CT-Art 3.0 Resumption et al
CT-Art 3.0 torture chamber!
I started the first circle in the middle of July, and while I got as high as 2123 elo @ 85% by practice problem 225, of course, many bruises, dings, and dangs latter, and stoping and starting in "fits and starts" all summer, I am now firmly and conclusively set upon the road of the first circle and plan NOT to stop!
Today and yesterday I did practice problems 479-517 or 17 problems yesterday and today alike, and now am but 2002 elo @ 77%:
Level One: 95%
Level Two: 82% **Level Five: 81%
Level Three:67% *Level Six: 80% **** Level Eight:76%
Level Four: 67% *Level Seven: 65% * Level Nine: 57%
CTS:
Maybe I have overdone it ad naseum, reporting on percentages, and success, but did lay out a strong foundation. I still practice daily, and have played with a much lower tries handle, to see just what it takes to get 95 or 96% daily, without much regard (but some concern still) for rating, and, let me tell you, it is very, very hard. I take my hat off to all 94%+ users, 1,000 tries and up. Everyone says "oh I can do that, but choose not to!" But oh really???? Just try it! Inevitably we speed up when we think we know, and, believe me, those 5% of the times we think we do and do not, that alone counts as a 5% ding. Then another 2 or 3% due to oversight or true error. We can crawl so slow that "we cannot make a mistake", but then this is not real chess? Or it is.
dktransform is ready to start back soon, and start the climb to 87%, but the next 8,000 problems need to be more carefull. I do NOT want to--unlike others, you know who you are!--do another 28,000 problems just to do them, and feel that another 8,000 or 18,000 carefully will bare the most fruit. Sorry, but I firmly believe that as likeForest aptly said in his comment at CTS today, that 95% is more like "real chess", as Heisenman calls it at chessCafe.com
Believe you me, 100 a day--or as I did last week and before, 2,000 problems in eight days--done CAREFULLY is a lot more stress and taxing to the brain than 150 or 200 in slap dash form. Just ask likeforest or mousetrapper. It is the 16 ounce meateater version of tactics, or the top sirloin steak that you need to lay down from for a day after... the stomach is so full.
Books:
Like tempo and Mousetrapper, and Loomis, we have all read the books, maybe some more or less than others--in my case, ALL of them already... But we all have read Kotov or Silman, or whomever. As I recall, Jenefer Shihade in her interview at the Silman website says that (my paraphrase): "just to read ONE chess book, when you REALLY read it, takes a LONG time". Bingo! We all have done Pandolphini's Endgame Course, or Nimzovitsch or Aagaard. We all have read Renauld-Kahn's The Art of Attack. Of what value can I add that has not already been said 10,000 and much better by others, more nimble or articulate than I care to or can by me? So it seems to me, it is time for my own account of what I plan to do next, to broaden my discussion a bit, and in that sharing maybe contribute to our little "community of knowledge" here:
(i) 'Finishing school'
Finish:
Alburts, Chess Training Pocket Book.
I love this book, and in no way rebel against it. Everyone has a chess book that they hit so hard that they nearly destroyed it, well this is mine. All tatered in three months. I did the 300 positions without recourse to the text, and no am redoing it, and when in those 15% of instances where I am stumped, must resort to reading the notes. It is always a revelation. FYI, I have not cut corners, and when stumped would think nothing of staring at the position in the book, laying in bed, late at night, no matter how long it takes or however many days. I am at problem 64 and as soon as I complete the 300, will, without delay go back to:
Finish:
Averbakh's, Endings Essential Knowledge.
I have READ this book, exactly as I did with Pandolphini's Endgame Course, then the same, read Chernev's Practical Chess Endings. No board, just intense concentration. I only have maybe fifteen or twenty pages to go, but it gets thick at the end. At times am I certain that I fail to see it correctly? Yes, of course. But the exercise has great benefits, and, again, just as SamuraiChess raves about the delights and advantages of carrying around Blokh's Combinative Motifs or the printed version of CT-Art 3.0, so for me, getting away at times from CTS or CT-Art 3.0 is a great comfort to me. How many hours do we spend HERE each day, at our pc's, staring at a LCD screen???
