I work harder for an audience...
So since I have started this blog I have had a renewed flame for chess. I had gotten to a point where the material seemed pointless but now that I have found a place to put my frustrations and insights I want to keep going. I was really considering slowing down with chess. I haven't really revealed much of my normal life. But I finished my BBA in Finance in less than four years and right now I'm working but I will be returning to school shortly for an MBA/JD. I have never really focused as much energy as I should have on school or on chess, kind of bouncing back and forth between the two and then following random paths as they crossed mine. But I have a 167 LSAT, 95th percentile, which pretty much guarantees me entry into a top tier law school, so eventually I should probably follow that path. The problem is that I don't really want to go to law school and start a career and a life that is that intense without at least earning a title (or convincing myself that I will not be able to keep improving). I have exceptional chess vision and I have always maintained that learning chess at a young age and teaching myself to study chess has allowed me to learn other concepts more quickly and to have a greater appreciation for logic and reason. I have always wanted to have at least a six month or one year period of just pure chess work, but I don't know if I'll every be able to get it. I think the best place for it is Europe, although New York also seems to have a pretty significant chess culture. I had almost given up on a "chess career", more likely chess sabbatical :), but now that I have somewhere to actually post my work and talk about what I am doing I am actually excited about the work because I have found other people that are doing the same thing.
A lot of books came off my shelf this last week. A lot of games from different time periods and different authors. That's how I like it, an abundance of positions from an abundance of sources. At least to start. From now on I really need a more focused plan. I'm jumping from book to book trying to figure out what I actually want to read. Chess Strategy in Action is priority number one. It will ground me for a little bit and start me off on the right track. Really I am facing no problems in the great majority of positions I have been in in the last few months. I've been playing some pretty good chess. I'm 19-4 in rated games since I moved back to Reno. That's including the win against Garingo and the loss to Parreira on Thursday. I have been having problems committing to complicated positions, I think that this reflects the quality of opponent I have faced in recent months. There's no reason for me to take a complicated position against a player that is truly weaker. For instance of my five wins at the WSO (I lost one game in 11 moves!!!) I would say that 3 of them were completely drawn endgames, and I just outplayed my opponent from that point. Now those were A players, and two of them were undefeated in the later rounds. So I am not afraid to go into an endgame as long as I see that I will still be able to find some play. The problem with this strategy is that as I face higher rated players in the coming months (I will have to move up to expert eventually) I will not be able to win against more stubborn opposition and I am going to have to bring back the creativity that I have been suppressing to win games on pure technique. I get into bad slumps sometimes, especially on ICC (my handle is macdre by the way if anyone wants to play sometime), where I am playing really well but I just can't win a game. It's almost as if I put on some autopilot that is a result of having seen a similar position or theme a few times but not really enough to understand it and I just play natural moves and ignore my opponent completely. I just stop working on the game, a lot of times if it is online I start switching windows. I would say that I lose more games because of a shotty effort than from actually getting outplayed. These games are also a product of my suppressed creativity. I think I will dig up a game and give an example in a post this week. When I was seeing Shulman he wanted me to do 10-15 studies a week, (he used to go over studies with me after my hour was up for an extra hour, we would just put the position on the board and take 10 minutes each, it was interesting). I think that the purpose of this is to stimulate creative solutions, as precision and use of many conflicting and overlapping chess concepts is required to solve these types of problems. Maybe I should bring out the Nunn book Solving in Style, that has a lot of good studies in it. Also a lot of my best work has been creating databases (25-100 games) in a specific opening and running through it to get an idea of typical tactical and strategic themes, piece placement, standard exchanges, pawn structures, endgames, etc. I just haven't committed to any openings lately and I don't know what I want to do with my repertoire on both sides. I don't even know what to work on. The match with Garingo will force me to do some intense homework in a few good lines, but I need a broader approach.
