Awhile back I linked to chessloser's report on his first tournament, highlighting this part:
outside, i thank him. i tell his mom and coach he played really well, i got lucky. his mom is angry at him, his coach is angry at him. his mom says “you didn’t get lucky, he played bad and let you get lucky.” i thank her and quickly back away. poor kid.
Great stuff, sure to make a lifelong chess lover out of the kid, no doubt! I also recently reviewed Josh Waitzkin's The Art of Learning and though I didn't mention it there, Waitzkin writes in a couple of places about how many of his opponents in grade school and junior high tournaments had a similar chess background, with most of their study devoted to sharp openings and attack, and almost nothing devoted to other aspects of the game. He says the pressure on the coaches is to produce winners, now, and forget about long-term development of overall chess skill, or lifelong love of chess. Once the kids leave the school, they're of no use, and every year there's a new crop of first-graders to be molded...much of Waitzkin's success, he says, was based on the training he got from Bruce Pandolfini in the endgame; if the other kid's attack didn't win quickly, they tended to get discouraged, and they didn't play the endgame well.
Put these two things together and I think you have a pretty good idea of one reason why so many American youth players don't become adult members of the USCF (some interesting discussion of other aspects of that that problem here); if winning is the only pleasure associated with chess, one is going to be disappointed at some point, as one plays stronger opposition, and the same with the certain long-term failure that awaits the student of the sharp-opening quick-attack school of instruction.
I doubt my little blog post is going to change the youth chess scene in America much but if you're going to get your child into chess, as I plan to do, teach the beauty and enjoyment of chess, and the study of the broader areas of the game. Young chess players are not disposable parts, to be berated and dropped when they don't live up to parent's or coach's expectations.
One's success as a chess teacher, or parent, lies not in wins and losses, but in the child's lifetime enjoyment of the game.
Monday, June 11, 2007
Reno CC Summer Swiss June 7, 2007, R. Pearson-G. Fischer 0-1
Well I'm certainly falling a little behind in keeping the promise I made (to myself) to post all of my tournament games here; but to get started I can at least report that last Thursday I went down to defeat against George Fischer(1947), the Class A Champion of the Reno CC. Since George got edged out of qualifying for the Club Championship matches he's playing in the Swiss.
Losing to a player rated over 300 points above you is no disgrace, but when I post the score you'll see why I wasn't satisfied with my effort; as White the opening went 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bb5+ Bb7, and while my opening play was okay I just wasn't present enough in the moment of the game, if you know what I mean, I wasn't playing tough, fighting chess, and it was over in 30 moves.
I don't mind losing, really, but I do mind not being able to shut out the distractions, the non-chess things, and get down to playing Real Chess. Two weeks in a row I've, to some extent, just gone through the motions. And that's no formula for success in chess, or anything else.
Losing to a player rated over 300 points above you is no disgrace, but when I post the score you'll see why I wasn't satisfied with my effort; as White the opening went 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bb5+ Bb7, and while my opening play was okay I just wasn't present enough in the moment of the game, if you know what I mean, I wasn't playing tough, fighting chess, and it was over in 30 moves.
I don't mind losing, really, but I do mind not being able to shut out the distractions, the non-chess things, and get down to playing Real Chess. Two weeks in a row I've, to some extent, just gone through the motions. And that's no formula for success in chess, or anything else.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Thoughts on Chess Improvement from the Pale Rider
Fellow Reno, NV chess blogger Eric Shoemaker (Pale Rider) has some thoughts on improvement, and I particularly liked this:
5) Do not ever underestimate the value of the subconscious!! Ever!! Whatever you do study has a mysterious tendency to come up in your games. As a tournament player, you should be aware of this idea/fact!
And...if you have a problem that you want to solve in a position and can't get it solved right away, try taking a nap or sleeping on it. You might be surprised at what your subconscious comes up with upon wakening.
You should also look at Grandmaster Games, with notation or without, because the subconscious will pick up some of the ideas represented there. Your game will start to look a lot different before too long.
and this...
12) Have Ambition! You should want the World Championship! You probably won't make it as that title belongs to a really elite group: The Greats of Chess. But look at it this way, if you fall short, you'll be higher than if your goal was a paltry 100 points above your current rating.
A point well taken. Check out some of his other posts for an interesting and unconventional take on various chess-related subjects.
5) Do not ever underestimate the value of the subconscious!! Ever!! Whatever you do study has a mysterious tendency to come up in your games. As a tournament player, you should be aware of this idea/fact!
And...if you have a problem that you want to solve in a position and can't get it solved right away, try taking a nap or sleeping on it. You might be surprised at what your subconscious comes up with upon wakening.
