Chess for Beginners

Author: chessbuzz

  • From Disappointment Comes Change

    I haven’t posted for several months, because I have not been happy with my chess improvement.  I have taken these past few months to review my training program and to try to figure out the missing piece of my chess improvement puzzle. I am not any closer to coming up with an answer than I was back in December, but I think that this time of reflection will lead to improvement in the long run. When I achieve measurable improvement, I will post on what changes have made a difference

    UPDATE — 3/4/2011
    I have been following my new training program for 1 month, and I am tracking my progress via my standard FICS rating and my chess.com tactical trainer rating. After 31 days, I have gained 23 standard rating points and 26 tactical training points. I continue to take detailed daily notes, and I have had many ideas to improve the training regimen as I go. I figure that in a few more weeks I will be happy enough with the program to post a few more details.

    UPDATE — 2/20/2011

    I am in the 3rd week of a new training program , I am working it out as I go, but I am happy with the short term results. I am keeping detailed personal notes on what I am doing, as well as tracking my standard rating on FICS to validate the program.  I am trying to synthesize all of the  things I have learned about chess improvement in the last few years. Because I don’t have to edit the content of the training log, I find that I am writing more frequently than if I would be posting on the blog.

    I don’t plan on updating beginchess much in the next few week / months, but I will add periodic updates under this post, and an occassional blog post.

  • Threats in Chess Pt. 2

    I wasn’t planning on making this a series of posts on threats, but I feel I’m on to something. My chess has improved since I have restructured my thought process to incorporate threat analysis .

    Threat Based Evaluation Process

    1. What are my opponent’s threats?
        a. Is there a mate threat?
        b. Is there a threat of material loss?
        c. Is there a tactical threat?
        d. Is there a positional threat?

    2. Do I have any threats I can execute?
        a. Is there a mate threat?
        b. Is there a threat of material loss?
        c. Is there a tactical threat?
        d. Is there a positional threat?

    3. Based on my threat analysis I need to compare both my threats versus my opponent’s and come up with a plan based on:
        a. ignoring opponent’s threat
        b. creating a counter threat
        c. stopping opponent’s threat

    4. If neither I or my opponent have any threats, then I proceed to a positional evaluation of the position which can be based on either Silman’s imbalances or Karpov’s method.

    [The evaluation method for sub 1800 players  might be simplified to focus on piece activity and harmony…but I need to look into this further.]

    Threats in Chess Pt. 1

  • Threats in Chess

    I have been away for a few months, in which time I have been through a long plateau and a bout of chess related self-doubt. The reason for the self-doubt is that I feel that I should be at a different playing level than that which I am (1300 USCF), and I am a bit frustrated that my chess improvement efforts have reaped little fruit in the past few years. In a way, this self-doubt has caused me to rethink the way I play and study chess, and hopefully these changes will cause real improvement in my playing strength. I have several posts that I have been working on that address some of my doubts and how I plan on addressing them, this post is the first of a series.

    We make a mistake when we think of bishop pair advantages or of knight outposts before we consider all of our opponent’s threats. The result is our knight getting to a wonderful central outpost, but on the next move our opponent forks our Queen and King and we lose yet another game. While positional knowledge is important and required, particularly at the +1800 level, recognizing threats and having good tactical vision is more important to winning games at the <1800 rating level.

    This does not mean that you need to spend your entire game reacting to your opponent’s threats, this will only cause you to play a dull defensive game dictated by your opponent’s moves. What this means is that on every move you need to ask yourself, “What is my opponent threatening?” and “What is the consequence of my opponent’s last move?”. Once you identify your opponent’s threats and plans you need to decide how you are going to react to your opponent’s plan and how it relates to your own plans.

    According to Dan Heisman, there are three things one can do against a threat:
    1. Ignore it
    2. Create a bigger counter-threat (counterattack), or
    3. Stop it.

    The point is not to play your game based on your opponent’s moves, but to always be very aware of what your opponent is trying to do, and to either prevent it or continue with a more threatening response of your own. What you cannot do is not consider the threats your opponent is making, and then end up playing a positional move or a rule of thumb move which causes you to lose the game. Hopefully, by simplifying our thought process we can play better chess.

  • Psychology of Chess Weaknesses

    The path to chess improvement lies in finding your weakest area of knowledge and placing all of your effort into converting it into a strength. My greatest weakness is an apprehension, bordering on fear, of delving into deep calculations and analysis. This analytical deficiency affects both my combinational and analysis in over the board play , and unless I work to improve these skills, any future chess improvement will be difficult. You tend to avoid or procrastinate working on your weakest area and this is part of the reason why you lack proficiency, since you do not exert the necessary effort in mastering the material that gives you trouble.

