Originally posted by robbie carrobieoh, I have nothing to say against the proportions. maybe tactics could be higher, but I don't know.
yes it would seem so on the surface, but perhaps Lasker was talking about someone under his tutorship, even so i am willing to concede that , it would be quite unusual unless the student had a special aptitude, however this was not the point, and its unfortunate that you picked up on that my friend, and i hope that it does not overshadow or even nega ...[text shortened]... some have very strong opinions , but so did the Nazis, that did not make them correct did it!
1 edit
Originally posted by robbie carrobieTalisman is well aware of the contents of that book as he leant it to me earlier this year! I think he has come to the same conclusion as I and that is such pronouncements make perfect sense to a world champion who is already blessed with remarkable vision and is not trying to acquire it. The problem that Talisman has had, like many players, is that he has gone to his local chess club, filled with all the tenets of positional chess thinking gleaned from the masters' primers and a few games on the internet, and been torn to pieces by hackers such as myself and stinsford, two players from this site I know he has played in real life. He has found in those games players who appear to have little understanding of positional chess as laid out in the books, but whose tactical understanding of the position at hand is much better. When we have one of our lunchtime skittles games and I try the Blackmar Diemer or the Halloween Gambit he has to think tactically or he won't have to think at all. When he goes through the game after with the stronger players at his club, as I do with mine, we find they are talking in terms of the specific variations they saw, not in terms of the positional features. Robbie, that is why he says what he says because he sees it his club chess, getting beaten by players like me, though rated much higher than him, who are basically stumbling from cheapo to cheapo, who lack the vision and thus the positional control to make a "better placed knight" count in a thirty five move club game. This is the real world, not the higher planes of grandmaster chess, sanitised for an adoring public.
i wonder then why Emmanuel Lasker, an old school player wrote the following in his book manual of chess
Chess rules and exercises - 5 hours
Elementary endings - 5 hours
Some openings - 10 hours
Combination - 20 hours
Positional play - 40 hours
Practical play with analysis - 120 hours
"Having spent 200 hours on the above, the young player, ly he had known, just think what he would have been able to achieve, world champion perhaps!
Originally posted by Noel Stumpitwow, thank you for this, and yes it would make sense to Lasker, as you say, already gifted with 'vision', and i thank you also for keeping my feet firmly on the ground, you are correct and i may yet realise, but lord knows ive fought against it, that tactics at my pathetic level are the deciding factor in the majority of cases, even when following the games of grandmasters this is generally the case, the tactics just seem to come much later after the jostling for position has occurred, however, to state that a chess game, for a human, is just one big tactic i have to say is highly controversial and arguable at the very least, however, and i must say this, that i play the majority of my games against computers, being somewhat remote and there being no chess club in my small town it is inevitable, however, it is theoretically true that pure tactics can win outright, no question about it, but we are human and play like humans and strategy and positional concepts are innately human, and if we are to progress, can we simply forget about them?
Talisman is well aware of the contents of that book as he leant it to me earlier this year! I think he has come to the same conclusion as I and that is such pronouncements make perfect sense to a world champion who is already blessed with remarkable vision and is not trying to acquire it. The problem that Talisman has had, like many players, is that he ...[text shortened]... the real world, not the higher planes of grandmaster chess, sanitised for an adoring public.
2 edits
Originally posted by robbie carrobieNo, but until you stop falling for three movers whilst you are gainfully "pushing your queenside pawn majority" or "exploiting your opponents pawn weakness" you will not progress.
but we are human and play like humans and strategy and positional concepts are innately human, and if we are to progress, can we simply forget about them?
What does it mean anyway. Exploit a pawn weakness may mean - hey there's a good chance you can win a pawn here so you then start looking at the tactical process that might bring it about. Weak dark squares on the kingside probably means there is a good chance of delivering a checkmate but tells you almost nothing about how that will happen.
The point is that such strategies may take 30 moves to bring to fruition. That is one hell of a lot of moves to potentially see and thus the words "exploiting a pawn weakness" summarises in one phrase an awful lot of blood sweat and tears at the board, and a lot of analysis of variations that prove that "strategy" was correct and that it leads to an inevitable win. It is no great leap then to think of it as one tactical process, each feature of which is considered at each turn. Positional chess may be no more than a guess based on experience and sometimes, like Talisman, I am given to wonder if it really exists at all.