You should also look at Grandmaster Games, with notation or without, because the subconscious will pick up some of the ideas represented there. Your game will start to look a lot different before too long.
and this...
12) Have Ambition! You should want the World Championship! You probably won't make it as that title belongs to a really elite group: The Greats of Chess. But look at it this way, if you fall short, you'll be higher than if your goal was a paltry 100 points above your current rating.
A point well taken. Check out some of his other posts for an interesting and unconventional take on various chess-related subjects.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Belated Game Report: Reno CC Summer Swiss, Rd. 2: Clifford-Pearson 1-0
In the spirit of full disclosure...
I lost last Thursday's tournament game to John Clifford (1593) at the Reno CC Summer Swiss. Since I'm posting every game I play as an exercise in consistency and self-criticism, I don't want to skip this rather painful loss.
As Black in the Ruy Lopez I got the feeling of a bull seeing a red flag when he played 5. a3. So I got very aggressive throughout the opening, got into one of those "messy" positions where I had a lot of pawn weaknesses but had compensation, and then was gradually outplayed in a long tough game. Good for my opponent, who played well; bad for me, because I didn't have the stamina and gumption that's needed when one isn't feeling tip-top and frisky. Seems to me that one of the important separators between the excellent and the average is the ability to come through when you're having an "off night."
Well, back at it again tomorrow night. I'm motivated by last week's game to do better! I'll post the moves as soon as I get a chance.
I lost last Thursday's tournament game to John Clifford (1593) at the Reno CC Summer Swiss. Since I'm posting every game I play as an exercise in consistency and self-criticism, I don't want to skip this rather painful loss.
As Black in the Ruy Lopez I got the feeling of a bull seeing a red flag when he played 5. a3. So I got very aggressive throughout the opening, got into one of those "messy" positions where I had a lot of pawn weaknesses but had compensation, and then was gradually outplayed in a long tough game. Good for my opponent, who played well; bad for me, because I didn't have the stamina and gumption that's needed when one isn't feeling tip-top and frisky. Seems to me that one of the important separators between the excellent and the average is the ability to come through when you're having an "off night."
Well, back at it again tomorrow night. I'm motivated by last week's game to do better! I'll post the moves as soon as I get a chance.
Sunday, June 03, 2007
Book Review: The Art of Learning
The Art of Learning By Josh Waitzkin. 265 pp. Free Press. $25.
After the release of the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer in 1993, Josh Waitzkin was sixteen years old and the most famous chess master in America—except for Bobby Fischer himself. Fischer, however, was moving around Eastern Europe, unable to return to the U.S. without risking arrest after violating the sanctions against Yugoslavia the previous year by playing a match there with Boris Spassky.
Waitzkin was the “Next Great Hope” of American chess. As the movie (based on the book of the same title by his father, Fred Waitzkin) describes, after Fischer’s spectacular victory in the “Match of the Century” over Spassky in 1972 and subsequent retirement, American chess organizations and players longed for a new homegrown challenger for the supreme title. Josh Waitzkin’s results until Searching for Bobby Fischer showed the potential to enter the elite of world chess, perhaps even become World Champion.
As he explains in his new book, The Art of Learning, the movie changed the whole direction of his life:
While I adjusted to the glare of the media spotlight, my relationship to chess was slowly becoming less organic. I found myself playing to live up to Hollywood expectations instead of for love of the game.
In October 1998 Waitzkin walked into a Tai Chi class in Manhattan. Within months he had left competitive chess and in November 2000, after just two years of Tai Chi study, he won an American National Championship in Push Hands, the competitive form of Tai Chi. In 2002 he won a bronze medal at the World Championships in Taiwan, and in 2004 he reached the pinnacle of the sport with two World Championships.
When a man performs at a world level in not one, but two forms of competition, he gains the right to have his ideas on learning, training and performance psychology given careful consideration. The problem is that some champions are either unable or unwilling to communicate their methods and techniques to others.
Thankfully, Josh Waitzkin has both the ability and willingness to share what he has learned and developed during his life and competitive pursuits. The result is The Art of Learning, a superb book that can help anyone who reads it and acts on its recommendation to compete, succeed, and more importantly, enjoy life to the fullest.
The book is an almost seamless blend of autobiography and training and performance insight and technique. Starting with the day that a six-year-old boy played his first game of chess in New York’s Washington Square Park, we move sequentially with Waitzkin through the years of his chess career and his subsequent pursuit of excellence in Tai Chi and Push Hands competition.
While there is nothing startling or completely original about the book’s insights into sports, the mind and the pursuit of excellence, it manages to both entertain and instruct in a wonderful, upbeat way. Most other books on sports psychology and mental training are dull and didactic by comparison. When Waitzkin, for example, explains and demystifies how use an opponent’s blink to gain the advantage, make a move and drop him to the ground, one realizes how much hooey many books on the martial arts contain.