I think I will read Secrets of Chess Transformations, by Marovic. Part of a superb four part series on middlegame play. I highly recommend Dynamic Pawn Play in Chess also, but the other two books deal with topics that are discussed in several sources so I don't think that I will get them. This book talks a little bit about converting a space advantage, and then devotes a heavy majority of the discussion to "Real Sacrifices" which the author defines as sacrifices without immediate compensation. Positional sacrifices in essence. I feel that against stronger opposition these types of sacrifices are essential to understand. I cannot tell you how many times I have gotten into a position where I do not feel like there is a way to improve without some kind of material sacrifice, only to shy away because I do not feel comfortable and find that it was indeed sound after the game. On one hand it is good to know that my instincts are good. But I am so cautious sometimes, especially considering my aggressive style. I need to add some flair into my game and one reason that I hadn't read this book is that I didn't feel it was necessary, I felt that there were more pressing things to learn. But now I have gotten to a point where in almost every game I feel that a more revolutionary change in the position is necessary to find what i want. I'm tired of playing boring positions just because neither player is willing to take any risk and I'm tired of playing dead drawn endings when at least I could be playing unbalanced endings. These are the positions that really test an opponent.
Anyways this was a long rant that started as appreciation for the blog community but then got severely sidetracked. Kind of like me trying to stay on one book...
A lot of books came off my shelf this last week. A lot of games from different time periods and different authors. That's how I like it, an abundance of positions from an abundance of sources. At least to start. From now on I really need a more focused plan. I'm jumping from book to book trying to figure out what I actually want to read. Chess Strategy in Action is priority number one. It will ground me for a little bit and start me off on the right track. Really I am facing no problems in the great majority of positions I have been in in the last few months. I've been playing some pretty good chess. I'm 19-4 in rated games since I moved back to Reno. That's including the win against Garingo and the loss to Parreira on Thursday. I have been having problems committing to complicated positions, I think that this reflects the quality of opponent I have faced in recent months. There's no reason for me to take a complicated position against a player that is truly weaker. For instance of my five wins at the WSO (I lost one game in 11 moves!!!) I would say that 3 of them were completely drawn endgames, and I just outplayed my opponent from that point. Now those were A players, and two of them were undefeated in the later rounds. So I am not afraid to go into an endgame as long as I see that I will still be able to find some play. The problem with this strategy is that as I face higher rated players in the coming months (I will have to move up to expert eventually) I will not be able to win against more stubborn opposition and I am going to have to bring back the creativity that I have been suppressing to win games on pure technique. I get into bad slumps sometimes, especially on ICC (my handle is macdre by the way if anyone wants to play sometime), where I am playing really well but I just can't win a game. It's almost as if I put on some autopilot that is a result of having seen a similar position or theme a few times but not really enough to understand it and I just play natural moves and ignore my opponent completely. I just stop working on the game, a lot of times if it is online I start switching windows. I would say that I lose more games because of a shotty effort than from actually getting outplayed. These games are also a product of my suppressed creativity. I think I will dig up a game and give an example in a post this week. When I was seeing Shulman he wanted me to do 10-15 studies a week, (he used to go over studies with me after my hour was up for an extra hour, we would just put the position on the board and take 10 minutes each, it was interesting). I think that the purpose of this is to stimulate creative solutions, as precision and use of many conflicting and overlapping chess concepts is required to solve these types of problems. Maybe I should bring out the Nunn book Solving in Style, that has a lot of good studies in it. Also a lot of my best work has been creating databases (25-100 games) in a specific opening and running through it to get an idea of typical tactical and strategic themes, piece placement, standard exchanges, pawn structures, endgames, etc. I just haven't committed to any openings lately and I don't know what I want to do with my repertoire on both sides. I don't even know what to work on. The match with Garingo will force me to do some intense homework in a few good lines, but I need a broader approach.
I think I will read Secrets of Chess Transformations, by Marovic. Part of a superb four part series on middlegame play. I highly recommend Dynamic Pawn Play in Chess also, but the other two books deal with topics that are discussed in several sources so I don't think that I will get them. This book talks a little bit about converting a space advantage, and then devotes a heavy majority of the discussion to "Real Sacrifices" which the author defines as sacrifices without immediate compensation. Positional sacrifices in essence. I feel that against stronger opposition these types of sacrifices are essential to understand. I cannot tell you how many times I have gotten into a position where I do not feel like there is a way to improve without some kind of material sacrifice, only to shy away because I do not feel comfortable and find that it was indeed sound after the game. On one hand it is good to know that my instincts are good. But I am so cautious sometimes, especially considering my aggressive style. I need to add some flair into my game and one reason that I hadn't read this book is that I didn't feel it was necessary, I felt that there were more pressing things to learn. But now I have gotten to a point where in almost every game I feel that a more revolutionary change in the position is necessary to find what i want. I'm tired of playing boring positions just because neither player is willing to take any risk and I'm tired of playing dead drawn endings when at least I could be playing unbalanced endings. These are the positions that really test an opponent.
