chess mastery

Introduction to Visualization pt. 3

2010-05-10T20:50:00.002-07:00

Here is the long awaited... introduction to part 3! Support and feedback allows me to accelerate this discussion so please leave comments! My mind is everywhere at once, I will work on the series on Mechanics soon!! While editing my series on visualization I felt the need to expand on my ideas due to my latest search

For those who do not know the author Jonathan Rowson, he is one of the leading authors on the discussion chess psychology. In contrast to Dvoretsky, whose discussion of chess psychology is largely based on the concrete operatives of the game, Rowson discusses more of the nuances that may be plaguing the thinking process in itself.

His two books, Seven Deadly Chess Sins, and Chess for Zebras, he discusses the pitfalls that our mind falls into, without our very conscious. My endeavor is to define "visualization" and its relevance to our subconscious (which inadvertently will also be a discussion of whether or not this is by virtue of nature or nurture as discussed in Part 2)

In part 3, I wish to tackle his first publication, the 7 Deadly Chess Sins, in regard to our search for an answer of the operations of visualization. What part of our subconscious is it important to evaluate in the way we evaluate evaluation?! And how is it pertaining in the way we are conducting the game as a whole?

An Answer to this discussion?

As defined by Aagaard, the learning process has four phases, "The first phase is called unconscious incompetence, the second conscious incompetence, the third conscious competence, and fourth phase is called unconscious competence"

Chess pieces are pieces of wood. No knowledge of the rules at all.
Knowledge of the rules but with a great amount of possibilities that can not truly be evaluated. This is the situation of the beginner. All the legal moves are possible candidates.
A greater knowledge of chess and evaluation of moves. The amount of possibilities become greatly reduced. This is the level of club player and developing players.
Chess positions immediately make sense and obvious moves appear in the subject's head. This is the situation of a very strong chess player with a fully developed intuition.

So at what point does our subconscious play into our development as a player? And at what point does it translate into the process of "visualization" in chess?

Another question is in this four phase process, can it not be that the mind starts the compilation of chess paterns starting from phase 1 transitioning into phase 2? Is it even relevant to examine our subconscious in the context outlined by Aagaard?

I will try to tackle this discussion head on and offer the reader insight to these questions, and alternatives in which Rowson offers as a solution to the 7 "sins", and to generate some ideas how this is relevant to our discussion of "visualization". As we get closer to some clearer ideas, we can begin to identify the features in which defines this historically confused word. In the book, Rowson (I think rightly) left for the reader to discover these nuances of overcoming our subconscious, but at the same time if he does not offer a solution to the problem, are we mere philosophers?

Tune in for updates!

Update before continuing series

2010-05-10T11:03:00.001-07:00

Hello,

I haven't kept up with this blog but here is an update. I am still playing chess and I am currently teaching the game to a few select students(!) and have attained expert rank and very close to master. For readers who have been interested in Knights Errant (or just interested), please consider reading this blog and leaving comments! I will refer to methods as appealed to by De La Maza, Rowson, Aagaard, and several other authors in this article, which may be of interest to readers who are specifically engaged in the discussions risen by these authors. It will motivate me to keep my thoughts updated about this subject, and answer any inquiries to my furthest abilities on the topic of the psychology of chess improvement.

I'm revisiting my old posts and refining a lot of the material I have previously posted in terms of grammar, spelling, and presentation of the material without removing any of its original content.

For me it is an effort to see how I developed as a player, and the way I have previously examined the game. So before I continue with the series, I will be reading my own previous posts.

EDIT: After short review, I will comment a little the assistance I had while paying for professional coaches. As a coach, he/she has zero obligation to teach you anything. They are not magic, and any amount of money you are paying them will not increase any part of the chess learning experience IF the player himself/herself is not engaged in the work, and when I mean engaged, I mean completely IMMERSED.

This is why there is often discontent with the teachers, when much of the attitude of the approach of the game stems from the player him/herself. So while you are here, keep an open mind and enjoy the process. For where your heart is, the attitude will follow, and similarly, if you approach chess with the attitude of learning, then the rest will follow!

I also feel a blog is more alive when the blog involves people who are directly learning from the discussions. So I have adopted my own personal philosophy to make it a point to show that this blog is a "living" one, and that I am continuously learning and showing results! If what I divulge does not work for myself, I have no business in continuing this blog. But I have been putting up some good results I will be posting rating graphs and associated information at the end of the Mechanics of Combinations series.