    Strengthening Your Weaknesses

    Whatever your weaknesses may be, you must identify them and apply great effort and patient focus to turn them into strengths. Here are some ideas in converting your weaknesses into strengths:

    • Focus – Give all of your attention to your training, and eliminate distractions when studying.
    • Practice – Practice daily, but create a varied training schedule that provides you with a fresh perspective every time you train. Your practice should revolve around material that address your weakest area.
    • Effortful Study –  Always give 100% during every training session, and do not hesitate to cross your comfort zone during each training session. Each session should build upon the last either in intensity or difficulty.
    • Play – Playing allows you to transfer the knowledge and skills picked up in your training environment to real over the board play.
    • Integrate thought process into your practice.

    Discovering Your Weaknesses

    If you are unsure as to which areas you need to work on the most the following tips might help you  to identify the weaknesses in your game:

    • Review your games with a teacher or a stronger player.
    • Perform the Khmelnitsky Chess Exam to find your weak areas.
    • If you are unable to find a stronger player or a teacher, go over a minimum of 10 of your long games. Do a first pass of the game on your own, and then have a chess engine review it. Determine why you lost each of these games, and create a training plan to address the top 1-2 weaknesses you discover.

    My Training Modifications

    • Spend 80% of my study time working on analytical positions that require both analysis and calculation.
    • Continue my tactics study program.
    • Play long games that allow the time necessary to work on my thought process as well as the training of analysis and combinational skills.
    • Play over annotated master games using “Guess the Move” method.
    • Use a physical board for the majority of my training.

  • Yet Another Training Plateau

    I haven’t written a new blog post in quite a while, and I wanted to give an update on what I have been up to in the past few months. I have started writing about my specific training on my Chess Notebook blog and that has taken some of the time I dedicate to writing for beginchess.com.

    I have modified my trianing program so that I focus my study on specific content and I don’t jump around from book to book and topic to topic. This new focused training was working well until one week ago when I started missing training sessions, to the point where I have been almost two weeks without following the program. I continue to work 20-30 minutes on tactics, so I don’t lose my tactical vision, but I have decided to take another 1-2 weeks off training.

    I believe that the disinterest has to do with over-training which has led to a training plateau.  I plan on writing an update to the training plateau post where I will deal with “muscle confusion” in chess training. I think this P90X style training schedule, will keep things fresh and training plateaus will be delayed or avoided altogether…so stay tuned for that.

    Leave a comment if you have unique ways in which you deal with training plateaus.

  • The Philidor Position

    The Lucena and Philidor positions are the most important positions to know when it comes to rook and pawn endings. Here we will be looking at the Philidor position, which allows Black to draw against an opponent that is up a pawn. It’s important to note that the Philidor position only works if the opponent’s pawn has not reached the 6th rank.


    Black to move and draw

    1…Rb6 This move keeps that White King off the 6th rank. [2.Rg7 Ra6 3.Rg6 Rxg6 Heading into a drawn King and pawn endgame. 4.Kxg6 Ke7 ] The Black rook heads to the first rank, to begin checking the White King. With the White pawn having been pushed, White does not have any cover from the upcoming Black rook checks.

    2.e6

    2…Rb1

    3.Kf6 Rf1+ 4.Ke5 Re1+ 5.Kd6 Rd1+ =

  • New York 1924

      New York 1924 has gone down in history as one of the most important chess tournaments of all time. Three undisputed world champions including Capablanca and Emanuel Lasker, and a briliantly annotated  by future world champoin Alexander Alekhine. I have made the PGN of all of the games available here.

  • Think Like a Chess Engine

    In Kotov’s great book “Think Like a Grandmaster” he taught the average chess player the inner workings of how a chess master thinks about a position by creating a tree of candidates and then proceeding along the tree. While there is much to learn from Kotov’s work, I have always been facinated how computers can evaluate positions and how their positional play is derived from these material evaluation algorithms. I believe that the way chess engines derive material evaluations might help the lower rated amateur improve their evaluation skills.

    Below is a combination of the Crafty chess engine algorithms as well as Larry Kaufman’s material evaluation processes which is used by the Rybka engine.

    Pawns

    Pawn = 1

    isolated pawn penalty based on file:
    a-pawn : -.12
    b-pawn : -.14
    c-pawn : -.16
    d-pawn : -.20
    e-pawn : -.20
    f-pawn : -.16
    g-pawn : -.14
    h-pawn : -.12

    Doubled pawn (and not also isolated) penalty of -.12 plus add isolated pawn penalty

    Backward pawns -.06 penalty +.04 bonus for attack on backward pawn on semi-open file.

