Done with first four levels of CT Art

So I'm at
Level 10: 97%
Level 20: 91%
Level 30: 77%
Level 40: 71%

Which is okay, but not awesome. Tournament next week.

That was dreadful.

Last night and this morning, my CT Art sessions just sucked. I only do, like, 3 problems in the morning, but that's still enough to know when you're sucking. Then my blitz game against a 1500-player at lunch was horrible. I dropped a pawn in the opening and later succumbed to an attack. It was bad. When you consistently lose at blitz to somebody in the 1500s, you're playing at well below a 1500 level. That's bad.

I'm not disparaging people rated in the 1500s! I'm disparaging people rated well below 1500. I think we can all agree that people who lose regularly to people rated in the 1500s are not playing anything like reasonable chess.

Unforcing Play

It will be a while before I have occasion to read Aagaard's Excelling at Chess, as I have a long way to go before I can think of being good, much less excelling. However, I read a review that pointed out something quite enlightening in the book: the concept of unforcing play. The mere mention of the term brought to mind one of my big failings as a player. Namely, that I'm bound to forcing variations and resolution of tension. eg if a trade is on offer, I'm apt to accept or decline immediately rather than getting on with my way. There are some exceptions - in the Queen's Gambit Declined, I'm used to letting the pawns just stand there for a while. But, seriously, this sort of thing is a big blind spot. This is one thing I notice in some transitions to endings or at the end of endings esp. in Capablanca. I'll have to keep this concept in mind as I play, even if I'm not quite ready for all of Aagaard's insights. I'm sure his discussion is a lot more subtle, but, for the time being, the simple thought that you don't have to force things is very freeing.

Working through Lasker's Manual of Chess

It's great so far. I finished the first book of it pretty quickly, as it's the simple stuff, but it's important to re-educate yourself about the basics. I glanced over the next book (openings), the combinations section, and the last bit about philosophy and chess education, kind of trying to get a feel for how I would progress through the book. I thought, initially, that I'd go straight to the combinations section and work through it, possibly never going back to the openings section. However, after reading a review on ChessCafe.com, I was convinced of the importance of Lasker's treatment of the openings in his system even if the lines are outdated. I think it will also be helpful to me because I'm going through 500 Master Games, and most games are from this era. The amount of space Lasker spends on each opening is also proportional to the space taken in 500..., so it works out nicely.

Maybe I should have gone over the first book more closely. I still don't really know how to do the bishop + knight mate.

Another bad chess day.

I thought I was being clever, but once I was into the combination to simplify down to a won endgame, I realized that it didn't work because, at the end, I can't take the rook back. The zwischenzug bishop check, which I did not overlook, put my king on the wrong square, which I did overlook. Drat, and I was a clear pawn ahead, too.

On chess improvement trajectory

There are a lot of tournaments in my area, as this is a major metropolis. If you're willing to go to the suburbs, you could find a chess tournament to play in on most weekends. There are a couple different series that are monthly and then there are occasionally other tournaments. One thing I have also noticed is that some people play in them rather frequently, and that there are a number of juniors that play in a large percentage of these events and they rapidly improve up to the class A/Expert level. I don't think this correlation of their activity to their rapid rating increase is a coincidence. While they are surely doing stuff besides going to tournaments (maybe not!), playing 120 tournament games in a year certainly seems to be very helpful in attaining that level of play (even if a lot are G/30 or G/45). I noticed one junior made the jump from an established rating of 1100 to 1800 in one year - including some wandering around at 1400 for several tournaments, so he wasn't terribly underrated the entire time.

If I really wanted to improve when I was younger, I really should have taken more of the opportunities I was presented to play strong opposition. I didn't quite have this many opportunities, but I certainly could have played more than I did against stronger opponents than I did. Once the wife and I get a car again, I'm going to try to play at least once per month. I'm not a teen, so I can't have that kind of trajectory anymore, but there are worse ways to improve than to play in tournaments frequently.

I still suck at chess.

But I'm trying. I'm still mostly working on tactical puzzles and working through master games (Alekhine, for the most part). This is still, however, mostly light work. I'm not struggling hard against Alekhine, I'm reading at 20 minutes per game. I'm also still mostly on the level of tactical problems where, if I don't get it in 5 minutes, I'm probably not going to get it. I need to work hard against positions. That means playing slow games and doing hard analysis of complete games (or at least positions).

