Chess for Beginners

Category: Chess

  • General Treatise on Chess

    General Treatise on Chess

    Recently a Spanish language set of four chess books by the name of el Tratado General de Ajedrez  by Argentinian Chess Master Roberto Grau was recommended to me. The book has been called the Bible of Latin American Chess, and it is highly regarded among Latin American chess players.

    Grau’s work which is composed of 4 volumes, is now out of print and was never translated to any other language. The 4 volumes cover the following themes:

    1. Fundamentals
    2. Tactics
    3. Pawn Structures
    4. Advanced Strategy

    Luckily I read spanish, so I will be using the books as part of my chess study, and I plan on translating and posting about it in future entries.

  • A Matter of Technique

    When reviewing master games, the expert annotator usually does not cover the last few moves of the game and attributes the remaining moves to “The rest is a matter of technique.” Well, I came across the following explanation by Mednis in his excellent endgame book Rate Your Endgame Play, on just what exactly is a matter of technique.

    A technique is a procedure used to accomplish a specific activity or task having good technique in chess means:

    • Not allowing counterplay
    • holding on to a material advantage
    • establishing a clear plan and following it
    • being careful
    • not hurrying, with respect to time or moves
    • avoiding unclear or unnecessary complications
    • winning the game
  • Chess Game Review Checklist

    Chess Game Review Checklist

    One of the best ways of improving your game, is to review your chess games afterwards. You can then use your game as a springboard to additional learning by identifying your weaknesses and any missing concepts that caused you the game. One of the problems I have encountered, is that I haphazardly go over the game, and I always tend to run through it quickly and let my chess engine do most of the work. The problem with this approach is that most of the learning comes from when you ponder over the chess game and come up with questions about moves and ideas that you had at the most critical moments.

    I have created a chess game review checklist that breaks down the analysis of the game and gives you ideas of what to look for while you are reviewing and annotating it.

    I have broken down the review process into three distinct phases:

    • Phase I – Manual review with no engine help. These should be done on a chess board.
    • Phase II – Engine review, or if you have a chess coach or stronger player to review the game with you this is where they would come in.
    • Phase III- Identify Lessons Learned. Identify all of the things you need to work on based on your analysis and the engine / stronger player analysis. You should then add these to your chess notebook or chess database.

    Please feel free to give me any feedback, and I will consider updating the checklist to include your advice.

    If you follow this blog, you probably noticed that I haven’t posted in 6 months. The reason has been that I have been very unhappy with my progress, and I decided that I would not post until I felt that I had “improved”. I have tried new chess training methods as well as committed to older training methods, and I feel that in the past few weeks I have started to make some progress again.

    I have a couple of ideas that I want to write about in the coming weeks, and a tournament in July that should measure the level of improvement that I have attained.

  • Playing Against an Outpost

    Playing Against an Outpost

     

    In the diagram White has an outpost on e5, but Ne5 can always be met by …Nxe5 and after recapturing with the pawn, White’s outpost is gone. White needs to bring another piece to bear on e5, so White to move would play 1.Bg5 and follow it up with Bh4 and Bg3. If on the other hand Black is on the move, he would seek to prevent this with 1…h6, or a more active solution 2…Qe8( so as to meet Bg5 with 2…Qh5! threatening Rxf3) or 1…Qb6. Either move gives Black a fine position.

     

    If you are unable to cover your opponent’s outpost, then extremely active harassing tactics are needed.

     

    The diagram is from Unzicker – Fischer, Varna 1962.  If you are unable to cover your opponent’s outpost, then extremely active harassing tactics are needed. In this position the White knight is at least four moves away from reaching d5, this gives Black some breathing room to prevent it, since after the White knight reaches d5 White is lost.

    1… Ra4 Immobilizing the knight. 2. c3 Qa6 3. h3?  Rc8 4. Rfe1 h6 5. Kh2 Bg5 6. g3 Qa7 7. Kg2 Ra2 8. Kf1 Rxc3! White resigns, as after 9.Rxa2 (9.bxc3 Qf2#) Rf3+ 10.Ke2 Rf2+ 11.Kd1 Qxa2 his position is wrecked.

    The lessons to be learned here is that structure alone is not quite everything. The pieces must be able to coordinate with the pawn structure.

    From Stean’s Simple Chess

  • The (Long) Road to Chess Mastery

    According to experts it takes approximately 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert in any field. So the following is my attempt to gauge my chess progress based on the 10,000 hour rule.

    Assumptions

    • 10,000 hours of practice = expert
    • A chess expert is a player with a 2000 USCF rating.
    • Your starting chess rating is approximately 1000 USCF.
    • Halfway through your training or 5,000 hours of practice later you should be rated approximately 1500.
    • Average chess level in ELO is about 1400.
    Variables
    • I have been playing chess for approximately 6 years.
    • I spend an average of 2 hours per day on chess which comes out to 730 hours of chess practice per year.
    Calculations
    • 6 years * 730 hours / year = 4,380 hours of study so far, so I am 43% on my road to chess mastery.
    • I still need 5,620 hours to become an expert.
    • At the current rate of 2 hours, I will reach a 2000 USCF rating in approximately 7.7 years.
    Results
    • Since I have completed 44% of the 10,000 hours my rating should be at around 1440* ( I am currently FICS standard 1684 – 250 (USCF adjustment) =  1434 USCF equivalent)
    • If I increase my study time to 3 hours per day, I will decrease the time required to reach 200 from 7.7 to 5.1 years.
    • Increasing study time to 4 hours / day I will reach 2000 in 3.8 more years.
    • Increasing study time to 5 hours / day I will reach 2000 in 3 years (huge drop off and not worth it).

