own psychology so as to maximize their use of what they already know - rather than continuing to try and suck up still more and more book knowledge (which always seems to flee from a player's mind at the exact moment you need it during a game).
I've summarized the above line of thinking into a catchy slogan I intend to copyright: "Fire Your Coach. Hire a Shrink!"
YES. There may be more gold regarding improvement here than doing 1000 problems on CTS. Chess tactics study is useful, there can be no doubt, but in my case after 25 years of (sometimes sporadic) tournament chess I already know quite a bit, consciously and subconsciously, about pins, forks, double attacks, the King’s Indian and Queen’s Gambit Declined, space advantages, etc. etc. My recent run of modest successes seems mostly due to a good attitude at the board, trying hard and concentrating (relatively) better, not worrying unduly about earlier events in the game and (usually) striking when the winning chance finally presents itself. My opponents make mistakes, too, and I’ve done pretty well at just doing my best and then knowing when they’ve made a serious mistake and what to do about it.
The pattern of my bad errors that I’ve identified here leads me to the following actions that might minimize them: 1) Use less time and energy on the opening, and really concentrate on getting to move 20 (in my usual 30/90, G/60 time controls) with at least 30 minutes left, and plenty of energy left, as well. It seems I very rarely blunder now when I’m physically okay and don’t rush, so a formula for success would seem to be to avoid these circumstances. I can't always have a perfect night's sleep and a peaceful day before a game, but I do control how long I take on each move. 2) When I’m in the situations where I’m prone to blunder, be aware of it, don’t sweat it, and just try to play my best. I don’t get very upset about losses anymore (admittedly, the blown win against the Expert was a slight exception) and so I will just take it easy when tired and short of time, and thereby avoid the stress and rush that almost guarantees blunders, for me and most everyone else.
One more thing—when I had a study plan and posted about it every week I think it was good for me, whether I hit the targets or not, so here is my new one: One hour of Chess Tempo standard per week (my rating there dropped from 1801 to the high 1600s, so it’s a good time to start back up and show “progress!”), one longish internet game per week (probably the LEPers FICS tournament), and two hours of studying Grandmaster games or annotating my games (depending on circumstances). This will occupy my current available time to the full, or more. I still haven’t started the project of putting all my tournament games into ChessDB, but maybe I can sneak a few in here and there. Inputting these from the beginning of my career 25 years ago should provide some amusement and also some insight into my unique chess psychology and approach, and provide a lot more material for me to improve my “inner game.”
(ADDENDUM: After reading this again, it still seems to be mostly about me despite the statement in the first graph. Oh well, I hope it's still of general interest).
I’m +5 -3 =1 starting with the Western States Open in October, with a performance rating of about 1810 over those games. Not overwhelming, but a pretty good run. It just occurred to me that by an unusual string of circumstances, 7 of these 9 games had me playing Black, an oddity of taking some byes in the Swiss system events. As I go back over these games in my mind I’m struck by a couple of things; I feel like I’ve been “lucky,” for want of a better word, in several of the games, but I really don’t believe in luck, especially in chess. In my Chess for Humans post in October I wrote:
We all know, intellectually, that chess is just too hard for anyone not to make mistakes, and plenty of them, during a game, yet so many of us have a tough time really feeling that, and just looking at the position in front of us and doing the best we can, regardless of how we got there.
During this tournament I did a pretty good job of just playing the position--and I also noticed that there were more and longer periods during the games when the rest of the tournament room, and the world, sort of faded away, and all I saw was the board in front of me.
Now this didn’t have anything to do with studying openings (of which I’ve done little lately), endgames or tactics. These are valuable and important, especially the tactics, and I’ve definitely cut down on blunders lately partly due to tactical training. Out of the 9 games I count one real screamer (hanging queen), two “two-movers,” and one game against an Expert where I missed a winning shot and then, punch-drunk, a draw a few moves later. In 5 of the 9 games (4 wins and a draw) I made no serious mistakes, as far as I can see within my own limitations. Here’s the big insight, the common denominator that can teach me (and you) a lesson; most of the blunders came in the period between moves 22 and 30, and in all cases they came as I was beginning to tire from the calculation that had come earlier; also in most cases I had less than the ideal amount of time on my clock, though I rarely get into “serious” time pressure, which for me is less than one minute per move. The one blunder or serious mistake that was different came on move 10 of a game when I was pretty ill, and I later “woke up” and won that one.