Mechanics of Chess Combinations Introduction

2010-05-09T17:13:00.000-07:00

MoCC Part 1

I want to share a series of ideas that I've personally assembled during my quest, and a little bit on my philosophical feeling of how chess is largely approached today and I hope the reader will get something from this.

My desire to start this series is due to a discontent where I feel a lot of the development of chess information is clearly not in the direction of how to approach the middle game. At large, it has little to do with how to approaching some unifying ideas which constitute the core of the game, which is arguably the art of calculation.

The combination has been defined many different ways in the past millennium and I will not try to define it here. However in conducting combinative operations, it is clear that it is important not to make a single misstep. This is obvious, however what is less clear are the mechanics and operatives in which how a combination operates.

With the era of computers, we are looking at an ever growing flow of information regarding openings. Databases, books, informants, encyclopedias, or what have you. Even since the golden years of chess, we can see traces of this trend, especially in the players that are largely now highly engaged in copying the trendiest openings but however are incapable of conducting the middlegame properly. The discussion here will not be one of investigation of the positional properties of middlegames, but the tactical operatives which dictate a majority of chess games.

A "little" analysis

Now what I'm going to do in this series isn't to promote any specific methodology or training methods to increase ones calculative abilities. But want is for the reader is to think about how chess operates, and reconsider what they read in chess books, before taking any comments in any chess text at face value. While there is no alternative to hard work, some authors present absolutely ludicrous method, and claim as a "secret" of chess improvement, and this I personally think is unacceptable.

I do not feel anything I present is anything of absolute truth, but in the end, I would like the reader to begin thinking about the process of understanding of combinations, and calculation, which I feel is largely the key skill needed in chess, which I will demonstrate, invariably is examination of chess as a whole, as the ideas permeate openings, middlegames, and endgames.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now consider, that the knight moves in a defined fashion that is known to all chess players. Two squares and one over.

Example 1.1

This is fairly simple, but when we start to consider the indirect power of the knight, its power increases dramatically.

Example 1.2

Now we can consider that besides the original 8 squares that the knight was attacking, the Knight current indirectly controls 10 squares. So adding it together, the mechanism of threat as traditionally known as a fork, allows the knight to control 18 squares, of which some are less obvious to the naked eye.

---Will continue in free time

Whats happened since I started? (and some chess psychology)

2009-02-14T18:42:00.001-08:00

Since my last post, I've scored several 2300+ performances which I am fairly pleased that all my research and hard work had finally paid off.

Here is one of my more decent wins OTB in the Sicilian Sveshnikov.

My opponent resigned realizing his knight will be pinned.

During my adventures and studying with chess, it became clear that most forms of chess education were inadequate, but there are too many dynamics in the element of chess improvement.

Author Michael de La Maza was onto something, when he sensed that he had realized that the standard classical methods of improvement lacked in efficacy, and that he created a system in order to become a better player without studying old masters, studying endgames, or opening theory.

The method he advocates (read it for free on google, should be called 400 points in 400 days), is based on an idea referred to as chunking, where it is possible access large volumes of information in short amount of time. But more interestingly, the development of a player as defined by Aagaard in his book Excelling at Chess Calculation, he elaborates the stages of development of a player as he progressively increases his pattern recognition.

However beyond superficial systems of just solving many chess problems, it is possible to engage in a process that is systematic, and simultaneously explain why the classical methods suggested by our chess predecessors do in fact contain elements that are important to success.

With methods expounded by popular authors, it is only possible to excel in tactics (which may or may not be sufficient for certain ELO ability.) In a book I read by former child talent Joshua Waitzkin, along with the articles I had discussed in my Visualization posts , it had given me inspiration to discover ideas that unify these ideas, (the reasons why the efforts of the Soviet school vs modern fast food methods) and which examines chess as a whole unit, and as well as how to look at chess in a general sense and how it relates to how we examine chess as human beings.

This is the core theme of the book called The Art of Learning by Joshua Waitzkin, where he links performance psychology with every facet of his life (he uses methods from Eastern Philosophy) which is brilliant book I think. There exist unearthed gems in the secrets performance psychology which yield the secrets to chess excellence, and excellence in other fields.

