My wannabe 1800 idea

Of course, I didn't reach this chapter yet. I noticed that most important thing about opening database is that you understand the logic behind the moves, because if you are playing it just because of stats you get lost after DB moves are over

. At the moment I am best in Queen gambit, Ruy Lopez and Sicilian with 2. ... d6 altough sicilian is still most obscure and difficult for me to absorb and understand.


But even if you open and understand the opening like a master, after you fail to see 2 move combination from your opponent it can be all over.

Originally posted by ivan2908
You are right, I will start to use all things I know right know and to think deeper and much longer, annotating every move, that is why I need to refresh my strategic knowledge with some book like Chernev's Logical chess or Silman's Amateurs mind.

I am playing planless curently, and good books like the two above really can help. I also started to resolv ...[text shortened]... I did 1500 problems in the past 30 days, I hope I will soon break 1500 there (I am very near)

"... annotating every move ..."

It would be great if RHP had a feature for this. Like being able to store private comments for each move. (Like the Notebook, but the existing one is limited in space and only one for the entire game.)

If I could annotate every move as it goes, and it is stored in the PGN (for my eyes only of course), then I would be more than happy!

Take it to the site ideas I will be happy to support it too. I would like to put my games in Fritz database and annotating it there (OF COURSE the engine would be switch off then). Is that allowed at all? If no, I will just take pen, some papper and my fancy wood chess 😛

Originally posted by ivan2908
You are right, I will start to use all things I know right know and to think deeper and much longer, annotating every move, that is why I need to refresh my strategic knowledge with some book like Chernev's Logical chess or Silman's Amateurs mind.

I am playing planless curently, and good books like the two above really can help. I also started to resolv ...[text shortened]... I did 1500 problems in the past 30 days, I hope I will soon break 1500 there (I am very near)

My advice is to read an annotated chess book. I did read Silman's book, actually I skeemed it, but I fell I got more out of logical chess move by move, which I'm still currently reading. I believe that seeing and learning the ideas of the great ones is better forr your chess than reading the bashing that silman does to his students.
My other advice for you is to read a general annotated book: something that has various games of various players so you can get various different styles to annalyse and learn from. Other thing that you need to do when you have time is post game analysis and annotation.

That being said may I post on this thread my game evolution too?

Originally posted by ivan2908
Quote from "Amateurs Mind", material chapter:

"... if you can simply not give anything away (not deep strategy here!) you will see hundreds of points pad your rating. How can we avoid this type of gross blunder? One useful method is to write your move down before you play it. Don't just scribble it, make the written move a work of art!

The reason for ...[text shortened]... Good for start! (I hope this alone will give me 100 points if I start to apply it correctly)

oh my...

my unconscious annoyance by Silman is getting more and more conscious everyday.

the advice that you have quoted is simply taken from Kotov's "think like a grandmaster."

I'd ask if any citations were made, but I know the answer will be no.

Originally posted by adam warlock
My advice is to read an annotated chess book. I did read Silman's book, actually I skeemed it, but I fell I got more out of logical chess move by move, which I'm still currently reading. I believe that seeing and learning the ideas of the great ones is better forr your chess than reading the bashing that silman does to his students.
My other advice fo ...[text shortened]... e analysis and annotation.

That being said may I post on this thread my game evolution too?

Of course you can 🙂


I do not so much agree that Silman's books aren't good, especially Amateurs mind, mostly because all typical mental mistakes at our level are analyzed. I am currently finishing with "Bishop vs Knights", I'll need a lot of games to put it in practice with success, but ideas like Steinitz principles and rules about restricting knights from advanced support points are definelty very good to know.

Logical chess is beautifull evergreen book but two books at once are too much. From only one good chess book you get enough information for year or two I think. If you learn and implement in your games all the wisdom put there, not only by Silman you would be very very strong.... So for now Amateurs mind and Tactical Puzzles. (Nearing 5000 on CTS, another 100000 and I'll beat Wormwood 😛)



One question: I think there was some argue months ago, RahimK vs someone about slow vs fast tactics.

I resolve 50 percent on CTS following my intuition, there is no always time for calculation. Should I add slow and harder tactics training to my CTS fanatism?

Originally posted by diskamyl
oh my...

my unconscious annoyance by Silman is getting more and more conscious everyday.

the advice that you have quoted is simply taken from Kotov's "think like a grandmaster."

I'd ask if any citations were made, but I know the answer will be no.

Exatly, no citations.

Originally posted by FabianFnas
"... annotating every move ..."

It would be great if RHP had a feature for this. Like being able to store private comments for each move. (Like the Notebook, but the existing one is limited in space and only one for the entire game.)

If I could annotate every move as it goes, and it is stored in the PGN (for my eyes only of course), then I would be more than happy!