I suppose my pattern of errors is different and unique, so maybe I can’t teach anyone else a “lesson,” but this examination has been really useful. It relates closely to something that the excellent Blunderprone referred to in a recent post about one of his own serious blunders, and a comment from FM Jon Jacobs that “anyone” will find useful:
This is related to how strong you are: At 1600 and above, most people already know enough chess principles that they probably defeat themselves (lose by making moves they already know enough to recognize were wrong) more often than they lose due to either lack of knowledge or an opponent's superior play.
And above 1900 or so, I am convinced that nearly everyone is knowledgeable enough that they'd get far more benefit from working primarily on understanding and improving their own psychology so as to maximize their use of what they already know - rather than continuing to try and suck up still more and more book knowledge (which always seems to flee from a player's mind at the exact moment you need it during a game).
I've summarized the above line of thinking into a catchy slogan I intend to copyright: "Fire Your Coach. Hire a Shrink!"
YES. There may be more gold regarding improvement here than doing 1000 problems on CTS. Chess tactics study is useful, there can be no doubt, but in my case after 25 years of (sometimes sporadic) tournament chess I already know quite a bit, consciously and subconsciously, about pins, forks, double attacks, the King’s Indian and Queen’s Gambit Declined, space advantages, etc. etc. My recent run of modest successes seems mostly due to a good attitude at the board, trying hard and concentrating (relatively) better, not worrying unduly about earlier events in the game and (usually) striking when the winning chance finally presents itself. My opponents make mistakes, too, and I’ve done pretty well at just doing my best and then knowing when they’ve made a serious mistake and what to do about it.
The pattern of my bad errors that I’ve identified here leads me to the following actions that might minimize them: 1) Use less time and energy on the opening, and really concentrate on getting to move 20 (in my usual 30/90, G/60 time controls) with at least 30 minutes left, and plenty of energy left, as well. It seems I very rarely blunder now when I’m physically okay and don’t rush, so a formula for success would seem to be to avoid these circumstances. I can't always have a perfect night's sleep and a peaceful day before a game, but I do control how long I take on each move. 2) When I’m in the situations where I’m prone to blunder, be aware of it, don’t sweat it, and just try to play my best. I don’t get very upset about losses anymore (admittedly, the blown win against the Expert was a slight exception) and so I will just take it easy when tired and short of time, and thereby avoid the stress and rush that almost guarantees blunders, for me and most everyone else.
One more thing—when I had a study plan and posted about it every week I think it was good for me, whether I hit the targets or not, so here is my new one: One hour of Chess Tempo standard per week (my rating there dropped from 1801 to the high 1600s, so it’s a good time to start back up and show “progress!”), one longish internet game per week (probably the LEPers FICS tournament), and two hours of studying Grandmaster games or annotating my games (depending on circumstances). This will occupy my current available time to the full, or more. I still haven’t started the project of putting all my tournament games into ChessDB, but maybe I can sneak a few in here and there. Inputting these from the beginning of my career 25 years ago should provide some amusement and also some insight into my unique chess psychology and approach, and provide a lot more material for me to improve my “inner game.”
(ADDENDUM: After reading this again, it still seems to be mostly about me despite the statement in the first graph. Oh well, I hope it's still of general interest).
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Chess for Humans
A long time ago I promised myself that I'd post all my tournament games here as a learning tool, and I have with more or less success--sometimes with extensive comments, sometimes not. After my modest but satisfying success at the recent Sands Regency Western States Open I'm happy to do so for those games, but prior to getting into that I'd like to get a couple of items and opinions out there.