Visualization pt. 2

2009-01-05T23:46:00.000-08:00

(Hmm, if you haven't read part one I would go ahead and read that first.)

I think the way I personally define visualization should not be revealed with caution - as they were an integral part of breaking my plateau, and I have a personal connection with it. While personally I think this discussion offers something different terms of what has been discovered by traditional means in chess literature and science, I still firmly believe that the elements of chess improvement too very dynamic to have any static view on chess. So I went ahead and used some sources to help us without my firsthand opinion

A few things that came to mind during this search for the definition of "visualization", and this article Whos Doing the Playing? assisted in helping me put the pieces together.

As Aagaard effectively put it - solving exercises is an excellent way to improve your ability to calculate, visualize, and improve many different facets of your game. This statement is absolutely spot on - but there lies an inherent problem (which is discussed in part 1) in this thesis.

To recap, there seems to be a foundation of skills that you must be able to acquire or inherently possess (which Rune Vik Hansen supports as a product of nature than nurture) before engaging the process of "calculation", which authors such as Dvoretsky ignore altogether, and many other authors that unsuccessfully in my opinion try to tackle.

Vik-Hansen includes many hidden truths in the psychology of the mind - how it operates, and why people excel in various activities. While his discoveries aren't really a beacon to chess improvement itself, it is possible to deduce certain possibilities that can be derived to fix some of his assessments, which would otherwise be an impassable road block in ones chess improvement. If you read clearly the Introduction and the sections on conscious memory, acquisition of chess skills, it is clear that there were players such as Fischer or Carlsen where operatives relevant to "visualization" happen subconsciously.

If there is some underlying skill set is required before engaging in the training of calculation itself, I believe it would make sense to acquire these abilities which is believed to be for many, one of generic inheritance.

Vik-Hansen discusses inherent differences between say a prodigy - and a person who insists on working incredibly hard on the game, and for Nakamura fans, he is an example of a player purportedly only to spend 1-2 hours a day on chess if he FEELS like it, and still is capable of maintaining a world class rank. But quickly put our telescope on our hero, the club player who has spent many years of his life accumulating chess wisdom, and we can already see the difficulty that is exclusive to our passion to the royal game.

The question will always be for me - How to use all of this arbitrary knowledge and combine it to something that can actually assist in the search for chess excellence?
It is primarily the discovery of a concrete method which emulates the processes of subconcious of capable players such as Carlsen, Ivanchuk, and Fischer as described by Vik Hansen.

Yes, this guy calculates looking at the ceiling

Perhaps it is a fruitless search, and perhaps the method I have personally derived is not one of use- but it is a worthy question posed to the reader- What is my ethos? What are these "methods"? What is visualization? Is it genetically inherited? If it is (or even if not) is it attainable through hard work?

The answer to this question lies in how you form your own answer, because perhaps there is no one single answer. However if we look back to Richard Reti, and players such as Lajos Portisch, a significantly small number of players have been able to achieve the highest levels from hard work alone - but is it the work of a philosopher who have found an answer to this discussion? Or was it the sheer amount of work that was to be done as proposed by the Soviet Chess School, Dvoretsky, or Aagaard? Or is there some other discussion that is capable of encompassing "visualization" in itself?

While I cannot provide a sufficient answer for my credibility (perhaps it is more credible for a Grandmaster to have a confirming definition of all of this) , nor can I divulge such methods as I personally believe ones own the search for the answer of trying to define "visualization" and development of this skill is a fascination that should reap dividends.

At the end, I believe the answers posed in our lack of definition of visualization can we examine at the roots - the psychological nuances of how we interpret information - and why certain information is with-held much more quickly, whereas some other forms of patterns are not recognized with extended study.

For the "mortal" chess player, is there importance to find the answer to such a simple question? What is "visualization?, and how can it be developed?

After reading many books on these topics (Road to Chess Improvement by Yermolinsky, Rapid Chess Improvement by la Maza, Excelling at Chess by Aagaard, Excelling at Calculation, by Aagaard, Secrets of Chess Excellence - Tactical Play by Dvoretsky) I came to the conclusion that these books suggest that only by extensive study can we be able to cultivate such skills.