    Pawn advance in center +.04 / rank increasing to about +.08 / rank in the endgame
    Development

    Rook pawn is worth 15% less than a regular pawn (.85 of a pawn) (L.Kaufman)

    Knights

    Knights = 3.25
    Centralized knight: +.30
    In outpost : +.08

    Unpaired knight is worth approximately 3.14 pawns (worth less) (L.Kaufman)

    Bishops

    Bishops = 3.25
    Bishop in endgame +.10
    Bad bishop : -.04
    Corner bishop : 0.0
    Center bishop: +.3
    Attacking / good bishop: +.18
    Attack against King: +.05

    The Bishop Pair

    Bishop pair: +.50  Bishop pair is worth .50 more if not pieces exist to exchange them (L.Kaufman)

    Bishop pair is worth less than .50 a pawn when most or all of the pawns are on the board, and more than .50 pawns when half or more of the pawns are gone (L.Kaufman)

    If you have the bishop pair, and your opponent’s single bishop is a bad bishop (hemmed in by his own pawns), you already have full compensation for 1 pawn (L.Kaufman)

    Unpaired bishop is worth approximately 3.14 pawns (worth less) (L.Kaufman)

    Rooks

    Rooks = 5
    Attacking on open-file: +.20
    One semi-open file: +.10
    On open-file: +.14

    Rook and Bishop is better than the Rook and Knight. (L.Kaufman)

    Queen

    Queen = 9.75

    Queen and Knight is slightly better than Queen and Bishop

    King
    Centralized in opening: -.24
    Centralized in endgame: +.36
    On open file in opening: -.23
    No adjacent pawns: -.08

    Special Cases

    Hanging pieces: -.10

    Exchanges favor the side with a material advantage

    Minor pieces lose their value as the endgame approaches

    In endgames with no other piece the bishop is worth about 2.5 and the knight 2.25 with other pieces the minors are worth about 3.25

    Rooks gain value as the endgame approaches

    Note: I have modified the Crafty point values to reflect the Kaufman values.

    Resources

    Evaluation of Material Imbalances in Chess

    GNU Chess Positional Heuristics

    http://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Evaluation

    http://www.chessvariants.com/d.betza/pieceval/index.html

  • Logical Chess Move by Move (PGN Download)

    I just posted a PGN file with all 33 games of Irving Chernev’s Logical Chess Move by Move. You can access the downloads section here. The games are unannotated and are for following along with the book.

  • Training Insights

    Update: 8/7/2010:
    I have been following my own advice for the past two weeks, and I have to say that my training is more focused than ever, and I am beginning to see tangible improvements over the board. If you are interested, I am continuing to post my weekly training schedule at my Chess Notebook site.

    Original Post 7/27/2010

    I have slightly modified my training in the last week to include a new way of training tactics and a method to focus my training time.

    A New Way of Training Tactics

    I came across a forum post by IM David Pruess where he gives excellent advice on truly learning patterns when training tactics. Below is his advice:
    The original post is titled Chess Advice Most Chess Player’s Don’t Like to Hear and it’s a must read.

    or when i give players in the 1000-1800 range advice on improving their tactics, viz: 10-15 min per day of solving simple tactical puzzles. the goal is to increase your store of basic patterns, not to work on your visualization, deep calculation. remember that is your goal. you are not trying to prove that you can solve every problem. if you don’t solve a problem within 1 minute, stop. it’s probably a new pattern or you would have gotten it by now. (with private students i’ll take the time to demonstrate this to them: show them through examples that they can find a 3-4 move problem in 10 seconds if they know the pattern, and that they can fail to find a mate in 2 for 10 minutes if they don’t know the pattern). look at the answer, and now go over the answer 3 more times in your head to help the pattern take hold. your brain can probably take on 2-3 new patterns between sleeping, so you should stop once you’ve been stumped by 2 or 3 problems (usually will take about 10-15 min). there is no point in doing more than that in one day. and any day you miss, you can’t make up for. a semi-random estimate on my part is that you need about 2000 of these patterns to become a master. so you need to do this for 2 years or more.

    i would guess that less than 1 in 100 of the people i have given this advice to have followed it to the letter. if they enjoy it, they’ll waste their time doing it for 1.5 hours in a day, choosing to ignore that it’s not helping them [after 15 min]. or some with ego issues will insist on trying to solve every single position (if only they linked their ego to their self-discipline Tongue out).

    – IM David Pruess

    A Specific CurriculumWhile I am disciplined in spending a minimum of 30 minutes per day doing chess studies, I am usually jumping from book to book and topic to topic which ends up losing valuable time. In the past I have tried to work from a training schedule, but the problem has been that the schedule has been too general. What I started doing is creating a specific training curriculum, where I create a schedule 2 weeks into the future, with the exact content I should cover everyday (an example can be seen here).  The schedule is created on a Sunday, and it takes no more than 15 minutes to create.