First, a hearty "thank you!" to Douglas L. Stewart, a USCF Expert from Mississippi who has been kind enough to play through some of my games and make excellent comments--without my ever having asked. I don't know Mr. Stewart personally, but I sure appreciate the notes he's posted in the comments (for example, here).
Next, a little bit about "mental attitude," "psychology" or whatever your preferred term is, and its relation to chess results. In my previous posts about the Western States I noted that "I didn't get too high or too low, really did a pretty good job of just playing chess, not worrying too much about who was better, what might have happened earlier in the game, etc." Basically, in the games I won I just hung around doing the best I could, not regretting any mistakes from earlier in the game and was rewarded when my opponents allowed me some opportunities that I capitalized on.
This hasn't always been my strong point; in earlier years I used to get a real adrenalin overload when I thought I was winning, especially against much higher-rated players. I also tended to get down on myself when I made a mistake, a tendency which seems to me to be very common among all classes of players, and which keeps anyone subject to it from achieving their full potential. We all know, intellectually, that chess is just too hard for anyone not to make mistakes, and plenty of them, during a game, yet so many of us have a tough time really feeling that, and just looking at the position in front of us and doing the best we can, regardless of how we got there.
During this tournament I did a pretty good job of just playing the position--and I also noticed that there were more and longer periods during the games when the rest of the tournament room, and the world, sort of faded away, and all I saw was the board in front of me. I spent less time looking at the demo boards from the Open section, and the games next to me, as well. I think these were all helpful in doing my best.
Last week I'd posted something about Jonathon Rowson's Chess for Zebras, but mainly in relation to his discussion of knowledge v. skill. Blue Devil Knight asked in the comments there, reasonably enough:
Incidentally, I haven't read much specific about that book. People say "Oh, man it rocks," say something about knowledge versus skill, and then I haven't seen much else. Is it more than just a cheerleading section for adults to go and actually play?
Well BDK, at this point I'll say "yes!" Reading the sections on meaning-making, myths and "falsifying" your plans and ideas by trying to find the best ways for your opponent to stop them all had a positive effect on my play in this tournament, I feel. Maybe I'm just high from my reasonably good result, but I think that Rowson's book(s) and working on the mental aspects of your game is also a "practical" method to improve your OTB play.
Don't throw out your tactics books and CDs, though!
First, a hearty "thank you!" to Douglas L. Stewart, a USCF Expert from Mississippi who has been kind enough to play through some of my games and make excellent comments--without my ever having asked. I don't know Mr. Stewart personally, but I sure appreciate the notes he's posted in the comments (for example, here).
Next, a little bit about "mental attitude," "psychology" or whatever your preferred term is, and its relation to chess results. In my previous posts about the Western States I noted that "I didn't get too high or too low, really did a pretty good job of just playing chess, not worrying too much about who was better, what might have happened earlier in the game, etc." Basically, in the games I won I just hung around doing the best I could, not regretting any mistakes from earlier in the game and was rewarded when my opponents allowed me some opportunities that I capitalized on.
This hasn't always been my strong point; in earlier years I used to get a real adrenalin overload when I thought I was winning, especially against much higher-rated players. I also tended to get down on myself when I made a mistake, a tendency which seems to me to be very common among all classes of players, and which keeps anyone subject to it from achieving their full potential. We all know, intellectually, that chess is just too hard for anyone not to make mistakes, and plenty of them, during a game, yet so many of us have a tough time really feeling that, and just looking at the position in front of us and doing the best we can, regardless of how we got there.
During this tournament I did a pretty good job of just playing the position--and I also noticed that there were more and longer periods during the games when the rest of the tournament room, and the world, sort of faded away, and all I saw was the board in front of me. I spent less time looking at the demo boards from the Open section, and the games next to me, as well. I think these were all helpful in doing my best.
Last week I'd posted something about Jonathon Rowson's Chess for Zebras, but mainly in relation to his discussion of knowledge v. skill. Blue Devil Knight asked in the comments there, reasonably enough:
Incidentally, I haven't read much specific about that book. People say "Oh, man it rocks," say something about knowledge versus skill, and then I haven't seen much else. Is it more than just a cheerleading section for adults to go and actually play?