I felt that they all offered a piece of the answer to defining "visualization", but they all seem to suggest something that is impractical for the majority of chess players, which includes methods of just sheer amounts of work. Perhaps this is the answer, but perhaps working more intelligently to a focused effort to define "visualization" can we ultimately understand chess.

Just some food for thought, there will probably be a part 3 when I finally spill the beans of what and how I personally define "visualization", and some lost soul reading this will get something out of it. But perhaps what I am revealing is more untruth, which this untruth was misguidedly increasing my playing skill in dramatic fashion.

Visualization

2009-01-04T20:37:00.000-08:00

This series is a part of the search for excellence since my first log, and have found discomfort in classical methods and modern methods that I have researched that is popular in chess literature and culture. Methods proposed from the extremes of the Russian School of Chess and the fast-food methods proposed such as by De La Maza, I was left feeling at large unsatisfied. So in this series what I wanted to do was to share with you some of my findings, confusions, and opinions about what I believe is the foundation of chess excellence - visualization.

Many authors have tried to define the word "visualization" in chess literature. I had often looked for a sort of "conclusive" answer to it, and although many author addressed the problem of developing this visualization ability, there is still much confusion about a word that is repeatedly seen in chess literature. It is often confused with calculation, tactics, combinations, and pattern recognition. Now I will choose a few authors whom I think are the leading or are current modern writers of this subject, and present some of the problems which I feel are present in their methods.

For example, Dvoretsky's books in general are fantastic in giving such precise definition of such chess terms, but often the suggested methods of training are either not addressed, or Dvoretsky already assumes that the reader already had acquired the basic abilities due to his target audience of his books. Consider a player like Ivanchuk, who at an early age was already capable of calculating moves in his head, by staring into the blank air. If his message is "canon" so to speak, then the target audience is not accessible to a vast majority of chess players.

Ivanchuk - known to have advanced abilities at a young age.

In his "School of Chess Excellence Tactical Play", he very well defines the varying tools necessary to excel at tactical play - visualization (here it is again) and ability to calculate deeply. However his exercises are aimed at already accomplished players capable of handling volumes of calculation further than your average player.

In Aagaard's "Excelling at Chess Calculation", he suggests that an issue with many players is that that they want to improve their results - but often the book is aimed at a level above which they currently perform. He suggests that they do not have the abilities to tackle the particular tools (such as Kotov's Think like a Grandmaster's tree analysis technique), but that this ability can be trained.

I found this all dandy - but he does not actually particularly SUGGEST how this training can be done (besides the two magical three words you can see in a stock tactics / studies books - "Solving MANY Exercises"). Then he talks about the calculation process and its pitfalls, which arguably should be placed after his (lacking) discussion of visualization.

White to move... Perhaps Aagaard expects a little too much out of club players?

The first 10 pages of his book tries to persuade that you have to have a certain level of tactical ability before tackling positions that require refined calculating abilities. Ironically his previous work that also tackles calculation called "Excelling at Combinational Play" contains exercises that are incredibly difficult. However in the prose, he uses very simple examples to illustrate the elements of successful combinational play. This creates a very jarring effect, since it is similar to introducing a child simple arithmetic, then giving him exercises on calculus. How this is acceptable in a chess book is somewhat baffling to me, and it should not be in this manner just because chess literature in the past (and even now) are very cryptic.

Both books by Aagaard include good information about the process during the calculation, such as blind spots in calculation which may include intermediate moves and quiet moves that are easy to miss. They are very helpful tips during calculation, and many of these micro-tips deserve praise as the author explores his own games where he had failed to utilize these techniques.

In the remaining chapters of his book "Excelling at Chess Calculation", Aagaard tackles visualization (why he introduced the topic then talks about it later 60 pages later is beyond me, although I understand his reasoning - there is some confusion in calculation/combinations/visualization to be interconnected, but he also fails here), and how players calculate. He offers a trick called "Stepping Stones" (a fixed position in your mind and you calculate from there), but he never at one point clearly defined what visualization is, and its relevance to the only technique he offers to help the student calculate. In his defense, he writes:

"Stepping-stones have a lot to do with focusing and visualization. You could argue that you need to improve your visualization ability before you can use stepping-stones. But actually I see it as a chicken and egg question: who cares which was first when you can get fried chicken?"