I agree that would be nice, but I find it's actually better to just use something like ChessDb, ChessBase, etc. Sure, you have to duplicate the move in two places, but it's not an issue and you get all the proper support of a chess database.

If RHP did decide to add support for adding proper game commentary, I would hope they'd offer the ability to download all the PGNs of your games so that you could keep them in your own database.

Originally posted by diskamyl
oh my...

my unconscious annoyance by Silman is getting more and more conscious everyday.

the advice that you have quoted is simply taken from Kotov's "think like a grandmaster."

I'd ask if any citations were made, but I know the answer will be no.

That might be true, but I'm not sure that's a fair assessment. Kotov wasn't likely the first person to consider this very simple blunder checking thought process, nor was he probably the first person to write it down. It's so obvious, so pervasive in almost every intermediate players mind that Silman might have very well even come up with it on his own. We're not talking about two people "discovering" E=mc^2 here.

Originally posted by Chesswick
I agree that would be nice, but I find it's actually better to just use something like ChessDb, ChessBase, etc. Sure, you have to duplicate the move in two places, but it's not an issue and you get all the proper support of a chess database.

If RHP did decide to add support for adding proper game commentary, I would hope they'd offer the ability to download all the PGNs of your games so that you could keep them in your own database.

Annotating every move is a great idea.

Chesswick,
You can download your games in PGN format right now. I believe it's njust limited to 100 games at a time. Use the "Email Games" link on you My Games page.

Originally posted by ivan2908
Take it to the site ideas I will be happy to support it too. I would like to put my games in Fritz database and annotating it there (OF COURSE the engine would be switch off then). Is that allowed at all? If no, I will just take pen, some papper and my fancy wood chess 😛

I've already done it, in Thread 76079.

Russ even says the idea now is at his to-do list.

Originally posted by ivan2908
One question: I think there was some argue months ago, RahimK vs someone about slow vs fast tactics.

I'll say that you should do all kinds of tactics. I don't use CTS much cause I don't have the time to do it so I can't really say nothing about it. But I think that the most important thing in tactics is for the motives to sink in. And since here at RHP we play CC it doesn't really matter if you see the tactical shot in the blink of an eye or take a day to spot it. But I guess with training eventually tactical motives will be very obvious to you.

In this game Game 4284830 my last move took something like a day because I was looking for a sac that ended up in mate and couldn't find it. But eventually I saw the move that would win a queen for a rook! and by looking deeper at the position I saw that with perfect play by his side I could even go to win both his knights stranded on the queen side.

One other site that I use to study tactics is http://www.chesstactics.org/ they have lots of examples and the tactical themes are very well explained too.

Originally posted by Chesswick
That might be true, but I'm not sure that's a fair assessment. Kotov wasn't likely the first person to consider this very simple blunder checking thought process, nor was he probably the first person to write it down. It's so obvious, so pervasive in almost every intermediate players mind that Silman might have very well even come up with it on his own. We're not talking about two people "discovering" E=mc^2 here.

there's a misunderstanding here. of course blunder checking is a very general idea and needs no citations, what I was referring to was the advice of writing down your move before you make it on the board.

I think that sounds pretty original, and Kotov himself was calling it the "Blumenfeld's Rule". (Blumenfeld is the guy who told him to do this.)

Originally posted by ivan2908
(Nearing 5000 on CTS, another 100000 and I'll beat Wormwood 😛)



One question: I think there was some argue months ago, RahimK vs someone about slow vs fast tactics.

I resolve 50 percent on CTS following my intuition, there is no always time for calculation. Should I add slow and harder tactics training to my CTS fanatism?

but I'll be at 200,000 when you get to 100,000. 🙂


yea, the slow vs. fast tactics was and old thing with me and rahim having fun. he was for slow tactics & I was for fast. and you can check our ratings to see who won. 🙂

just kidding with the ratings though, rahim never stabilized his rating here. he'd be 2000+ if he did.

but the bottom line is, both fast & slow tactics improve different aspects of tactical vision. fast tactics train you more to spot tactics from a position, where as slow tactics train you to calculate them correctly. so you should do both, in some form. (- you can for example substitute fast tactics with blitz, and slow tactics with slow tactical games. the downside of full games is that you get exposed to just a fraction of the amount of tactics you get doing problems, but the upside is you get much more than just the narrow area of tactics.)

doing only fast tactics has worked well for me, slow tactics worked well for rahim. but you have to remember that I've got a lot of slow training playing here, so it probably kind of balances my fast tactics a bit.

one final thought: you can't calculate a tactic correctly if you don't spot it first.

I hate d4 when I am black ! I play Nimzo-Indian, but I hate it! Is there some sound unsymetrical alternative ? Is Benoni sound? Thanks