Edit: "Positional chess" replaces the word "Strategy" in the last sentence.
Originally posted by robbie carrobieThis is off-topic, but perhaps worth mentioning. In the recent ChessCafe review of the new figurine algebraic edition of St. Petersburg 1909, the reviewer mentioned that in a couple of months, a new edition of Lasker's Manual of Chess will be released - in algebraic notation! (I don't know whether it will be in figurine algebraic or English algebraic.) The publisher will be Russell Enterprises. The book will be a bit pricey, about $30 USD retail and about $20 USD via Amazon USA. But, the positives! - 350 pages, algebraic notation, foreward by Dvoretsky, some extra photos of Lasker and his contemporaries, and a new "Lasker Lore" feature.
i wonder then why Emmanuel Lasker, an old school player wrote the following in his book manual of chess
Chess rules and exercises - 5 hours
Elementary endings - 5 hours
Some openings - 10 hours
Combination - 20 hours
Positional play - 40 hours
Practical play with analysis - 120 hours
"Having spent 200 hours on the above, the young player, ...[text shortened]... ly he had known, just think what he would have been able to achieve, world champion perhaps!
Originally posted by ivan2908Chess in some ways is like other life activities, say going to the gym. No one can go to the gym and bench a ton of weight without starting off with the basics.
Andersenn, Morphy, Capablanca, Lasker, Steinitz, bla bla bla..
So what are we missing ? It seems to me that quality of the learning decreased while we are bombarded with more and more informations every day and a bunch of new books and software all of them claiming in their preface "this is the right way because bla bla".
Similarly why do you think we should have it on a plate because we have a DVD with all the GM games? Would having a DVD of the strongest guy in the world benching 500lbs mean you can automatically do the same?
- Joined
- 20 Jan 07
- Moves
- 24972
Originally posted by Noel StumpitYes indeed Noel, you are right on the money! I have most definitely struggled with the most vexing subject: Chess improvement. You reintroduced me to the royal game some 3 years ago after a lay off of over 20 years and it really hasn't been easy. Up until about 6 months ago i was relentlessly studying "THE BOOKS" i got through a sea of them. Silman, Pachman, Stean's Simple Chess, Kotov and Keres Art of Midlegame to name but a few. I studied master game after master game and still it got me nowhere. A foray in to the the writing of CJS Purdy and a look at some of Morphy's masterpieces did more for my game than anything but still i was stuck at the club Patzer end of the scale. I recently started to flex the old mental muscles by studying chess problems and playing against strong computer programmes which i feel has helped to a degree. I look a the game in a more rule independant fashion and concentrate on piece activity and tactical threats more than anything else.
Talisman is well aware of the contents of that book as he leant it to me earlier this year! I think he has come to the same conclusion as I and that is such pronouncements make perfect sense to a world champion who is already blessed with remarkable vision and is not trying to acquire it. The problem that Talisman has had, like many players, is that he ...[text shortened]... the real world, not the higher planes of grandmaster chess, sanitised for an adoring public.
I certainly feel i get a deeper understanding of the game by letting my mind wander away from all the rules that i've been brainwashed by over the past couple of years but hey; I don't really see any great improvement coming my way at present. Still i keep trying!
Originally posted by ivan2908Good they may be but I imagine Kramnik, Kasparov, Anand, Topolov and Short, bla bla bla would all destroy them because they have had these resources and will avoid bad opening lines and outplay them in the endings.
Andersenn, Morphy, Capablanca, Lasker, Steinitz, bla bla bla
They didn't have the following learing resources, as far as I can see ;
* Chessbase
* Enormous amount of reachable opening theory
* Chess tactics servers
* Chessmaster 10th tutorials
* CC internet sites
* Blitz internet sites
* Vibrant and active chess forums to clearify they doubts an ...[text shortened]... oronic half flip coin chess. Same with xxxxx of other players. Where is the secret, huh ?