    It seems that the optimal number of hours to spend on practicing / studying chess per day is 3 hours.

    * I figured 1440 by multiplying 1000 * 44% (which is the total gain required from 1000 – 2000).


  • Finding the Master Within Pt. 2

    I have finished the exercise I proposed in Pt. 1 of Finding the Master Within, and below are my results:

    1. I played over 3 random games from each of the masters on the list.

    2. I gave myself a 0 for needs work, 1 for average, 2 for good, 3 for very good and 4 for outstanding.

    3. I averaged the scores for the three games, and gave myself an overall score.

    4. I will now begin reviewing  in detail, the games of the master with which I have the most affinity.

     

    Master Exercise Results

    In my case I scored an average of 2.67 when playing over Tarrasch’s games, and the second runner up was Karpov with a score of 2.0. I observed that I did better with the more positional / classical style players than with the more modern / dynamic styles.

    I will continue to go over master games strictly focusing on Tarrasch’s games using Guess the Move, and then compare my annotations with his annotated games collection( Three Hundred Chess Games ).

  • Finding the Master Within

    There is no doubt that reviewing master games is one of the best methods to improve your chess. The question for me has always been which master’s games do I study first? There are schools of thought that answer this by stating that you should review master games starting in chronological order, since this maps to the way a beginner learns chess. Using this method you would begin with Steinitz, and work your way up to modern day masters like Kasparov and Kramnik. While this is a logical approach, the problem I find with it is that it might take a long time before you reach the games of some of the more modern day masters, and these might be the players with whom you have the most affinity in your playing style.

    What I am planning to do, is to review one or two games from a list of masters in chronological order so that I might find the master whose games I would like to delve deeper into. I will be looking for games where the play is clearest and the outcome is artistic.

    Master list:

    1. Paul Morphy
    2. Wilhelm Steinitz
    3. Tarrasch
    4. Emanuel Lasker
    5. Akiba Rubinstein
    6. Jose Raul Capablanca
    7. Alexander Alekhine
    8. Mikhail Botvinnik
    9. Mikhail Tal
    10. Tigran Petrosian
    11. Bobby Fischer
    12. Anatoly Karpov
    13. Garry Kasparov

    I will chose games based on the following criteria:

    1. Won games

    2. Preferrably annotated

    3. In chronological order

    4. Plays my openings

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Connecting the Dots in Chess

    I have made an observation while solving puzzles, that I feel will improve my tactical puzzle solving skills, and might have direct application during actual games.

    When solving a tactical puzzle of intermediate to advanced level I either:

    1. Have no clue how to go about solving it and get it wrong.

    2. Have multiple ideas that look promising, but after further analysis don’t win {usually end up playing one of the two and get the answer wrong}.

    3. Solve the puzzle correctly.

    This post is going to focus on solving the 2nd category above. I have found that you will get many more puzzles correct by combining ideas that arise by analyzing different candidate moves. Unfortunately, by not making a link between the two, or forgetting about your first idea when looking at the second, I mainly fail to connect the dots and only after reviewing the correct answer do I see that I had been on the right track and would have answered correctly  if I had combined my candidates.

    You might want to solve this puzzles on your own before reading the answers below taking into account your thought process while doing so and then see if you encountered the same issues as I did.

    Here’s the first position we will look at:


    White to move and win

    The first candidate that came to mind was 1.Bb6 attacking the Queen. I analyzed the response 1…Nxb6 2.axb6 Qxb6 which loses a pawn for White and the Black Queen lives on. So I abandoned this candidate and looked for a better move.

    I then found that Qh6 looked promising and I began to analyze 1.Bh5 with the idea of Bh8 and then getting my Queen to h6. But I soon found that 1.Bh5 was a slow since it allows 1…Kh7 and White is out of gas. What I missed, and where I think there is room for improvement, is if I would have combined both moves. Attacking the Black Queen with 1.Bb6 with the idea of freeing the diagonal for my Queen to get to h6 with mate was the winning combination and one I failed to see by not connecting the dots.

    Let’s look at another example, and one which occurred right after I had attempted to solve example #1 above.

    White to move and win

    In this position quickly saw that both the White rook and Queen were attacking the Black d8 rook, and that there might be a tactical opportunity if the Queen were deflected from its defense. The candidate that came to mind was 1. b4 but after further analysis I saw that the Queen could seek shelter by moving to 1…Qc7.  The other candidate that stood out was 1.Qf6+ but the King can easily get out of the way with 1…Kg8 and there aren’t enough White pieces in the vicinity to force the issue. The third candidate I analyzed was attacking the undefended bishop with 1.Qe7 but I found that the bishop can get out of harms way via 1…Bc8. If I would have combined the two ideas or even looked a few ply deeper  I would have found the answer 1.Qe7 attacking the bishop and preventing the Queen from seeking shelter at c7 after deflecting her with b4. 1…Bc8 2.b4! and Black resigned.