Chess for Beginners

Tag: thought process

  • Positional Evaluation Checklist

    I have created a PDF document that is based on Karpov and Mazukevich’s thought process guidelines, and includes Herman Grooten’s modifications. You can download it here. The idea is to use it when going over annotated games, or when performing Stokyo exercises. Hopefully, by using it during your training sessions, the questions will sink into our subconscious, and we will subliminally use ask these same questions during actual play.

    Feel free to leave comments if you have any suggestions to improve the checklist.

  • Critical Moments in Chess

    GM Dorfman, has suggested that every game has 5 or 6 critical junctures “forks” at which important decisions need to be made. By understanding that the game has reached a critical moment, you can take extra time in analyzing and evaluating your moves. These critical moments are where games are won or lost, and identifying these milestones in a game are the key to improving your game. Critical moments are characterized by the presence of 2 to 4 different possibilities. Below is Dorfman’s list of critical moments:

    Critical Moments (Dorfman)

    • Positions where there are possible exchanges.
    • Change in pawn structure (especially central pawns).
    • At the end of a  series of forced moves (combination).
    • Transposition into an endgame.

  • The Sixth Ply

    Before we get started let’s define what a ply is in chess:

     A ply is a half move and a move is equivalent to 2 ply or a turn by each player. For example,  1. e4 is one ply and 1…e5 would be the 2nd ply, together these two plys make one move.

    Getting close to the truth of a chess position requires the calculation of a minimum of 6 ply (3 moves). The higher your rating the higher the ply calculation requirement increases since your opponent will be delving more deeply into the position than you. If you calculate anything less than 3 ply you are playing hope chess, since you are not forseeing your opponent’s responses. 

    Below is an assessment of how calculation skill correlates to one’s chess rating:

    0-1000 1 ply

    1000-1200 2-3 ply

    1200-1400 4 ply

    1400-1600 6 ply

    1600-1800 8 ply

    1800-1900 10 ply

    1900-2000 12 ply

    Stopping your calculations too soon can prevent you from finding the winning move. Many times the winning move comes after a series of seemingly unfavorable moves, and stopping your calculation too soon will prevent you from finding the best move in the position. At the same time, not looking deeply enough into your opponent’s moves will cause you to miss defensive opportunities against your opponent’s threats. (more…)

  • My Thought Process

    Update: 10/17/2009

    I modified the process based on conversations with FM Charles Galofre, I have merged the tactical and strategic scans into one. His point is that even if you find a strong tactical move, you should still look at the strategic aspects of the position since the game might be won with a quiet positional move which you would not have considered if you cut your search short once you had found a tactic.

    The following is the thought process I have decided to employ during long games. The idea is to drill these questions in during practice, so that they become second nature when playing an regular game.

    The idea is to create your own thought process checklist and make it your own.

    It is highly recommended that you also check out Chessplanner by Blue Devil Knight, since it is more thorough than my checklist.

    1. Threat Scan

    I. What is my opponent threatening?

    II. What are the consequences of my opponent’s last move? (how has the position changed?)

    III. Do I have any checks, captures or threats (CCT)? Consider forcing moves as possible candidates

    2.  Move Scan

    A. Tactical Scan

    I. Is there likely to be a tactic in the position?

    a. Tactical Motifs: hanging pieces, weak back rank, discovered attack, pinned or skewerable along same rank, overworked pieces, lack of development, poorly guarded pieces, overworked pieces, forks, weak king position (uncastled King), large accumulation of pieces on one side, in-between moves.

    Even if you find a strong tactical scan, if time allows do a positional scan. If you find a good move look for a better one.

    B. Strategical Scan

    (If there are no tactics, you need to come up with a plan)

    I. Material balance

    II. King safety

    III.  Pawn structure

    a. Who has the better pawn structure (look for doubled pawns, isolated pawns, and hanging pawns)
    b. Are there any open lines or diagonals?
    c. What are the strong and weak squares?
    d. Who is controlling the center?
    e. Who has more space and where on the board do they have it?

    IV.. Activity
    a. which pieces are active and which are not? (how can you make them more active)
    b. Who has better development?
    c. who has the initiative?

    V. Minor pieces
    a. Bishops (bishop pair, bad / good bishop, good diagonals for bishops)
    b. Knights (outposts, strength compared with bishops)

    VI. misc questions
    a. what stage of the game are we in?
    b. If we removed the Queen’s off the board, who has the better endgame?

    4. Select your candidates     (based on scans above)

    5. Analyze candidates (start with the most forcing)

    6. Select move based on analysis

    7. Blundercheck

    8. Write down your move

    9. Blundercheck again

    10. Make your move

  • Karpov & Mazukevich's Chess Thought Process

    (adapted by Herman Grooten)

    The following thought process which is recommended by Karpov and Mazukevich is used to detect the important features of an arbitrary position in order to devise a plan that conforms to the positional assessment derived by using this thought process.

    This thinking process is based on 7 criteria in which the White position is compared with the Black position.

    1. What is the material balance?

    2. Are there any (direct) threats?

    3. How is the safety of both Kings?

    4. Pawn structure questions:

       a. Where are the open lines and diagonals?

       b. Are there many strong squares?

       c. Who is controlling the center

       d. Who has more space and where on the board do they have it?

    5. Which pieces are active and which are not?

    Training applications:

    Go through the questions out loud while doing middlegame positions based on  Stoyko Exercises. The idea is to practice “talking out loud” with the list in front of you so that when you are in real game mode the questions will be asked subconsiously.

    Source: Chess Strategy for Club Players pg. 37.

