Originally posted by giantsfan94707 This book has inspired me to work on the endgame rather than openings. What is the best endgame book for me? i range between 1600-1800
Join Personal Chess Training. And I've heard Silman's book on endgames is really good. But he's a big time douche.
would you please describe the book in a little detail? I like Waitzkin's approach to chess, and am considering ordering the book overseas, which would be pretty expensive.
The book is somewhat of a biography. So far it has explained his way of learning. It is important to undertand that you don't have a set skill level at anything. You are not good at anything or bad at anything. If you think of stuff like this it will mess you up. Basicly you just need to learn from your mistakes and you can always improve. And it has explained that it is important to not spend time on openings
Originally posted by giantsfan94707 It is important to undertand that you don't have a set skill level at anything. You are not good at anything or bad at anything. If you think of stuff like this it will mess you up.
Even though I haven't actually read the book; I consider Josh as kind of my teacher since I learned through his games in the chessmaster 6000. I learned a few tricks from his games; of course I did some reading on opennings and the book Bobby Fischer teaches chess.
I am now at 1800s not to bad if I say so myself for learning chess with a computer instead of a human 🙂
peace out
It's a good read and I'd recommend it although it won't be to everyones taste and it's not a chess instruction manual. There are no games and you don't need top be a chess player to read it.
It'll work best if you remove your cynical hat before getting into it as there is a fair bit of exposition of the wonderfulness of Josh Waitzkin and what might seem like excuses for the reason he didn't become the next Bobby Fishcher (Waitzkin was the subject of a popular film made by his father called "Searching For Bobby Fischer" and he gained a lot of publicity from this).
The bit I found most far fetched was his claim to have learned chess on the streets just from watching the hustlers play in the park. According to Yermolinkys's book "The Road To Chess Improvement" this idea of deep natural ability and learning just from watching is something of a fairy tale that GM's would like you to believe. So I was disappointed that our Josh never told the story of how someone explained the movement of the knight to him and so on. So maybe this is a kid from a comfortable background trying to lay claim to the humble and raw beginnings. But then again maybe he was just telling it how it was...and it was a story well told either way. And there was a lot to indicate that he both genuine and someone you would enjoy meeting.
His take on openings is that it is like a sea of knowledge that you can drown in whereas his passion lay in the dynamics of the main battle of the middle game and ending. He talks passionately about his love of the game and losing hours on a position getting in the zone as athletes might say - searching for the truth.
Perhaps this preference for creativity over memorization is why he didn't become a super GM. I've been reading through the book co-written by Kramniks team on Kramniks defeat of Kasparov and on to his world championship victory and deep research into openings is where they spend a lot of their time. So I am now of the opinion that what is good for Super GM's (in terms of study) is not necessarily right for club players...and in this sense I very much agree with Josh Waitzkins views.
And Josh writes well and there are some memorable moments in the book. I particularly like the story of when he witnessed a road accident and turned this into a memorable chess lesson about not letting one mistake lead onto another. His ability to coach a college chess team is one of his achievements that I personally admired and made me warm to his character and this outweighed the elements I felt more skeptical about.
One of the insights that most impressed me was the sense he gives about the depth of study undertaken by top players.
I found the section on his rise in the art of Tai Chi less interesting so I sort of skim read this part.
Overall it was an easy enjoyable read and I got through it in a few days.
The Art of Learning By Josh Waitzkin
22 May '08 04:16
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