Read With a chess set and board:
Seirawan's, Winning Chess Endings.
What can I possibly say? As Einstein said that he felt that he was "standing on the shoulders of giants" after Newton and Mach and Laplace and Euler, so Yaz does what PEC and PCE did quite well, but only better, more clearly, so well. For me, this is catechism that is needed, to redo the theory with a board and with care. Exceptions and special cases so well explained by him, a, b, c files, etc.
(ii) 'Meat and Potatoes', all slowly with a board, no fast food reading:
Muller, Secrets of Pawn Endings.
My coach said to my saying that I already did all this in PEC, PCE, and now EEK, "correct, but this is more than endings. This is learning to calculate in it's most exact and purest form. And from that you will gain much great confidence" (in your calculating abilities). Based on CT-Art 3.0 and what it did there, how can I doubt this???? No. Lets do it I say. Once I am about half way through this, since we all need a bit of air, I will then introduce it's companion in contrast;
Shereshsky's Endgame Strategy.
I love this book. I worship at it's alter. This is the book. The big Russian book. The book.
After above, read to fill out previous readings of Pachman, Tisdahl, Nimzovitsch, Silman, Kotov, et al, finally read:
Euwe/Kramer The Middlegame Books One, and Two.
Silman raves about this book. The plethora of diagrams quenches my thirst to be able to study laying down or at the beach, or at a stop light driving. Larsen said in Keene's Nimzovitsch A Reappraisal that "at a certain point in chess, that everything that Euwe says there is a lie", but I am not at the point yet that I can know that.
Soltis, Pawn Structure in Chess.
Such a nice book. Aught to fit well after Mueller, Shereshevsky, and Euwe as regards long term planning.
(iii) 'More Big Stuff'
Reinfeld, 1001 Winning Sacrifices and Combinations, and
1001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmate.
My coach says that these are unnecessary after CT-Art 3.0, but I love to carry stuff around. I will absorb these like candies, one bite at a time. The incrementalist approach (no board in this instance but all else supra and infra use board now).
Keres/Kotov.
Art of the Middlegame
More Silman raves. Such a nice little book. Since I read so many books without a board, this one also deserves a board, and so few diagrams. Keres was the prince of chess.
Dvoretsky, Endgame Manual.
Much of this here consists of books. But this one, in addition to the physical book, I have the cbv file of, given to me by my coach. I emailed Yasser the day I got the much anticipated printed edition before any of us ever really got to see it, and asked if he wanted me to bring it, the day of our next "walk around Greenlake", a popular place to walk in Seattle we always go to, and well within view of many *himmmmm* on roller skates and other **fitness** endeavors, involving tiny shorts and ... he said, "you know, mine came today too". A man needs blood.
(iv) 'Cannonical'
Muller, Fundamental Chess Endings
Blokh, Combinative Motifs (The Illiad, Inferno, Shakespear, Faust, and Proust of combo's)
I really want to chew down on the two 1001 books first, quickly, so this naturally is the product thereafer.
Gelfer, Positional Chess Handbook (a Tisdahl IYCN rave)
This books is to positional chess, what Blokh's is to tactics.