So to my disappointment, most of the prose in this book talks about the calculation process - but not how to particularly develop these skills (beyond the study of tactical exercises), and visualization at large seems to be a vague topic.

It is interesting to me because it is commonplace for many people to solve literally tens of thousands of chess tactics puzzles, but remain somewhere in the 1500-2000 range even after extensive time dedicated to studying tactics. Maybe they need to study other parts of the game, openings, endgames, middlegames, psychology, whatever it is, but it's possible to still see very basic tactical oversights in their games (and mine included).

Is it the quality or difficulty of the exercises?
Are the problems in these books too difficult?
Is there a collection of slightly EASIER but still out of comfort zone exercises?
And who gauges this?
Are authors holding out, or are they merely already incapable of reaching out to the club player?
Are these authors slightly off the mark? (or way off!)

It is a possibility that the answer to any of these are yes, seeing they are already accomplished Grandmasters/World class trainers, but none of these questions answer the problem that persists: both authors advocate that you need "visualization" as the core to your development, but in Aagaard's books, he does not clearly define them, nor offer a (good) solution to develop visualization. And in Dvoretsky's works, the material is largely focused on players who are already developed where this is not an obstacle.

I came to some interesting conclusions on my own after a lot of research, which I will post later...

Rapid Tournament

2008-11-17T10:41:00.000-08:00

Here's an interesting loss, although I think part of the reason of the loss was that it was really really quick. I also didn't understand how the modern defense works, and missed some interesting chances.

I was down to the last minutes and lost on time. I'd post my wins but they were rather uninteresting. Maybe I should ditch these weekend swiss.

Update: This game was part of a relatively successful tournament scoring 2.5/4 against expert opposition. For theory buffs, 10.e5! secures a decisive advantage heading into the endgame. For example, 10...Nc5 11.0-0-0 dxe5 12.Bxc5 Qxc5 13.Qxb7! heading into a razor attack with upon proper defense leads to a lost endgame. However the game turns into a dynamically equal game where white is outplayed.

The Ball Is Still Rolling (and small review of Dvoretsky's Analytical Manual)

2008-11-14T09:04:00.000-08:00

Haven't posted in a bit.

Back to back OTB tournaments coming... I'll be posting games and results here. My time currently had been occupied working and basically in this time with the economy this bad, trying to be a chessmaster can arguably be digging your own grave!

I purchased Mark Dvoretsky's Analytical Manual, and this book is sheer self esteem killer. It is a very difficult book not only by its sheer analytical content, but the work on the reader's part is very demanding. If your skills in analysis are weak, then trying to analyze deeply will take much time on your part, but that is the purpose of this book really - to highlight your analytical weaknesses and fine tune your intuition.

Just from the first article, it is easy to get lost in the complications and spend hours analyzing over 100 variations maybe 15 moves long each. A lot of the earlier games are like this - looking for a true verdict of the game because the computer often cannot. Much of that content isn't too practical if you were to take the whole game as a training method (perhaps if you are already IM/GM this might be different), but each segment of analysis can be treated as a training exercise, which the author himself duly suggests.

The more practical material of this book is in the middle of the book, where you can simply take the moves and stop at the diagrams and try to think along the lines of the titled players. This is a superb training method advocated by Mark himself and certainly much more practical. But most of this book are gems you have to unearth yourself, lazy/busy quick fix readers should try to find something else that has much more practical content, because this book does not mess around.

To sum it up, you don't read the book, the book reads YOU.

I digress, I'll post my games this weekend.

Tickets and... Money

2008-10-07T22:01:00.000-07:00

Bleh, my tournament plans have been blown since my already tight budget, and what was left of what I could spend went to a speeding ticket.

This got me thinking about the issue of whether or not chess is really "cheap" to play. Proponents of the game will tell you that it is a relatively cheap game to play and enjoy, and will not cost as much as an Xbox, sports equipment, the list goes on.

I thought about how much I was spending on tournaments, and this is the money I had to pay play in a local tournament. (This is all US dollar amounts.)

USCF Dues: 40$

State Federation Dues: 60$

Tournament fees: 20-60$

Now, this is taking consideration that I don't even own a very nice chess set - one of those cheapo ones that barely get by in tournament play. Also, I don't even own a personal clock. Let's see how much some of these things would cost.

