Globular's Chess Blog

Thursday, May 17, 2007

The Secret to Chess Improvement

I recently revealed in the comments to my previous post that I am, in fact, a lazy-ass mo' fo'. I haven't been working at all on my game, so (naturally) I figured this is the time to start playing a new (to me) opening repetoire. What secret side-line, universal, study-free "system" am I employing? Which slew of books have I ordered promising an easy, worry-free time of it?

None.

I've decided to start playing classical, main-line openings with minimal, if any, work memorizing lines and just play chess; and it's working. I've won my last three games with a Ruy Lopez as white, a Taimanov Sicilian with black, and a Classical French as white. For each, I've spent about 10-30 minutes looking at some typical set-ups and off I went. This is forcing me to just think about the positions I get instead of trying to remember the move order for moves 13 through 15 in the Dragon 9. O-O-O line. It's very refreshing and surprisingly stress free. I now think I'm more in tune with the whole game as opposed to ending up in some position I'm not familiar with because my opponent deviated from what I knew.

I guess all the advice about not studying openings and just getting to a decent middle game is true.

Apart from obvious opening tricks, I don't think there's anyone below Master level that can beat me outright with superior book knowledge. Sure, they may get a "better" opening out of it, but I think I'm good enough to avoid a completely losing position. Then I get the chance to bamboozle them with tactics, at worst I might have to save a worse ending. That can be fun too :)

-Matt

posted by Globular at 10:28 AM

4 Comments:

  • I took a few chess lessons, from two different coaches.

    The first was Valery Frenklakh and he said "just play chess"... It took me a long time to understand what the heck he was talking about. Then he said "chess is just a game of squares"... I think what he was saying is that I was making too much of openings and variations -- just look at the board!

    The second was Igor Foygel. He looked at my chess library for quite a while, then looked at me, pointed to three books, and said "Ignore the rest. You are only allowed to look at these and study tactics". The three books were concerned with pawn structure, tactics, endings, etc.

    So I got busy with CT-ART 3.0 (tactics) ditched all my opening books except Kaufman's "The Chess Advantage...". I use that book in correspondence chess just to be consistent. When I play a correspondence game, I look up high rated games, and look at the themes.

    A few years later (now) I rarely get trashed by tactics, and (like you) just look at positions and think about them - vice - trying to remember variations and getting confused.

    I don't get to play too much OTB (work travel), but sometimes play BCC Quads lately. Last week I won my quad. That, despite a game where I got into a "fried liver" type of attack (I didn't know the opening), but I just hunkered down and kept thinking about how to defend and develop simultaneously. I got the point.

    By Blogger harvey, at May 18, 2007 9:09 PM  

  • I am doing the chess tactics thing, as well as going over specific games of my openings by masters. I am trying to assimilate the knowledge that sits on my book shelf through these experiences.
    When I changed openings last fall, I started with the rote memorization ... knowing it was not the right way, but I wanted to find a quick crutch like my London system. I soo changed my tune ( minus 100 points later) and started really looking at the positions coming out of the opening rather than memorization of lines. My games are better ( I think) and my rating is climbing back up.

    I can't wait to play your sorry lazy ass at the club ;)

    By Blogger BlunderProne, at May 20, 2007 3:28 PM  

  • never saw you here. i am adding you to my sidebar, and will visit in the future. most excellent. thank you.

    By Blogger transformation, at June 20, 2007 3:04 PM  

  • Update on my progress...

    I just finished my last game in the CCLA (Correspondence Chess League of America) "1st Webserver Series". They are experimenting with webserver chess and this is their first section. CCLA uses the ICCF webserver.

    http://www.iccf-webchess.com/EventCrossTable.aspx?id=10689

    There is still one more game left running in the section, but the public can see the games that are finished.

    Out of 6 games I had 4-2-0, for a score of 5.0/6.0

    I believe this is a direct result of three pieces of attitude:
    1. Not obsessing over the opening, just pick a book and follow it - sort of, depending on what suits you
    2. Really trying to understand the position, consider lots of variations and trying to see what is the essence. Silman's "Reassess" has really helped here.
    3. It's still tactics, tactics, tactics...

    Amici Sumus!

    By Blogger harvey, at June 24, 2007 1:55 PM  

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