Well BDK, at this point I'll say "yes!" Reading the sections on meaning-making, myths and "falsifying" your plans and ideas by trying to find the best ways for your opponent to stop them all had a positive effect on my play in this tournament, I feel. Maybe I'm just high from my reasonably good result, but I think that Rowson's book(s) and working on the mental aspects of your game is also a "practical" method to improve your OTB play.
Don't throw out your tactics books and CDs, though!
Friday, July 27, 2007
Chess and the "80/20 Principle"
Blue Devil Knight's excellent post Lessons from blitz (do read the whole thing) really struck a chord because I happen to be reading a book right now called The 80/20 Principle (I've only read the Introduction thus far, but I already had some knowledge of where the author is going).
The gist of the 80/20 Principle is that 20 percent of your efforts produce 80 percent of your results, 20 percent of your customers produce 80 percent of your profits, etc. An Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto, originally formulated the principle when he observed that across many countries it always seemed that 20 percent of the people had 80 percent of the wealth.
What has this to do with chess (you may be asking by now)?
EVERYTHING.
From BDK's post:
Ninety percent of the games were decided by tactical blunders. The following plots the proportion of tactical errors, sorted by type, culled from looking over about 60 of the games:
(BDK is a scientist and we're lucky enough to get handy visual pointers like this).
More:
Going through the errors also revealed a very interesting property of tactical opportunities. There were hardly any complex combinations available in any of the games. Perhaps in 3% of the games, I missed four-or-more move combinations. Most realistic combinations are two or three move, typically one move. This is an extremely useful fact, and should be impressed into the minds of all beginners. When I first started playing chess, I looked at the board as a structure with infinite tactical possibilities that were well out of my reach, I would sit and search for complicated N-move combinations, wrongly believing that they must be there, but that I was just too stupid to see them. My post-mortem showed me how naive my thinking was, and this is liberating.
The law of short combinations also makes sense from an analytical point of view (and could probably be proven mathematically): the longer the imagined combination, the more likely it is that the opponent will have defensive resources, will have in-between moves that are hard to see, the more likely it is that you are simply missing an obvious weakness in your attack or somehow miscalculating the combination.
There are a lot more interesting and useful conclusions he makes from the study of these blitz games, and I would say they apply to slow chess as well, particularly games that are not master v. master (I think that covers almost all the readers of this blog). Again, read his whole post.
Now let us relate all this to the 80/20 Principle, which has been found so applicable in so many different fields. Synthesizing the experiences and writings of Michael de la Maza, Dan Heisman, GM Ziatdinov and others (see Temposchlucker, dk/transformation), it looks to me like there is conclusive evidence that 80 percent of one's study time (until one has reached a rating of perhaps 2000) ought to be used on studying, absorbing and putting basic tactics into Long Term Memory, where these patterns are "at your fingertips" so to speak. The majority using your own games as examples, going over the decisive position numerous times until you see the position and BAM! the right move jumps out at you. The rest of the 80 percent, tactics books, CTS, CT-Art, etc. About 20 percent of study time to be used on openings, endings and master games.
Hey, I realize that some of you already were thinking and doing this, or close to it, but some of us take awhile to learn what's good for us. This will be my study breakdown from here forward.
The gist of the 80/20 Principle is that 20 percent of your efforts produce 80 percent of your results, 20 percent of your customers produce 80 percent of your profits, etc. An Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto, originally formulated the principle when he observed that across many countries it always seemed that 20 percent of the people had 80 percent of the wealth.
What has this to do with chess (you may be asking by now)?
EVERYTHING.
From BDK's post:
Ninety percent of the games were decided by tactical blunders. The following plots the proportion of tactical errors, sorted by type, culled from looking over about 60 of the games:
(BDK is a scientist and we're lucky enough to get handy visual pointers like this).