For this reviewer the most personally rewarding insight in the book was how to use opponent’s attempts to intimidate you or downright break the rules and cheat to your own advantage, turning the natural outrage one feels in this situation into energy and will to win. This mindset will serve you well at work, in sports, even on the daily commute!
The climax of the book is Waitzkin’s trip to Taiwan in 2004, where he encounters last-minute rule changes, blatant failure to award points that he’s won and even not ending a round on time because he’s ahead. Fortunately, he’d encountered this at previous Championships and had planned and trained to use these things to power him toward the performance of his life.
In the final analysis no training technique or sports psychology principle results in real performance gains if not consistently, diligently applied over a long period of time. Waitzkin’s great gift to the reader in this book is to emphasize that reality of hard, sustained effort, while sharing a sense of joy in the process of becoming the best that one is capable of—a process that continues every day of our lives.
The Art of Learning delivers even more than the title promises, and I highly recommend it.
(Cross-posted at Eternity Road and Illumination, Inc.)
After the release of the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer in 1993, Josh Waitzkin was sixteen years old and the most famous chess master in America—except for Bobby Fischer himself. Fischer, however, was moving around Eastern Europe, unable to return to the U.S. without risking arrest after violating the sanctions against Yugoslavia the previous year by playing a match there with Boris Spassky.
Waitzkin was the “Next Great Hope” of American chess. As the movie (based on the book of the same title by his father, Fred Waitzkin) describes, after Fischer’s spectacular victory in the “Match of the Century” over Spassky in 1972 and subsequent retirement, American chess organizations and players longed for a new homegrown challenger for the supreme title. Josh Waitzkin’s results until Searching for Bobby Fischer showed the potential to enter the elite of world chess, perhaps even become World Champion.
As he explains in his new book, The Art of Learning, the movie changed the whole direction of his life:
While I adjusted to the glare of the media spotlight, my relationship to chess was slowly becoming less organic. I found myself playing to live up to Hollywood expectations instead of for love of the game.
In October 1998 Waitzkin walked into a Tai Chi class in Manhattan. Within months he had left competitive chess and in November 2000, after just two years of Tai Chi study, he won an American National Championship in Push Hands, the competitive form of Tai Chi. In 2002 he won a bronze medal at the World Championships in Taiwan, and in 2004 he reached the pinnacle of the sport with two World Championships.
When a man performs at a world level in not one, but two forms of competition, he gains the right to have his ideas on learning, training and performance psychology given careful consideration. The problem is that some champions are either unable or unwilling to communicate their methods and techniques to others.
Thankfully, Josh Waitzkin has both the ability and willingness to share what he has learned and developed during his life and competitive pursuits. The result is The Art of Learning, a superb book that can help anyone who reads it and acts on its recommendation to compete, succeed, and more importantly, enjoy life to the fullest.
The book is an almost seamless blend of autobiography and training and performance insight and technique. Starting with the day that a six-year-old boy played his first game of chess in New York’s Washington Square Park, we move sequentially with Waitzkin through the years of his chess career and his subsequent pursuit of excellence in Tai Chi and Push Hands competition.
While there is nothing startling or completely original about the book’s insights into sports, the mind and the pursuit of excellence, it manages to both entertain and instruct in a wonderful, upbeat way. Most other books on sports psychology and mental training are dull and didactic by comparison. When Waitzkin, for example, explains and demystifies how use an opponent’s blink to gain the advantage, make a move and drop him to the ground, one realizes how much hooey many books on the martial arts contain.
For this reviewer the most personally rewarding insight in the book was how to use opponent’s attempts to intimidate you or downright break the rules and cheat to your own advantage, turning the natural outrage one feels in this situation into energy and will to win. This mindset will serve you well at work, in sports, even on the daily commute!
The climax of the book is Waitzkin’s trip to Taiwan in 2004, where he encounters last-minute rule changes, blatant failure to award points that he’s won and even not ending a round on time because he’s ahead. Fortunately, he’d encountered this at previous Championships and had planned and trained to use these things to power him toward the performance of his life.
In the final analysis no training technique or sports psychology principle results in real performance gains if not consistently, diligently applied over a long period of time. Waitzkin’s great gift to the reader in this book is to emphasize that reality of hard, sustained effort, while sharing a sense of joy in the process of becoming the best that one is capable of—a process that continues every day of our lives.
The Art of Learning delivers even more than the title promises, and I highly recommend it.
(Cross-posted at Eternity Road and Illumination, Inc.)
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