Anyways this was a long rant that started as appreciation for the blog community but then got severely sidetracked. Kind of like me trying to stay on one book...
I have an extensive library at home myself--In fact, I have a Classical Education and most of the great literary works of Western Civilization sit on my shelves in some translation or other. I sometimes even have multiple translations simply because I feel that they "cut it."
Whatever doesn't cut it, doesn't sit on my shelves. Recently, I have started a program of going through my chess books and reevaluating them. If they do not cause me to win games, they got to go, since I want results!
I approve of your building a games database. I have started to do that myself, but I base mine not on chess concepts because I feel that every game has multiple concepts that can be useful. Instead, I base mine on the Philosophy branch of "Aesthetics", The art of what is beautiful. Why? It is because what is attractive in one way or another is likely to stay in your head!
So when I choose a game for my database, it has to appeal to my own sense of Aesthetics. If it doesn't, it's just an ordinary game-maybe it makes it later as I get stronger or never at all.
Studies have always been part of my training program as they always give me ideas over the board. My favorite study composers are: Pogosjanz, Nadareischvili, Korolkov, Kasparyan, Zahodjakin and several others. Here is where I take a page from Anatoly Karpov, who says: "It is no accident that all the World Champions and great players have been interested in Studies."
I wasn't sure why Karpov would say that, but then I was playing in a tournament and was going over Zahodjakin Studies prior to the tournament. I was amazed at one of my victories! It had the exact same theme as one of the Zahodjakin Studies I went over!! The only thing different of course, was that the position was different. My subconscious had picked it up!
The same thing happened to me when I had studied a "game extract" (Andreiev vs. Dolookhanov, Leningrad, 1935). I had won the game on practically the exact same tactic, but the position was different. Another case of the subconscious at work!
Now I search for these kinds of things and make an effort to write down what I study and then make comparisons to my wins. Sometimes I find nothing, but every now and then, I find what I call a necessary item to catalogue and these items always get studied regardless of how much or how little time I have before a tournament.
As far as mundane lines of play or what openings to play, I think all chess players have this problem from time to time and it shows when they vary their opening repertoires. Lately, I haven't been overly excited about my Opening Repertoire either.
The latter half of this year, I haven't been impressed with the opening play of Hong, Fleming, Peterson, Pearson, Alsasua or Case as I feel that they play things that are contrary to how I perceive them as players.
On the other hand, they may have this to say about me also.
Choosing an opening repertoire is actually pretty difficult. For one thing, each moment changes you and for another, your opening play should fit your character.
I have never like the openings after 1.e4 when Black responds with 1...e5. I feel White has nothing and is struggling to find a power line like the Queen's Gambit, which White has after playing 1. d4.
But when I dropped the Caro-Kann in favor of 1...e5, I gained new respect for the Ruy Lopez. It took me studying the Black side to appreciate the merits of the White side.
It's good that you're playing a match with Garingo. I feel many of our players are neglecting the merits of match play. In the end, they will pay for this, but here is not the time or place to explain it to them. I will say, however, that if you want a match with one of the stronger players, I can say for certain that neither Peterson, Shoemaker, or Case fear anyone over the board and will gladly play you a match whenever you feel you need one. I also think that Garingo or Alsasua would never back down either and would play also.
Those are some of my insights and some of my training secrets, but certainly whatever works should be repeated.
However, you also seem very "confident" in yourself, to say the least. Deservedly so, I might add, you have a lot to be proud of. The difference between you and Chessloser is that he's an underdog -- an everyman that the average player can relate to (and he's just a funny bugger to boot).
I look forward to following your career if you continue to blog :)
Chris
Thanks for taking interest, and thank you for complimenting my game. I think that my confidence in myself and my ability is what keeps me going. I used to just talk about how much better of a player I could be and I wouldn't work and I would lose games. Now I just work hard and play good chess. I'll mouth off from time to time, but I have taken the emotion and the arrogance out of my game, now I just look for good moves. I know if I work hard I see results. I just have to get myself to work.