More:
Going through the errors also revealed a very interesting property of tactical opportunities. There were hardly any complex combinations available in any of the games. Perhaps in 3% of the games, I missed four-or-more move combinations. Most realistic combinations are two or three move, typically one move. This is an extremely useful fact, and should be impressed into the minds of all beginners. When I first started playing chess, I looked at the board as a structure with infinite tactical possibilities that were well out of my reach, I would sit and search for complicated N-move combinations, wrongly believing that they must be there, but that I was just too stupid to see them. My post-mortem showed me how naive my thinking was, and this is liberating.
The law of short combinations also makes sense from an analytical point of view (and could probably be proven mathematically): the longer the imagined combination, the more likely it is that the opponent will have defensive resources, will have in-between moves that are hard to see, the more likely it is that you are simply missing an obvious weakness in your attack or somehow miscalculating the combination.
There are a lot more interesting and useful conclusions he makes from the study of these blitz games, and I would say they apply to slow chess as well, particularly games that are not master v. master (I think that covers almost all the readers of this blog). Again, read his whole post.
Now let us relate all this to the 80/20 Principle, which has been found so applicable in so many different fields. Synthesizing the experiences and writings of Michael de la Maza, Dan Heisman, GM Ziatdinov and others (see Temposchlucker, dk/transformation), it looks to me like there is conclusive evidence that 80 percent of one's study time (until one has reached a rating of perhaps 2000) ought to be used on studying, absorbing and putting basic tactics into Long Term Memory, where these patterns are "at your fingertips" so to speak. The majority using your own games as examples, going over the decisive position numerous times until you see the position and BAM! the right move jumps out at you. The rest of the 80 percent, tactics books, CTS, CT-Art, etc. About 20 percent of study time to be used on openings, endings and master games.
Hey, I realize that some of you already were thinking and doing this, or close to it, but some of us take awhile to learn what's good for us. This will be my study breakdown from here forward.
Thursday, July 05, 2007
After the the Hiatus: Refocusing and Rededication
Taking a little time away from tournament chess and chess blogging has been good for refocusing, both on what I want out of chess and how to get there.
A great deal has happened around the chess blogosphere in the last week. dk-transformation posted a very kind and wonderfully illustrated post that includes his article about me and this blog, as well as so many beautiful images to accompany it and so many other playful and idiosyncratic profiles on other chess bloggers that I despair of trying to describe it all. I've said this before about him, you have to go there and read it all, because he and his work are, well, not summarizable.
Also, chessloser returned from Spain and was then stuck in West Virginia for days, prompting talk of a massive and violent rescue operation--but fortunately it turned out to be a mechanical, not criminal matter, and all is well.
Blue Devil Knight was getting sort of sick of chess and I think all of us who play and study it seriously get a stretch like this from time to time. He's back to working hard on his Circles again so apparently his "chess hunger" (Botvinnik) is still there.
Blunderprone went to the World Open and had some humbling experiences (as I did there back in 1990 with a snappy 1.5-6.5 result) and decided "I totally SUCK at chess." Another thing we have in common--I think I've said that a few times myself! Looks like he came back strong at the end, for which he's got my admiration.
______________________________________________________
All of this and so much more kept me thinking for the last week about the next phase in my development and chess career, because I'm not entirely happy with the way I've been performing during tournament games. Like almost everyone else I feel like I must make progress, however slow and steady, or spend my precious time on other things. So with two more weeks off from tournament play coming up, here is a summary of what I'm doing to refocus and rededicate.
Refocusing, First Principle: All future training and thinking about chess is to be dedicated to improving results in tournament and match games with humans. This is a very important clarification, I believe, as some of the things I've been doing have been fun and/or interesting, but have not contributed in this area. So this First Principle will provide the base from which all will follow in the rest of this post and in my studies and practice from now on. And so, on to the various areas of work...