  • Steinitz's Elements

    Permanent advantages

    1. Material advantage
    2. Bad king position
    3. Passed pawns in the middlegame
    4. Weak pawns for the opponent
    5. Strong and weak squares
    6. Pawn islands
    7. Strong pawn center
    8. Control of a diagonal
    9. Control of a file
    10. Bishop pair
    11. Control of a rank

    Temporary advantages
    12. Bad piece position
    13. Inharmoniously placed pieces
    14. Advantage in development
    15. Concentration of pieces in the center (centralization)
    16. Space advantage

  • Chess Blunder Checklist

    To help track the reasons why a mistake was made during the game.

    Health

    1. Not enough sleep
    2. Headache, cold, etc.
    3. Food problem: hungry, ate too much, too much sugar, etc.

    Concentration

    1. External distraction (noise, light, etc.)
    2. Internal distraction (worried about prior mistake, other issues, etc.)

    Lack of familiarity with tactical pattern

    1. Visualization – did not correctly retain piece position in analyzed (possible) sequences
    2. Board vision – did not see entire (current) board properly and missed a move capability

    Thought Process Error

    1. Hope Chess – did not attempt to look for opponent’s dangerous replies
    2. Analytical error – miscalculation/missed sequence
    3. Quiescence error – stopped analyzing too soon
    4. Did not look for all the things a move did
    5. Did not look for a better move
    6. Opponent’s move was forced so did not look for its threats, too

    Time Management Error

    1. Played too fast
    2. Got into unnecessary time trouble
    3. Panicked trying to avoid time trouble

    Psychology

    1. Underestimated opponent
    2. Excessive fear of opponent
    3. Overconfident in winning (drawn) position

    Source: Dan Heisman
    http://www.chesscafe.com/heisman/heisman.htm

  • Chess Memory

    Interesting article on chess memory which should be read by all who are interested in chess psychology and learning.

  • Why Our Chess Does Not Improve

    Frustration

    Over the last few months while my knowledge of the game has increased my chess skill has not improved. If anything I have suffered a decrease in performance over the last few months. The frustrating part is that I have invested time into my chess improvement plan, and while I feel that both my tactical pattern recognition and strategic knowledge of the game has improved this new knowledge has not translated into increased chess playing strength.

    I have a tournament in 1 month and I am concerned about my plateau. I am nowhere near where I wanted to be 3 years into my chess improvement plan.

    My Downward Spiral

    • ICC standard rating at an all time low of 1330 from a peak of 1663
    • FICS rating temporarily increased to 1350, but over the last few weeks it is back down to 1225
    • ICC Blitz 5 0 dropped from 1250 to 970, it is now back up to 1170 and on the way up
    • USCF rating is the same (1278) I have not played any rated USCF tournaments in several months
    • OTB performance in friendly skittles games is the same as 6 months ago, I still ocassionally lose to players who do not take chess as seriously as me

    Why I am Not Improving in Chess

    • Playing too much blitz versus longer games.
    • Not analyzing (not learning from) my games
    • Theory based learning versus practical learning
    • Faulty thought process

    Getting to the bottom of it

    I selected several of my latest games and anlayzed them looking for the reason I lost the game, and guess what I found:

    Over 80% of the games I lose were because I blundered and not due to knowledge gaps.

    Modifications to the Plan

    • Focus more on my thought process while I am playing in order to eliminate senseless blunders.
    • Begin playing at least 1 non-blitz game every night, which I must analyze before playing any other games.
    • Focus my study time around tactics and topics that I need help on based on discoveries during game analysis.

    I need to strike a balance between blitz versus and standard games, and I must eliminate blitz play several weeks before playing in a tournament. While tactics will be a strong component of my training, I will be more flexible in my training schedule selecting areas of weakness that I uncover during my game analysis.

    The key is to focus on building skills over knowledge, and learning to apply the knowledge I already have. As Dan Heisman likes to say, we need to subtract negatives if we want to get better. I have made the mistake of thinking that studying and reading chess books (adding positives) will make me a better player, and while I am increasing my knowledge of chess this does not translate into improving my performance (because we need to subtract negatives).

    I hope that these modifications to my training plan, which will focus more on ‘skill building’ than ‘knowledge building’ will show improvements in my play. I’ll keep you posted…

  • Faulty Thought Process: Missing the Obvious

    Why is it that beginners fail to choose simple plans that are right before their eyes? One answer may be that beginners do not evaluate the position before choosing a candidate move. Beginners briefly scan the board, choose a move they like and quickly analyze and play this move. The problem with this thought process is that 9 out of 10 times the move they have selected is not the best move, since it is not a move that follows a plan based on the needs of the position. This thought process error occurs during candidate move selection and is a very common mistake that beginner’s must overcome in order to reach the next level. The difference between a weak player and a strong player is that the strong player evaluates the position and they then choose a plan based on this evaluation.

    Dan Heisman in a Novice Nook titled ‘Evaulation Criteria’, uses the following criteria to evaluate a position (in order of importance):

    1. Material
    2. King Safety
    3. Activity
    4. Pawn Structure

    Based on these evaulation criteria, not only will we know which side stands better, but why they stand better and what our plan should be. The candidate moves will show itself based on the plan we have selected.

    In order to improve we need to evaluate the position during critical junctures of the game (after the opening is over, after a series of exchanges, whenever the position changes substantially). We should get in the habit of re-evaluating the position every couple of moves to ensure that the needs of the position have not changed. We then need to choose a plan based on the evaluation and select candidate moves that help us meet the goals of our plan. We should then take a close and honest look at our candidate moves and keep looking for the best move that will improve our position on the board.

    Hope this helps, and I would love to hear your thought process for evaluating the position and selecting candidate moves.