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| hildanknight 10/06/2005 23:15:06 [ report this post ] |
 Subject: The Jeremy Silman of chess tactics?Message: If you read my profile, you will know that I play chess based on IM Jeremy Silman's Imbalance Theory (based on his book The Amatuer's Mind which I read and enjoyed). Although it has helped me become strategically proficient, and my rating increased 300 points after learning and applying the Imbalance Theory, it has left gaping holes in my tactical ability. Despite having reached a rating of 1655 once (I think my actual CC rating is closer to 1500), I still hang and blunder away pieces very frequently, and I can't seem to handle any sort of tactics. Often, I spot a way to "win" a piece but it is quickly refuted and I ended up losing horribly. IM Jeremy Silman's book The Anatuer's Mind did a lot to help my strategy. However, has he ever written any books to help beginners with tactics? If no, then can anyone recommend a chess writer/book which teaches tactics the way IM Jeremy Silman teaches strategy? In easy-to-understand language, easy-to-grasp-and-apply rules and checklists, with instructive examples and humour? Most of the books out there teach tactics way out of my depth in a very boring way - sometimes even memorizing positions I will never get on the board! I need some simple rules and checklists. Can anyone recommend a good book? |
| danders 10/06/2005 23:24:59 [ report this post ] | The Chess Doctor Message: It won't make you a grandmaster, but it improved my tactical play somewhat by listing 100 common tactical mistakes, and what to look out for. They are grouped by themes such as: The Opening, Captures and Exchanges, Mistakes with Specific Units, etc. A very good book; easy to read, easy to understand, and easy to apply. |
| ccmcacollister 10/06/2005 23:26:06 [ report this post ] | It would probably Message: On the other hand, I've read it and just dropped a piece today! But believe it was only the first in corr play that was an oversite, not planned. And a one mover yet :( (And THAT is a Very Short Tree indeed!) |
| hildanknight 10/06/2005 23:31:20 [ report this post ] | Thank you very much. Message: I do not demand that the book be funny and interesting. I want it to contain easy-to-follow rules/checklists/concepts and examples that are of practical value. Most books out there give me GM-level analysis that makes my head spin and suggests that I study 1000 positions that will never appear in an actual game. |
| erdite 10/07/2005 04:13:54 [ report this post ] | Winning chess by irving Chernov and Fred Reinfeld Message: rating went from around 1200 up to 1477 quickley, winning about 80% of my games(see my graph). It doesnt teach openings or stratergy, but it teaches you what to look for to win a piece or checkmate by every means possible and it drums it into your head so that you instinctivly know. It is the only chessbook ive ever found usefull. |
| gajolen 10/07/2005 16:01:33 [ report this post ] | Do puzzles Message: Do as many as you can as often as you can, and after a while, you will become better to judge if there is a tactic present on the board. You will see patterns that can lead to mate, or captures. and you will see hanging pieces like instantly. Here are a couple of my favorit links, for when doing tactical exersises. -> chess.emrald.net -> www.entertainmentjourney.com -> www.wtharvey.com Here is another link wich descibes the diferent tactics. You can start here. -> www.chesstactics.org Also Remember Silmans vice word. I Quote from his exelent book, how to reasess your chess. The first thing the student must realise is that there are certain rules of combination that make a combination posibel. If these factors do not exist then a combination can not exist eather. Here is a list of these rules. Remember that at least one of these factors must be present for a combination to work. 1 Open, or weak, or Stalemated king. 2 Undefended pieces (not counting pawns) 3 Inadequately defended pieces. In other words when you play, and you notice any of these factors, it is worth spending some time, to look out for a tactic. And if none of these things are present, it is most likely not worth spending so much time on that move, better save the time for more critical moment. |
| mightytiny 10/07/2005 16:42:38 [ report this post ] | Message: What I noticed also was that, due to my tactical weakness, I tended to prefer quiet openings that wouldn't be likely to explode into tactical fireworks. What I did was change my openings - I decided to seek out those very kinds of highly tactical games where I was unconfortable in. I also started playing lots of short time limit games (usually 10-20 minutes on the clock), which I used to hate, simply because my tactical weakness made me suck at it. I lost a LOT of games at first, but it soon started to pay off - occasionally, my "cunning plans" worked, instead of sending me down in flames. At the same time I studied some games of attacking players, to get a feel for the elements of attack and tactics they employed. I also bought a chessbase tactics training cd (standalone, you don't need to have chessbase to run it), and found that very useful. After a while, forcing myself to play aggressively, I started to like it, and also started to develop some sort of tactics intuition - often when there was some sort of a winning tactic to be found in a position, I would would get a feeling that now I should be looking for tactics... Nowadays I love to attack, and tactics is no longer a weakness for me, and I still feel I'm getting better at it. I do still have lots of room for improvement, that's for sure! :) So my recommendation would be to start playing opening lines that lead to games where tactics predominate, in addition to whatever puzzles you do and whatever books you decide to read - it may be a tough way to learn, but it's very effective, I've found. |