Tactical training: As much as I've enjoyed playing around at Chess Tactics Server, and as marvelous as dk's and tempo's achievements there are, I've decided that CTS isn't contributing significantly to results at the board, as it's a little bit like blitz--I don't have the self-discipline to take 30 seconds and lose all the points even though I get it right. So I'm going to stop there with a 1477 rating at 73.6 percent over 1100-odd problems. I have an old Soviet tactics book that I'm going to work through, each and every problem (about 210 arranged by theme in the learning chapters and then a 150 position "tactics exam"). I'm going to use a board for the problems when I have at least 20-30 minutes to work, and solve from the book otherwise, not leaving a problem until I know I've got it right, even if it takes a half hour. At home I now have CT ART 3.0 so I'm going to explore that--there's plenty of comments and suggestions about it on many of the Knight's Errant blogs, which is useful and enjoyable.
Openings: I enjoyed playing 1. e4 a few times lately but this excellent post by Grandpatzer on Preparing an Opening Repertoire made me think things through more thoroughly in terms of improving results in tournament and match games with humans. Maybe 1. e4 leads to more "attacking" positions for White, but I already have a good, strong White repertoire that I'm familiar and comfortable with. So why change now? It would just take away time that could be spent on other, more important aspects of training. So all the (limited) opening study I'm going to be doing will be focused on identifying any holes in my tried and true set of variations, and refining this existing group of openings that I'm already at least somewhat familiar with.
Attitude at the Board: This is where I think I can achieve some real, rapid improvement of results. The problems I've been having in this area include: 1) Playing wild attacking stuff to "see what happens" (see this post, where "amchamp" commented You didn´t give the moves, but "Philidor" plus "sac on f7" sounds pretty much like that line where the white knight ends up on a8. This has been known to theory for a long time not to be good for white. Exactly, my friend. I calculated 5-6 moves ahead, but I would have had to see 7-8 to realize that the line was no good, so I didn't know the Philidor very well and I played a "fun, attacking" move that I couldn't see clearly to an advantage). 2) Not being patient enough (maybe this should be 1A). Being an aggressive player is good, in general, provided you apply your aggression in the right positions. My tendency is to apply it too often. Remember, improving results in tournament and match games with humans. If the game is equal for 45 moves and I then get a good rook ending which he resigns on move 80, that's just as good as a 22-move win as White in the Evans Gambit with a piece sacrifice. At least, that's the way I need to look at it if I really want to improve results, and not just play "interesting" games that keep my rating at 1600 for the rest of my life.
Related to this is stamina--as I've mentioned before, these are 30/90, G/60 time controls and my play in games that go long hasn't been that good. I started running program a few weeks ago and I'm up to about 2.5 miles in 24 minutes; it's not Olympic running, but I believe it's going to give me greater endurance when crunch time comes in the 4th and 5th hour of play. Also, I've noticed that running helps train the will; some days you don't feel like doing your running, sometimes you feel like stopping short of your goal distance, but there's always something left in the tank, and if you just keep plodding along you will make it to where you're determined to go. That can't be anything but good for gutting out a tough game of chess!
A great deal has happened around the chess blogosphere in the last week. dk-transformation posted a very kind and wonderfully illustrated post that includes his article about me and this blog, as well as so many beautiful images to accompany it and so many other playful and idiosyncratic profiles on other chess bloggers that I despair of trying to describe it all. I've said this before about him, you have to go there and read it all, because he and his work are, well, not summarizable.
Also, chessloser returned from Spain and was then stuck in West Virginia for days, prompting talk of a massive and violent rescue operation--but fortunately it turned out to be a mechanical, not criminal matter, and all is well.
Blue Devil Knight was getting sort of sick of chess and I think all of us who play and study it seriously get a stretch like this from time to time. He's back to working hard on his Circles again so apparently his "chess hunger" (Botvinnik) is still there.
Blunderprone went to the World Open and had some humbling experiences (as I did there back in 1990 with a snappy 1.5-6.5 result) and decided "I totally SUCK at chess." Another thing we have in common--I think I've said that a few times myself! Looks like he came back strong at the end, for which he's got my admiration.
______________________________________________________
All of this and so much more kept me thinking for the last week about the next phase in my development and chess career, because I'm not entirely happy with the way I've been performing during tournament games. Like almost everyone else I feel like I must make progress, however slow and steady, or spend my precious time on other things. So with two more weeks off from tournament play coming up, here is a summary of what I'm doing to refocus and rededicate.