The Damiano!

So I had people over last night and one of them wanted to play chess. The game went

1. e4 e5
2. Nf3 f6?!
3. Nxe5 fxe5?

and then a few unimportant details because the game is lost here. He went for losing the exchange rather than getting chased around. His remark afterward was that he didn't know openings, and I guess if you play the Damiano, that's the one time a beginner could use a hint about openings. Just play 2. ... Nc6! Beyond that, no point in knowing openings at that level.

My own theory of chess

Which should be taken with a grain of salt because I'm a crappy player. My thought on the way to approach chess is that you need to learn a lot about tactics/attacking and learn a lot about the endgame (and I don't just mean how to win with a rook and pawn versus a rook, I mean late middlegame to endgame, when you still have like 7 pawns, a couple minor pieces, and a rook or two), and the rest of chess will follow from those considerations. The opening and middlegame (and your attacks) are all about maneuvering the position toward a better endgame, so the best way for a beginner to improve is to work hard on those two things, tactics and endgames. And, of course, the very important matter of the thinking process (cf Dan Heisman) and the problem of thinking about strategy in those specific terms.

Then again, when I took Khmelnitsky's chess exam a couple years ago (when I was last playing chess), I scored 2300 on "standard positions" (like, textbook endgame positions, Philidor, Lucena, etc), fairly high on endgames (I forget the exact score, at least 1800, less than 2300), and abysmal on strategy and middlegames (like, my two lowest scores, I think 1300-1400ish). Given my overall level (at that time, I tested at, like, a 1610 rating), I don't think you can conclude anything other than that I suck.

Magnus Carlsen is the Justin Bieber of Chess

I had this amusing thought and had to put it on a web-log.

I still suck at chess.

I definitely recognized one of the problems I ran into this morning. And I recognized that I recognized it a couple years ago and got it right then. However, I did not remember the solution this time, only the vague method, but couldn't quite calculate the precise method. I'm also running into a lot of problems where I see all the ideas and motifs, but can't quite assemble them in the right order to make the problem work. I'm giving up after about 5-10 minutes because they aren't yet the difficulty that warrants half an hour and I'm not yet back to the level where taking longer is worthwhile.

It is not enough to be a good player; you must also play well.

A very important point to note. The only way to make that transition is to play frequently and analyze your mistakes afterward.

Anyway, despite the fact that I certainly have more than enough chess books (my endgame library of a handful of books is more than sufficient to take somebody from rank beginner to master in that discipline if combined with plenty of practice), I decided to purchase Lasker's Manual of Chess. In my defense, I need to start from the level of a "stupid person" and my library does not have any books that quite fit in that range. The lowest level of book I have is probably The Amateur's Mind. I certainly have enough "strategy" books and "tactics" books. I might be able to justify purchasing Yusupov's books later, too, on the same premise. One can always justify purchasing collections of annotated games.

What convinced me to pull the trigger on it, though, was that a friend of mine who is also getting back into chess recommended it. That was enough to push me over the edge.

EDIT: The above about endgames is not quite true. I think Shereshevsky's Endgame Strategy might be necessary as well to get up to master strength in the endgame, or at least very helpful. In case you're wondering what endgame books I have, I have Averbakh Essential Endings, Pandolfini's course, Silman's course, Minev's Practical Rook Endings, Mueller's Fundamental Chess Endings, Secrets of Pawn Endings, Secrets of Minor Piece Endings (in my defense, I got it years ago on clearance), and Dvoretsky's course. I've worked through Pandolfini and part of Silman, have used the pawn endings book as a source of exercises, and have read parts of Averbakh and Minev. When I get to the stage where I'm studying endgame stuff again, I think I'll go through in roughly that order and make sure to play through a lot of examples with a clock against the computer.

Well, drat.

This week's G/65 on Saturday morning only lasted 40 minutes because I walked into a knight fork. So, rather than play out a long game where I'm a piece down, I resigned.

I need to figure out...

...a good way to put positions onto this web-log. I'm playing blitz games at lunch some days with people at work and come up with some interesting positions I want to analyze further and I might as well discuss them on the web-log. I recently had an endgame where I was down a piece, but had an aggressively posted king and advanced pawns and I think I had some drawing resources.