| hildanknight 10/08/2005 08:22:28 [ report this post ] | Thanks everyone Message: 1. The Chess Doctor by Bruce Pandolfini 2. Think Like a Grandmaster by Alexander Kotov. 3. Winning chess by irving Chernov and Fred Reinfeld 4. Winning Chess Tactics by Jeremy Silman and Yasser Seirwan (someone private messaged me) I am an 1 e4 player, and tend to get into tactical positions and lose quickly. The Sicilian Grand Prix frequently occurs in my games because I don't have time to learn theory. I hope the puzzles are not too difficult for average players and that they have reasonable practical value. |
| trond 10/08/2005 13:27:52 [ report this post ] | Take a look at .... Message: 3400 problems for you to solve. Free of charge. The best way to master tactics is to solve many problems. Start with the easy ones, and go over them several times (at least two) before you move on to the next level. Good luck. Trond |
| atrifix 10/09/2005 18:34:37 [ report this post ] | Message: The main thing that you should realize is that it's not what you study, but how you study it. Having the best chess books ever on your list won't improve your play if you don't study them well, whereas careful study of Reinfeld's 1001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmate will go a long way to making you a master. The best thing I can recommend to improve tactical vision (but not calculation!) is to solve puzzles. You should solve 1000 problems that will never appear in a game--because similar tactics WILL, even if the pieces are in different positions, or you don't notice them. But you should then solve them again, and again, until you can recognize the solution to a puzzle like you would recognize your own name. Solving puzzles will do more for your tactical vision than anything else. If you are struggling with the calculation of variations, however, tactical vision will not really help. The best puzzle books IMO are Reinfeld's 1001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmate, 1001 Winning Sacrifices and Combinations, the cd CT-ART 3.0, Lein's Sharpen Your Tactics, and Emms's The Ultimate Puzzle Book, listed roughly in ascending order of difficulty. |
| hildanknight 10/09/2005 20:23:44 [ report this post ] | I don't have that much time... Message: My main problem is that I frequently leave pieces en prise, and when calculating a combination using "analyze the board", I seem to look at every line except the line my opponent plays! Please remember that sometimes what is useful to a master would be useless to an amatuer. For example, giving me hundreds of puzzles from master games - will similar oppurtunities arise in amatuer games, giving the vastly different styles and opening reportoires of masters and amatuers? |
| thunker 10/09/2005 21:08:14 [ report this post ] | Interesting concept.... Message: Learning anything "well" takes time and commitment.... Small effort, small gain. |
| hildanknight 10/09/2005 23:03:14 [ report this post ] | Again, wrong analogy... Message: The same is true of tactics. There are surely some guidelines (like physics formulas) to follow, that I can learn and apply in my games. I want a book that teaches me these guidelines. I am really weak at tactics, so I would like a book that takes me to the lower intermediate or intermediate level (which I am at strategies). It's hopeless trying to jump from beginner to expert. Just like there are strategical concepts and ideas, surely there are tactical concepts and ideas? Let's just put it this way - give me something RELEVANT, that I can use in my own games. I'm trying to study smart, not hard, not swotting like crazy. Few of us are willing to devote our life to chess. Life has so much to offer. I have schoolwork and plenty of other commitments. You probably have a life out there too. |
| danders 10/09/2005 23:14:25 [ report this post ] | Well... Message: If these aren't to your liking, there's a good chance your local library or bookstore has some gems that perhaps no one has even told you about yet. An hour a week! Oy! |
| ccmcacollister 10/10/2005 00:52:06 [ report this post ] | hmmm .... Message: I spent a bit over 5000 hours of study to reach Expert. Then just studied endgames to make Master. (But dropping pieces precludes endgame survival ... so that won't do). Obviously, you do need to look at more Candidate Moves (ala Kotov); no strike that; just start looking at all the Correct Candidate Moves ... and blunders will immediately cease. This is better than study, for you have only 52 hours per year for that. And while one might live to 114 or thereabouts, quality of play tends to begin deterioration after cessation of adolescence; and declines geometrically with increased proximity to sports cars, and cataclysmically upon marriage. }8-) |
