Ye Olde Donut Shoppe

When HyperMagnus decided to start a new Teamleague newsletter ("Wasn't me", or, rather, it wasn't just me -HM), and asked me to contribute something, I first wanted to analyze some game or another.  But does this really help many Teamleague players?  I am not sure how many people get deep into my annotations; I suspect that most readers blitz through the games, groan at a few jokes, and then log onto FICS and play another game.  I’d like to write something a little more effective, something that can really help a few chess players – including myself, I hope.

Plenty of us can’t seem to put the mouse down, and I myself have amassed FICS 3 0 and 15 0 games like pennies.  You can improve that way, certainly, and very few players improve without constant practice.  But most players of all levels spend a little time “studying” chess as well.  If you’re listening to the ‘normal’ advice, probably you do tactics problems, study your own games, and read books.  How well is this working?  Are you as good as you want to be - as good as you feel you should be?  Is anyone? Maybe it’s time to try something new, to break the monotony if nothing else.  There are tons of improvement ideas out there, and they don’t require new books or programs. Our own games should provide plenty of study material, and there are tons games and analysis floating around the internet.

Therefore, I’m going to try a new study idea every other week, and challenge others to do the same thing – though remember that we use the words “other week” somewhat loosely here.  I intend to ask no more than thirty minutes of work from the reader, which precludes some of the most challenging study ideas.  Nevertheless, there are plenty of ideas to get into.  And, to be honest, even if I won’t ask others to do the same I will still try at least one or two of the more insane study ideas – and if anyone wants to join me that’s terrific.

In his book “Chess for Zebras”, Jonathan Rowson often discusses the skill-knowledge distinction.  We can spend so much time learning opening theory, middlegame ideas, and endgames – but then forget that we must still play chess.  When one sits down to “study chess”, he or she makes the assumption that chess is like a test in school - learn enough, remember enough, and then circle the right answers - but chess isn’t like that at all!  I am convinced that chess is much more like a sport, and even more like a learned skill (say, writing or acting) than school.  You don’t really improve by reading a book about writing, or by paying a teacher to tell you about writing.  In fact, every writing instructor that I’ve had bases the teaching around directing new training methods – “you don’t do this so well, do this exercise and we’ll talk”.  And of course anyone who plays basketball, my sport of choice, knows that you can’t learn to shoot a basketball from a book. But what do we chess players do? We read Nimzo, Watson, and Nunn expecting to be better players because we’ve “learned” something. The players who improve use more of their chess time to really work on their chess skills - visualization, calculation, intuition and planning to name a few.  There are tons of exercises designed to isolate some of these skills, so lets try them.

When I look at my own games, I usually try to do the work that everyone suggests: I get out the board, figure out where I messed up and try to analyze as much as I can myself. I try, but more often I play through ten or fifteen moves, get bored, eat a cheeseburger, and go straight to Fritz.  Well, I can definitely learn a few things from the monstrosity, but that doesn’t push my skill level. If I don’t spend time calculating and second-guessing – really working - I’m missing the point.  But if “doing as much work as possible” makes you groan as much as me, maybe there are some shortcuts that we can use.  Here’s another idea for studying your own games.

“Next, set up a database and call it ‘interesting games/positions’ or whatever you like.  And then the aim is to select games and positions that intrigue you – the more of your own games the better, but for this to work, at least some of the sources have to have answers, because you should have something to compare your work with…  In any case, the key is not the whole game but selecting one or two positions, setting the clock to a suitable amount of time – 20 minutes normally works for me, but whatever you decide, stick with it (be strict) and then just think and try to decide what to do.” 

This just sounds like fun to me.  Instead of trudging through the moss of boring positions in my games, I can play with the most interesting positions.  To hopefully kick-start this method of exercise, I found a terrific position from a Teamleague game; it should interest just about everyone, and I’d love to get as many people as possible looking at it.  I’d like to add one request to Rowson’s basic idea: When you’ve finished your exercise, write out your answer in relevant detail, and then give me a message or tell at the FICS. I’ll give you an email address, and you can send me your decision.  We’ll have a follow up column about the position, and include as many thoughts as possible.  I’ll make sure to include my own (I’ve done this exercise already), so that you guys will see how bad some 2000 players actually are.  I’ve used Rowson’s suggestion of a 20-minute time limit, but make sure to write down the time that you spent looking at the position.
Without details yet, here’s our position: