play level learning

When, say, a chess instructor is giving someone private lessons, and the tutor presents games as examples of different aspects of the games, is it better to show that player a game between grandmasters that shows the principle? or a game between two players of approximately the same level as the person you're trying to teach?

For example, you're trying to help a rated 1500 player develop his ability to attack a weak king. Do you show that 1500 player one of Kasparov's brilliant (yet, in the eyes of a 1500, complex) attacks, or show him a game between two 1600s which may not be so brilliant, yet it would have errors that the 1500 might make for the tutor to point out?

Originally posted by rubberjaw30
When, say, a chess instructor is giving someone private lessons, and the tutor presents games as examples of different aspects of the games, is it better to show that player a game between grandmasters that shows the principle? or a game between two players of approximately the same level as the person you're trying to teach?

For example, you're tryin e so brilliant, yet it would have errors that the 1500 might make for the tutor to point out?

I personally find a game by Tal and watch their eyes bulge... then complain for the next month that their knight ISN'T worth my wing pawn 😛.

edit - yeah.. to answer ur question.. I prefer using GM games for everything.. or teaching the way I learned.. by studying the moves I wanted to make via fritz. (or an apparently 'bugged' version of crafty 🙄)

Why go over grandmaster games? Have them bring in their games and show them better moves and explain why and say something positive about the game. Also play them at games and after the game show them how they could better themselves. I did that with wittywonka for about 5 months before he hit 1600.

I think you would have to do a little of both. Grandmaster games are better in terms of developing some pattern recognition for the position, because if you remember anything, you want to remember the best possible moves, not mediocre ones. On the other hand, 1600s will make mistakes that GMs will never make, and you have to know how to exploit those as well.

However, I'd probably agree that it's enough to just go over the player's own games for the lower-rating stuff and then use GM games to start building positional knowledge and pattern recognition, etc.

Dan Heisman is always a good source on this kind of thing. He recommends four "homeworks" for improvement: quickly going over annotated master games, playing slow games (and reviewing them as much as possible, of course), doing tactics problems and reading general info about chess.

I think this is also why he recommends playing only about 65% of your games against opponents higher-rated than you. You still need that 35% against weaker opponents so you can learn to solidly refute the kinds of mistakes they commonly make.

Originally posted by kmac27
Why go over grandmaster games? Have them bring in their games and show them better moves and explain why and say something positive about the game. Also play them at games and after the game show them how they could better themselves. I did that with wittywonka for about 5 months before he hit 1600.

I agree with the logic of this entirely, but there's just one flaw that I see that I want you to explain.
What if you (inadvertantly) make faulty corrections?
This seems the plus for using GM games... you're using the thought of grandmasters to teach the 1600, instead of yours, which as I said, may contain errors. (now if you're a GM giving lessons, that's great, but this is more for the case of a 1700 teaching a 1500)

I would not mind making 1800 mistakes.

Originally posted by rubberjaw30
I agree with the logic of this entirely, but there's just one flaw that I see that I want you to explain.
What if you (inadvertantly) make faulty corrections?
This seems the plus for using GM games... you're using the thought of grandmasters to teach the 1600, instead of yours, which as I said, may contain errors. (now if you're a GM giving lessons, that's great, but this is more for the case of a 1700 teaching a 1500)

Something about GM games occurred to me when watching a video clip of Kramnik going over his game on Cludi's website. It finally dawned on me why GM moves often seem unfathomable. As I watched I saw Kramnik explain his moves not in terms of how the position appeared now but in terms of what the because position would be in two or three moves time.

So the GM moves are often related to potential positions that don't yet exist and may never exist. Another RHP player was explaining to me that when studying GM games and you come across a really good move it pays to go back a few moves to observe all the preparatory moves involved in setting it up.