| mightytiny 10/10/2005 03:25:12 [ report this post ] | Message: I know that people disagree whether playing blitz is good for your game or not, but I think that most would agree that at a stage when you still have problems with dropping pieces, AND you need to improve tactically, plenty of fast games would be very useful. That's because the first thing you learn playing fast games is to guard your pieces; experience with fast games gradually improves your skill to quickly look at the position and note all the unprotected and threatened pieces, untill you note such things almost unconsciously. I do understand what you mean about tactical principles - and they are indeed important to learn. Given your limited time, I would suggest looking into software rather than books - at least I find software based teaching much faster and easier to follow. Chessbase has published several tactics teaching cd's, and I've personally found all chessbase cd's I've bought to be of high quality. I found one cd that, from the description, sounds exactly like the thing you'd need (though I have no direct experience with it, and base my recommendation rather on the quality I've come to expect of chessbase): -> uscfsales.com I myself own this: -> www.chesscentral.com - and it too would do the job: it has collections of chess puzzles arranged by theme; so that all puzzles that can be solved using a certain tactical concept are grouped together. That way you can introduce yourself to various tactical "weapons", and practice using that weapon in a variety of positions. This will both give you the basic guidelines as to what kinds of tactical ideas there are, and practice in spotting the kinds of patterns of positions that might call for the use of a particular tactic. |
| hildanknight 10/10/2005 19:56:40 [ report this post ] | Thanks a lot... Message: I will try to find some good sites to play Blitz chess. My computer has trouble downloading certain types of software, so I would like those where you can play straight from a browser once you have an account. Does ChessColony support Blitz chess? I will look into the software you recommend. Please remember that many good chess players - including myself - come from problematic family backgrounds. I doubt I have the money to invest in software (after investing in the premium subscription) but I guess I can look for free ones or save up for the cheap ones. Maybe one day I will post some of my games here with strategic and tactical analysis, and you can help me from there. |
| atrifix 10/11/2005 03:51:12 [ report this post ] | Message: But again, it's not what you study, but how you study it that will improve your chess. And note that it is HOW you study, not how much you study. There is no book that will raise your playing strength by itself (trust me--I've read most of them). The thing that will improve your chess the most, at least with respect to tactics and tactical vision (not putting pieces en prise, for example) is 1) playing experience and 2) solving puzzles. I can practically guarantee that it would be better for your chess in the long-term to solve 10 minutes of puzzles per day than to spend an hour a week reading Think Like a Grandmaster. But perhaps you find this unenjoyable. Then I guess you have to find some sort of balance. |
| futile 10/11/2005 09:54:24 [ report this post ] | There is a saying... Message: Sure you want to win the game using Tactic-X or System-Y or Book-Z, but how are you going to get into that position? What if your opponent takes you down an obscure line of a seldom seen opening? Read any book you can, spend hours of study on openings and tactics, and solve tons of puzzles. They all help and contribute to your game, but take the time during play to fully evaluate each position and make a plan that is workable for your own level and style of play. If you lose, learn why and remember it. If you win, learn why and remember that too. |
| misato 10/11/2005 11:10:14 [ report this post ] | absolute agreement, futile! Message: I think that is what you mean with logistics (= time management?). 100 single games need 100 single moves, but you normally only can afford to calculate them to an average depth of 2-3 in an average time of 1-2 minutes. And I would get headaches after a short time. If you play less games (in the moment I have two in the critical phase) you can afford a depth of 4-5, make notes, think it over again and have a fresh look at it the next day ... This improves the game and your strength (both tactical and positional), the moves are more satisfactory, and you have thought about even more positions as the 100-games-player. And it avoids blunders like missing a mate-in-one (which I have seen recently in late round of a GK-tournament - it was not the casual section!). But it all depends on what people basically want to when playing CC: Improve their OTB-strength - you don�t need tons of CC-games because it�s a different game. In OTB you concentrate on a single game with 100%, no TV, no homework, no phone, no nothing, in CC you can take your time whenever you feel to. But you learn from a single and intensive CC-game a lot of estimation for OTB. Learn about openings - great idea! Look into the books and try to understand the concepts for each White and Black. Then you can decide which is the best-fitting move for your personal style. Try to meet these concepts with the rest of your game and try to understand how to answer your opponent�s out-of-book-moves. Or try out-of-book-moves yourself and wait for the answer! Again, impossible with tons of CC-games. Simply have fun - that�s hard to tell: For some players fun is depending on the number of games, for others the quality in a single game is important. Make your own choice in that case. If I want to play tons of games just for fun I attend an OTB-blitz tournament, although the results are absolutely terrible. |