Refocusing, First Principle: All future training and thinking about chess is to be dedicated to improving results in tournament and match games with humans. This is a very important clarification, I believe, as some of the things I've been doing have been fun and/or interesting, but have not contributed in this area. So this First Principle will provide the base from which all will follow in the rest of this post and in my studies and practice from now on. And so, on to the various areas of work...
Tactical training: As much as I've enjoyed playing around at Chess Tactics Server, and as marvelous as dk's and tempo's achievements there are, I've decided that CTS isn't contributing significantly to results at the board, as it's a little bit like blitz--I don't have the self-discipline to take 30 seconds and lose all the points even though I get it right. So I'm going to stop there with a 1477 rating at 73.6 percent over 1100-odd problems. I have an old Soviet tactics book that I'm going to work through, each and every problem (about 210 arranged by theme in the learning chapters and then a 150 position "tactics exam"). I'm going to use a board for the problems when I have at least 20-30 minutes to work, and solve from the book otherwise, not leaving a problem until I know I've got it right, even if it takes a half hour. At home I now have CT ART 3.0 so I'm going to explore that--there's plenty of comments and suggestions about it on many of the Knight's Errant blogs, which is useful and enjoyable.
Openings: I enjoyed playing 1. e4 a few times lately but this excellent post by Grandpatzer on Preparing an Opening Repertoire made me think things through more thoroughly in terms of improving results in tournament and match games with humans. Maybe 1. e4 leads to more "attacking" positions for White, but I already have a good, strong White repertoire that I'm familiar and comfortable with. So why change now? It would just take away time that could be spent on other, more important aspects of training. So all the (limited) opening study I'm going to be doing will be focused on identifying any holes in my tried and true set of variations, and refining this existing group of openings that I'm already at least somewhat familiar with.
Attitude at the Board: This is where I think I can achieve some real, rapid improvement of results. The problems I've been having in this area include: 1) Playing wild attacking stuff to "see what happens" (see this post, where "amchamp" commented You didn´t give the moves, but "Philidor" plus "sac on f7" sounds pretty much like that line where the white knight ends up on a8. This has been known to theory for a long time not to be good for white. Exactly, my friend. I calculated 5-6 moves ahead, but I would have had to see 7-8 to realize that the line was no good, so I didn't know the Philidor very well and I played a "fun, attacking" move that I couldn't see clearly to an advantage). 2) Not being patient enough (maybe this should be 1A). Being an aggressive player is good, in general, provided you apply your aggression in the right positions. My tendency is to apply it too often. Remember, improving results in tournament and match games with humans. If the game is equal for 45 moves and I then get a good rook ending which he resigns on move 80, that's just as good as a 22-move win as White in the Evans Gambit with a piece sacrifice. At least, that's the way I need to look at it if I really want to improve results, and not just play "interesting" games that keep my rating at 1600 for the rest of my life.
Related to this is stamina--as I've mentioned before, these are 30/90, G/60 time controls and my play in games that go long hasn't been that good. I started running program a few weeks ago and I'm up to about 2.5 miles in 24 minutes; it's not Olympic running, but I believe it's going to give me greater endurance when crunch time comes in the 4th and 5th hour of play. Also, I've noticed that running helps train the will; some days you don't feel like doing your running, sometimes you feel like stopping short of your goal distance, but there's always something left in the tank, and if you just keep plodding along you will make it to where you're determined to go. That can't be anything but good for gutting out a tough game of chess!
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
New Year in My Chess Life
While I haven't written anything here for three weeks, I haven't been entirely idle on the chess front, my main activity being the study of my own games as part of the program in Rolf Wetzell's Chess Master...at any age. It's been a revelation, not just in learning from my mistakes, but in a way that Wetzell talked about but I hadn't really experienced before--how painful it is to really study and critique your own efforts.