Chronos Clock : 100$

Nice set: 30-40$

Cheap clock: 30$

Cheap set: 15-20$

I suppose this a lot of this is static, and some of the fees are only yearly, or monthly. But look how much I spent in one of the bigger United States Events. I suppose it is correct for it to cost a bit more, being the "national" open and all, but there isn't much stronger competition around where I live so I have to travel to these things just for some exposure to stronger opponents.

National Open:

(I had already invested in the "standard static" equipment.)

The Commute : 100$ in gas

Housing: 200$

Tournament Fees: 120$ approximately

This doesn't really take account to all the expenses, but its already a picture of how much it may add up just to play chess. Take in account I went to VEGAS with a budget that small (just enough to eat, stay there, and play chess, and an occasional drink) and barely scraped by.

I suppose it isn't TOO bad compared to other things, like poker, but damn, speeding is the last thing I thought that would have affected my game.

Tabiyas

2008-10-06T00:03:00.000-07:00

Hmm what are tabiyas... it's kind of like the battlefield where two players will play when the resulting position comes up from a few very standard moves of theory (thats my guess, I'm sure I'm missing something here.)

Apparently, my openings suck really bad. I noticed from annotating some of my older games, that I was fighting back from slightly worse positions, or even near lost positions and getting out of the struggle with an advantage. I think this is going to be bad for the future development of my chess, but this is no easy task on top of a normal training schedule, and on top of a "normal" life.

My coach stumped me on about move 5 into the French Defense, which kind of pissed me off because I didn't want to engage in a long theoretical debate for the duration of the time we spent together (a lot of the ideas are covered in textbooks and database dumps). But he made a good point - why do your openings suck so bad?!

I noticed when I was studying a variation in the Dragon Sicilian, the main tabiya was considered to end with your typical Yugoslav position with the bishop on c4, and then rook on c8. However I ended up having a bunch of Be2's instead of Bc4's which made it slightly confusing, especially from the fact that I had spent much of my time studying the "main lines".

Even worse as an e4 player, Black often opts for these really stupid sidelines that work in rapid games, such as a really ugly a6 b5 plan, or some immediate Na5 action, and in some lines white has already pushed h4 or even h5 and some he hasn't even touched the h pawn.

My god it is brutal losing some of these caveman attack games to 1200 - 1500 players. I don't even know how it happens, as Bobby Fischer once said, any patzer can pry open the h-file and throw the kitchen sink and hope to win. Unfortunately it seems like a complete self esteem killer to be much stronger overall (if game wasn't blitz and razor sharp I think the theoretical gap would close a bit).

I guess it pays to understand all tabiyas of a certain system you want to play, in my case in the dragon, the battlefield consists of trying to equalize in the meek Be2 lines, and aiming for sharp play with the black pieces in the classical Yugoslav line with Bc4, but then it begs the question - how important is the opening?

Is it worth it to sacrifice this time rather than to study tactics, middlegames, endgames? I don't even feel sometimes that it's possible to actually calculate anything in the Dragon, you kind of just make a guess and hope it ends up well... bleh, watching me wade through these craptacular sidelines in blitz makes me want to puke, but losing I suppose weedles out a lot of the bad lines.

I was playing some themed blitz with an 1850 player, and it seemed like after the opening tabiya was reached, even if theory was met, both players were really on their own devices, and whoevers tactics were superior really mattered in the end. I sometimes feel that some of these sacrifices though, are way too standard, and it almost feels like luck when one side wins. It's kind of an odd way to play chess if you ask me - it's somewhat of a lottery when it's this sharp, and both players can't calculate worth their salt. I suppose it's a sharp mix of intuitive tactics, some calculation, and some positional ideas all imbedded, and I can say that most club players are incapable in all these areas, which really does make some opening tabiyas feel like a lottery drawing.

Anyway I suppose analyzing a ton of these games might help, it looks like even a lot of strong players were felled by just opening knowledge in this line alone... maybe it's time to ditch my desire to play c5, or maybe have it as a surprise weapon.

And I was Rybka...

2008-10-01T00:26:00.000-07:00

I was thinking over some opening lines instead of actually training (I suppose general opening studies is training...), and decided to play a bunch of themed games against a 2300 rated blitz player named pollock. I also play on FICS, and I had encountered him, and thought of him as a general nice guy. I had asked him some questions regarding opening play, and he had a lot of insightful ideas.