| leo_london 10/11/2005 15:18:54 [ report this post ] | misato.. Message: |
| i_play_slowly 10/12/2005 08:15:39 [ report this post ] | CT-Art 3.0 Message: Users seem to agree that CT-Art 3.0 is an excellent software program. It will offer you puzzles that match your rating (or any other rating you choose), and it will offer a succession of ever-stronger clues, if required, to help you solve each puzzle. The convenience of it's sitting right there on your desktop is an added plus, if you need to take a break from other computer-related tasks. |
| mattdw 10/12/2005 10:25:09 [ report this post ] | Message: |
| sahsakkchess 10/12/2005 10:55:53 [ report this post ] | London Chess Centre Message: 369 Euston Rd NW1, Phone 0207 388 2404 -> www.chesscenter.com |
| ccmcacollister 10/12/2005 17:38:50 [ report this post ] | Atrifix Message: BTW, the book is not just aboubt calculation. So it appears you havent read it. |
| hildanknight 10/12/2005 19:50:09 [ report this post ] | Thanks everyone Message: If not for my tactical blunders, I would probably have a 1800 rating by now. In at least half of my games, I reach strategically won positions by planning based on imbalances! However, I win less than 20% of them - largely due to tactical cracks. The game also features a sacrifice of a minor piece for 2 pawns to get a passed pawn and strategic advantage. I have made such sacrifices several times in my games and would like to know the soundness of them as well. Thanks a lot. |
| mbeaver 10/13/2005 11:08:00 [ report this post ] | Message: |
| wschmidt 10/13/2005 14:41:01 [ report this post ] | hildanknight, Message: * a book "suggests that I study 1000 positions that will never appear in an actual game", * or "Most of the books out there teach tactics way out of my depth in a very boring way - sometimes even memorizing positions I will never get on the board!" * While I can't speak to what does or does not bore you, I will say that I've never seen a tactical book that suggests that you memorize positions. The purpose of doing a lot of tactical puzzles is to build up your ability to recognize patterns that occur in many different ways on the chess board. * For example, in the book mentioned above, "Winning Chess" Chernev and Reinfeld devote their first two chapters of puzzles on pins and forks, giving the reader an explanation of the basics and then many puzzles showing how they come up in typical chess situations. You're not supposed to "memorize" the positions, but work through them so you get a thorough understanding of the pattern. That will allow you to see such patterns in your own games with increasing frequency. * The point is, just being told about what a pin is or what a fork is along with a checklist saying "watch for pins and forks" doesn't doesn't accomplish what you need. You need to have seen enough examples to recognize when the "seeds of destruction" are there in your games. And the more examples you look at, the better you will be at seeing the possibilities in your games. I absolutely assure you, this system of pattern recognition works. I don't know of anyone who has methodically gone through a tactics puzzle book and hasn't improved his game. * There are lots of good books, programs and websites out there. I'd recommend starting small, maybe 200-300 puzzles, so you get a sense of accomplishment for working through a complete set. Good luck! |
| atrifix 10/13/2005 15:11:37 [ report this post ] | ccamcacollister Message: And, of course, I have read Think Like a Grandmaster. Actually, I think that that book had more of an impact on my chess than any other that I have read. I just don't think that it's to be recommended to any chess player at any level for any specific reason. Although it's not entirely about calculation, I think it's safe to say that the large majority of the book does more for calculation than any otherfactor. I also think the book is a bit outdated in some areas (most famously, the "tree" of analysis), but still a great book. It has a special place in my heart. And, as wschmidt indicated, the point of doing puzzles is not to "memorize positions", but to recognize patterns (ideally, at only a glance). |
| soikins 10/16/2005 12:43:03 [ report this post ] | Tactics training Message: |
| ionadowman 10/19/2005 02:32:48 [ report this post ] | Learning tactics (for hildanknight) Message: Cheers, Ion |
| i_play_slowly 10/19/2005 09:40:49 [ report this post ] | soikins Message: |
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