I'm almost ashamed to admit how little I have done in this area in the 26 years of my tournament chess career, usually preferring to move on to the next game rather than analyze the one recently completed. Often the immediate postmortem was the only study I gave to a tournament game, and the circumstances of tournament play at the Reno Chess Club have made even that difficult over the last year. So the deeper study of six or seven games from the last six months for 1-2 hours each has been difficult--but also a revelation.
I'm now convinced, more than ever, that my understanding of chess is at least that of an 1800-1900 player (and indeed, I was once rated 1825), and perhaps equal to that of some Experts, but that I'll have to bring that understanding to bear in practical games more frequently and consistently in order to move up the ladder.
I'll be returning to tournament play in the city class championships in about four weeks, and we'll see how much my efforts ahve paid off then, in the fire of competition.
At the beginning of 2006 I set a goal of a 1700+ rating by the end of that year. I am still at my floor of 1600 as of today. I again say to the chess world (heh, I'm sure it's sitting up and taking notice!) that by the end of 2007 I will be over 1700. Now let's see if I can make good on that.
I'm almost ashamed to admit how little I have done in this area in the 26 years of my tournament chess career, usually preferring to move on to the next game rather than analyze the one recently completed. Often the immediate postmortem was the only study I gave to a tournament game, and the circumstances of tournament play at the Reno Chess Club have made even that difficult over the last year. So the deeper study of six or seven games from the last six months for 1-2 hours each has been difficult--but also a revelation.
I'm now convinced, more than ever, that my understanding of chess is at least that of an 1800-1900 player (and indeed, I was once rated 1825), and perhaps equal to that of some Experts, but that I'll have to bring that understanding to bear in practical games more frequently and consistently in order to move up the ladder.
I'll be returning to tournament play in the city class championships in about four weeks, and we'll see how much my efforts ahve paid off then, in the fire of competition.
At the beginning of 2006 I set a goal of a 1700+ rating by the end of that year. I am still at my floor of 1600 as of today. I again say to the chess world (heh, I'm sure it's sitting up and taking notice!) that by the end of 2007 I will be over 1700. Now let's see if I can make good on that.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Short Personal Report
Contrary to my hopeful posts of several weeks ago, personal and professional circumstances haven't allowed to me to resume regular Thursday tournament chess as planned, and may not until the February Reno CC class championships.
I have, however, been able to follow up with some study of my own games using the Wetzell Method and have identified the first three positions to use for the collection of Images (as he calls them) that I will be reviewing regularly as part of the program in Chess Master...at any age.
So, ad astra per aspera!
I have, however, been able to follow up with some study of my own games using the Wetzell Method and have identified the first three positions to use for the collection of Images (as he calls them) that I will be reviewing regularly as part of the program in Chess Master...at any age.
So, ad astra per aspera!
Monday, November 27, 2006
Using Chess for Global Self-Improvement
The recent posts on Rolf Wetzell's Chessmaster...at any age have got me thinking about not just improving my chess, but using chess for self-improvement. Wetzell talks a lot about discipline: the discipline to avoid time pressure, the discipline to study on schedule, to maintain one's health as the basis for achieving long-term career goals in chess, etc.
I like this idea of using chess to improve one's life. Feel like eating junk food? Not good for your chess! Jogging not attractive on a cold morning? Get out and do it for your chess! Sleeping, eating and breathing chess could be the best thing to motivate one to do the right things in life, if it was looked at in that light.
I think some of those who've gone before us talked about training to be a warrior in this way; the great thing about chess is that after the discipline and the preparation, when you put it in practice you have a much better chance of coming home alive and with all of your limbs intact!
I like this idea of using chess to improve one's life. Feel like eating junk food? Not good for your chess! Jogging not attractive on a cold morning? Get out and do it for your chess! Sleeping, eating and breathing chess could be the best thing to motivate one to do the right things in life, if it was looked at in that light.
I think some of those who've gone before us talked about training to be a warrior in this way; the great thing about chess is that after the discipline and the preparation, when you put it in practice you have a much better chance of coming home alive and with all of your limbs intact!
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