specific variations vs ideas and principles

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
mmm, this is the thing, what do you guys think? this apparent ambiguity, if it is indeed ambiguous, i don't know, anyway, here is the thing, is it not true that when we are concerned with principles and ideas in chess, does this not do away with the need for learning specific variations by the barrowlod, as these ideas are our focus, the moves just a ...[text shortened]... strategic goal and to try and work towards achieving that aim, any insight, most appreciated.😀

Why reinvent the wheel?

A sound knowledge of strategic principles and a comprehensive grasp of tactics coupled with accurate calculation may very well carry you through any game but as soon as you get into complex tactical openings you will undoubtedly lose on time as you will have insufficient to calculate a myriad of variations through correctly. In such games it pays to know the correct and best move as it will save you a lot of time and increase the chances that your opponent will make a mistake.

Strategically should you develop your N or B on move 4 of your favorite opening. Both develop a minor piece and control important squares but in certain openings one may be decisively better due to the pawn placement 20 moves down the line (for example). Now you could spend all your time working out which or you could rely on the wealth of experience from previous generations of GMs to decide quickly which is better.

Knowing your openings well saved inordinate amounts of time, enables you to capitalise on your opponents errors and lets you concentrate more on the critical phase of the game when you eventually get out of book and know what the strengths and weaknesses of your position are.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
sooo funny, wow that's amazing, damn chess mentor and that charlatan Silman, i get really annoyed when people are treated in a less than civil manner. I hope that you're software is really successful and helpful to a lot of people, not least of all yourself!

I wish!! It's not for sale; just personal. It's not of the caliber for sale, and it doesn't offer anything new. Just easier for me to use.

Back to Mentor. A lot of programs will crash when they run into a game that has a problem. If you are just using it for software packages that you can buy with the product then Mentor is fine ... although I trashed mine.

Motiv was merged into ChessBase several years ago. That's the best tool I've ever used. I use it frequently to search for positional ideas. For example, I create smaller databases of grandmaster games with queen versus rook that ended in a draw -- and there are many. If this ending is so simple, then why did they lose? Of course, much of the time TIME CONTROL is a factor that we can not see in the game scores.

Extract all grandmaster games with a rook and two connected pawns versus a rook -- divided into subsections for [ab, gh] & [bc, cd, de, df, fg]. If you study a theme then study everything about that theme. Once you know what you are doing you no longer need to buy any more books. That sounds great, but it's a compulsion so you still buy them.

Another example. Extract all fortresses with subsections for Q vs BN, Q vs BB, B v P, Q v RP, etc. Then you spend the next two years learning how to build a fortress and how to destroy them before they can be built. And too, why did the grandmasters in these games allow them to be formed? Did they not know the key positions, did they run into time control, or just give up?

In summary, there is another great lesson here. For a long time I would look at grandmaster games and not know why they resigned a position. I would examine the ending position for days and find no reason. Of course, they may have reached a Lucean position and I didn't know how to solve the puzzle or a Philidor's Position and I didn't understand why it was a draw, etc. Finally, I can examine grandmaster games and laugh at their mistakes. It may be a simple as a grandmaster game KBN v K that they make an obvious mistake, a fortress, or even a Lucena. I've played through a lot of grandmaster games where the Lucena position could have been reached and they either didn't see it or were just so sure of what they were doing that they got careless and blundered -- not dropping a piece type blunder, but allowing their king to be cut off. Anyway, it's a great feeling when you can finally look at a grandmaster game and not wonder why they resigned! 🙂

Originally posted by ChessJester
The knowledge of the basic fundamentals of chess, being strageic and tactical motifs and formations as well as endgame dynamics, is invaluable. This knowledge will out-do any well studied main-line-player who would be weak in an out-of-book line. Knowledge of your opponents game is almost just as valuable as opening lines in high level chess.

I completely agree. Every time you move, look two moves ahead, and you won't make many mistakes if you blunder-check.

Originally posted by Dragon Fire
Why reinvent the wheel?

A sound knowledge of strategic principles and a comprehensive grasp of tactics coupled with accurate calculation may very well carry you through any game but as soon as you get into complex tactical openings you will undoubtedly lose on time as you will have insufficient to calculate a myriad of variations through correctly. In ...[text shortened]... you eventually get out of book and know what the strengths and weaknesses of your position are.

so in essence you are saying that it is beneficial to memorise opening lines for the various reasons that you have stipulated, this of course as someone else noted should be governed by the ideas and principles behind those opening moves, thus making memorisation easier, therefore, if i could invent a system for memorising say the first 20 moves in a game and the subsequent variations which arise, i would not only get rich by marketing my system but also improve as a player, not on chess ability, but simply through the process of memorisation.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
so in essence you are saying that it is beneficial to memorise opening lines for the various reasons that you have stipulated, this of course as someone else noted should be governed by the ideas and principles behind those opening moves, thus making memorisation easier, therefore, if i could invent a system for memorising say the first 20 moves in a ...[text shortened]... also improve as a player, not on chess ability, but simply through the process of memorisation.

Absolutely, if you could invent such a system but remember whilst many openings have been analysed more than 20 moves deep there is still scope to find improvements and deviate way before then and of course if your opponent does deviate you need to understand why you played certain moves and you cannot memorise all of that.

Originally posted by Dragon Fire
Absolutely, if you could invent such a system but remember whilst many openings have been analysed more than 20 moves deep there is still scope to find improvements and deviate way before then and of course if your opponent does deviate you need to understand why you played certain moves and you cannot memorise all of that.

i had a system that i could utilise, it came from a memory course that i bought, totally unrelated to chess but interestingly enough there was a section in it on how one may remember every square that a knight may jump to in order for it to have touched on all the squares on the chess board once, the idea was quite simple, in that because it was sequential you needed to tie in the first reference with the second, the second with the third, the third with the forth and so on. the actual squares were substituted by a phonetic system whereby the numbers of the ranks were given a phonetic letter (always a consonant and never a vowel) and words were then formed in a story like sequence, so instead of e4, the letter of the file in this case e, would be incorporated into a word beginning with e and the number 4 would have a phonetic reference (r) , so to remember the square one would make up a word beginning with e and including r and incorporate it into a sequential story, in this way it was possible to memorise all the squares that the knight could land on only once in a sequence in order to cover all sixty four squares.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
mmm, this is the thing, what do you guys think? this apparent ambiguity, if it is indeed ambiguous, i don't know, anyway, here is the thing, is it not true that when we are concerned with principles and ideas in chess, does this not do away with the need for learning specific variations by the barrowlod, as these ideas are our focus, the moves just a ...[text shortened]... strategic goal and to try and work towards achieving that aim, any insight, most appreciated.😀

I would certainly go with memorization. I'm beginning to discover that strategy, positional play etc aren't really about ideas and principles. they are about concrete plans, which are put into words as variations. Quiz a clever complete beginner on opening principles and he would write down all "you need to know" on paper too. But he would simply get crushed because chess is very complicated, and in almost situations, there are many different principles you could apply. you just need to find the one that doesn't lose. Even when thinking strategically, you have to find your way around tactics. you cannot crush through them. it would hurt 🙂

I'm trying to learn the french defense for example, and believe me, for a patzer (like me), there's almost no way not to get into a cramped position without knowing certain variations.

Originally posted by diskamyl
I would certainly go with memorization. I'm beginning to discover that strategy, positional play etc aren't really about ideas and principles. they are about concrete plans, which are put into words as variations. Quiz a clever complete beginner on opening principles and he would write down all "you need to know" on paper too. But he would simply get crushe ...[text shortened]... re's almost no way not to get into a cramped position without knowing certain variations.

I love the French defence too, white can forget about his dreams of attacking f7. you should check out the chessbase dvd by international master Ariel Ziegler from Sweden, he covers all the main variations in such a way that you feel really confident, Advance variation, Tarrasch variations, Cassical French and Stienitz variations as well as some miscellaneous stuff, this has helped me no end - regards Robert.

Originally posted by petrovitch
I'm not familiar with the software. Corresponding Squares is the most disturbing thing I've ever studied. The Final Countdown by Willem Hajenius and Herman Van Riemsdijk present something that I just can not understand. Essentially, they provide mathematical proof of triangulation and explain how our basic understanding of the relationship of squares c ...[text shortened]... derstand how to study the game of chess. This ending is the basis of our project.

petrovitch: Fischer crushed him [Korchnoi]in the 60s


According to the Complete Games of Bobby Fischer, Fisher's record against Korchnoi was 2W, 2L, 4D (3W, 3L, 4D if you include the Herceg Novi Blitz in 1970). When exactly did Fischer "crush" him?