In other news, I brought out Alekhine's Best Games: 1908-1937 to play through on the train. I'm going to toggle back and forth between that and Capablanca's Best Endings or whatever that Chernev book is called. The analysis, of course, is much better in Alekhine.

Digging up a post from 2 years ago

This is a post I wrote two years ago (May 2008). I will compare with current results when I finish the program again. What I'm doing right now, though, is going over the first maybe 4 levels and going back over them a few times (with different user names for each pass). I'm not very concerned about things at level 50. Right now I'm doing level 30 and going back over level 20.

For those interested, I finished my first pass through CT Art, a computer program containing 1200 or so tactical chess problems. I mostly worked by "skill level" rather than by theme. I'll post my score breakdown below because I don't really see anybody else doing so. Overall, I had a success rate of 69% and a "rating" of 2420. Note that on a couple of these, I went back over "erroneous", so the percentages are slightly higher than on the initial pass, but level 50 and up is straight.

By Skill Level
10. 99% (originally 93%)
20. 91% (originally 86%)
30. 78%
40. 69%
50. 66%
60. 60%
70. 57%
80. 56%
90+. 55%

Levels 10 and 20 were initially a few percentage points lower.

Note that the "rating" provided has little correlation with real rating. I'm probably a weak class B player at the moment, in case you're wondering, though my real rating is public information if you really want to look it up.

Chess Improvement.

I thought a bit about chess improvement and noted that what some people (learners, not instructors) seem to miss sometimes is the importance of actually playing the game and playing it at tournament speeds (ie, slow, for those of you without any chess experience). Perhaps it's just me, so don't be offended if you feel implicated. One canonical example discussed on web-logs is the phenomenon of Michael de la Maza - what the people don't comment on much is that he played around 200 tournament-speed games over 2 years when doing his "rapid chess improvement" and critically examined them. Many discuss his tactical study plan, but few try to emulate that aspect. Dan Heisman recommends, IIRC, 55% practice, 45% study, but it's easy to let get out of balance, as it's easy to sit there with a book and hard to carve out time for a G/90. That's three hours, after all! And all at once! Probably with another human (at least, it's best with another human)! Anyway, there are some opportunities around me to regularly play in tournaments, so I'll do that and just let my rating float up.

Note: I'm being very lazy up there, I could just google what Dan Heisman recommends, he has a great web site with some great articles. It could be 45/55 rather than 55/45, but the point is still the same.

Playing Chess Again

So I decided to start playing chess again. I'm web-logging some thoughts about it. I'll start with some easy goals.

GOALS:
1. Keep playing regularly for at least a few years.
2. Get rating over 1600.
3. Play "Real Chess" all the time. (cf Dan Heisman)

Those are quite modest. I'd eventually like to get to class A and perhaps even Expert, but don't know whether I will invest the time. These modest goals are a good base, though.

Here's my plan of attack:
1. Play a lot of slow games against stronger opponents and analyze them afterwards.
2. Work on a lot of tactical exercises (I have CT Art, Polgar's brick, and Sharpen Your Tactics).
3. Play through a lot of annotated master games. I'm planning on blitzing through 500 Master Games, working at a 20-minute-per-game pace through a couple Euwe and Chernev books, and going very slowly through more advanced tomes when I am ready. All three schools of thought about playing through annotated master games are being represented here...
4. At some point, start working through endgames. I have Silman's manual.
5. At some point, start working through strategy tomes (like Pachman, Silman, and My System, possibly starting with more simple books).

I think the cornerstone is #1, but it's also the one I'm least apt to do. I think those "at some point" things are going to start either after I've played in a few tournaments or in May when I'm done with classes and therefore have more time. Right now I basically have time to play over a game on the train to work, a game on the train back from work, and some tactics at some point in the evening. I can play a slow game or two on the weekend and maybe blitz through some master games (or play over one very slowly) at some other point in the week. Between work, school (part-time evening classes for a masters in maths stuff), other hobbies (powerlifting), church, and family, I don't have any time...

EDIT: Though I have ratings-based goals, I'm going to try not to care about winning and losing, but rather playing opponents stronger than I am and improving my play. However, one expects that one's rating increases thereby and there is a series of monthly tournaments near me that is restricted to people with a rating over 1600.