I was asking him if he wanted to help me learn some Sicilian tabiyas, and he accepted. My rating on FICS is about 2200, but on ICC I was rated about 1400 in blitz because my mouse was broken when I had played all my provisional games. We were to play some games in the Sicilian Dragon where neither of us were booked up, but he was getting torn to shreds in the tactical melee, and decided to start using his main opening weapons because he was angry at losing.

In our unrated games, the score was heavily in my favor in the themed games. He started getting angry and started switching move order to try to confuse me and played really offbeat Sicilians, when he agreed to play themed games in the Sicilian Dragon.

In this game, I suppose he had enough of losing, and he moved to his main weapons in the Ruy Lopez for no apparent reason, and barraged me with insults, which I find hilarious.

On about move 19, I receieved the message:

pollock: you are computer assisted

mkeaton: that is pretty flattering but i am not cheating

pollock: ive reported you

mkeaton: go ahead, im not even cheating

pollock: dont worry i already reported you

mkeaton: lol... this is extremely flattering...

On move 41, I think he went absolutely mentally berserk, believing that his assumption that I was a computer. He sent a large amount of obscenities and I sat there laughing. I think this bodes well for my chances for Candidate Master, if I can play like Rybka ;).

It's surprising to me how some people are extremely friendly when they think they are better than you, standing on a high horse. I suppose I'm not any better but I don't like double standards. This same guy was telling me how to play chess a few days ago, and upon losing a few blitz games, goes berserk and calls me a bunch of obscenities.

On a lighter note, Vojislav Milanovic has revealed himself to be quite adept deadpan humor and sarcasm.

voja(IM): alright i need you to send me your latest losses from tournament games or standard games from ICC

voja(IM): it should be an easy task

mkeaton: i havent lost in the last few tournaments ive played

voja(IM): im sure you can look for them

mkeaton: no really, i don't remember losing a serious tournament game since vegas, which is almost me not losing this whole year.

voja(IM): well, you dont need lessons from me, you are already world champion :)

No leads...

2008-09-30T10:57:00.001-07:00

I'm at the point where I don't think I can get much stronger unless I study a whole bunch of random things intensely. So I enlisted the help of Vojislav Milanovic, an International Master.

I came to this conclusion pretty easily, as I have a library of chess books of about 35 books, and that I am one of those "have all of Dvoretsky's books and still haven't got anywhere with chess" players. It's slightly depressing being in this group of chessplayers. It's almost like owning these books is like some sort of cardinal sin.

Anyway, I feel even with Voja's help, I think it is going to take a massive load of work on my part as well - as he can only help me with identifying weaknesses, not covering them. I believe this is a crisis many players have - discovering their weaknesses, through analyzing their own games, or having professionals identify them, and doing absolutely nothing about it except play another 300 blitz games, or are lazy.

Alright...

2008-09-29T12:39:00.001-07:00

First post!

I one day said to myself, that I'd try to become at least category 1 chess player (2200). For some reason amongst my other hobbies, I chose to dedicate myself for this one for now. I guess its an arbitrary choice.

I decided to look around for other blogs and see what methods other people are using, and this is basically what I found.

There are a lot of blogs out there, I can't really recall how many of them I've seen where they just give up and never make it, or relying on a type of cookie cutter method, or ineffective, or cumbersome methods.

I may not remember correctly, but I saw someone was trying to lay out a daily training method that is about 4-5 hours long. I think most people will burn out from studying chess for 1-2 hours a WEEK let a lone daily.

Another popular topic revolves around CTS (Chess Tactics Server @ chess.emrald.net, where there is a lot of free tactics puzzles), where chess enthusiasts solve over 60,000 of these beasts, and their user rank wasn't moving very much.

Another one I've seen, is some sort of "cycles" method proposed by Michael De La Maza, which is interesting to me. I think it develops good tactical intuition, but not necessarily strong analytical technique, such as calculating deep variations.

So yeah, so far these are the "shortcut" methods I've seen in chess training on the web, which basically consists of solving thousands of exercises. I'm going to enlist some professional help, although I can already guess that it will contain a more classical regimen in chess studies, such as openings to middlegames to endgames.