(v) 'Other, Advanced'
I do not believe any of us except in the rarest of instances can make long range plans. We can approximate them, but it all changes. Jobs change, our bodies, we get married or have children, we age, we get new passions, etc. But On my shelf in sequence near by [I do arrange them sequentially]:
Ziyatdinov, GM Ram
Emms, Ultimate Chess Puzzle Book
Dvoretsky, School of Excellence, Tactics (another Tisdahl rave, from IYCN)
Damsky, Chess Brilliancy
Vukovic, Art of Attack
Nunn, Nunn's Chess Openings
(vi) 'Extensive'
To some degree, the more you add, the less you have. But dreams cannot hurt. Schopenhauer once aptly said: "The ownership of books is not to be confused with the appropriation of their contents". It is well known tht Psakhis became a GM by dedicating himself exclusively and soley to the total absorbtion of just 200 Informator Games, as Thoreau only Homer in Greek, and Nineteenth century pragmatist philosopher and New Englander/ Harvard alumnai C.S. Pierce to "four hours reading per day of Kants Critique of Pure Reason" till he "had almost memorized it in its entirety", so, at a certain point, as architect Mies Van Der Rhone once said, "less is more":
Agur, Bobby Fischer, His Approach to Chess (an Aagaard rave)
Tartakower, 500 Master Games (the older endroads of the opening tree before building a reporator)
Dvoretsky, School of Excellence, Strategy
OBP:
Play 100 Standard games 25/10 or 30: 40at ICC and analysis them thoroughly.
Establish USCF Rating once I leave my most thoroughtly exhausting crazy retail job, in which weekends off are de rigour.
Play 400 rapid, 6/12 or 0:14 min for 40 moves.
Warm ups with 3/8 or 8:20 for 40 moves, continued from present.
Goal 1800 Standard, ICC/ USCF
GM game review:
Continue my analysis of the games in Chernevs, Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played. I am on game 13. Only 49 more to go! I have already seen ALL these games, all 941 of them, Stohl, Praxis, Fischer 60, Greatest Games of Chess, Burgess, Creative Chess Strategy, et al, as I previously noted at Edwin Meyer DutchDefences big post on his books last month...
Thereafer, same for:
Nunn, Understanding Chess Move by Move (30)
Nunn, Secretes of Grandmaster Chess (24)
Timman, Art of Analysis (24)
Stohl, Instructive Modern Chess Masterpieces (50)
Romero, Creative Chess Strategy (55)
Burgess, The Worlds Greatest Chess Games (100). 345 games carefully viewed, repeated from among the 941 pgn's previously viewed.
Mountaineering...
Equity Trading/quantitative and predictive analysis...
Creative Writing/publishing/public speaking/mentoring/globalism...
Fine Cooking/fitness/health/wellness...
this aught to do for awhile? Oh, then relationships/marriage, and children, and home improvement...
and then ...
:)
I started the first circle in the middle of July, and while I got as high as 2123 elo @ 85% by practice problem 225, of course, many bruises, dings, and dangs latter, and stoping and starting in "fits and starts" all summer, I am now firmly and conclusively set upon the road of the first circle and plan NOT to stop!
Today and yesterday I did practice problems 479-517 or 17 problems yesterday and today alike, and now am but 2002 elo @ 77%:
Level One: 95%
Level Two: 82% **Level Five: 81%
Level Three:67% *Level Six: 80% **** Level Eight:76%
Level Four: 67% *Level Seven: 65% * Level Nine: 57%
CTS:
Maybe I have overdone it ad naseum, reporting on percentages, and success, but did lay out a strong foundation. I still practice daily, and have played with a much lower tries handle, to see just what it takes to get 95 or 96% daily, without much regard (but some concern still) for rating, and, let me tell you, it is very, very hard. I take my hat off to all 94%+ users, 1,000 tries and up. Everyone says "oh I can do that, but choose not to!" But oh really???? Just try it! Inevitably we speed up when we think we know, and, believe me, those 5% of the times we think we do and do not, that alone counts as a 5% ding. Then another 2 or 3% due to oversight or true error. We can crawl so slow that "we cannot make a mistake", but then this is not real chess? Or it is.
dktransform is ready to start back soon, and start the climb to 87%, but the next 8,000 problems need to be more carefull. I do NOT want to--unlike others, you know who you are!--do another 28,000 problems just to do them, and feel that another 8,000 or 18,000 carefully will bare the most fruit. Sorry, but I firmly believe that as likeForest aptly said in his comment at CTS today, that 95% is more like "real chess", as Heisenman calls it at chessCafe.com
Believe you me, 100 a day--or as I did last week and before, 2,000 problems in eight days--done CAREFULLY is a lot more stress and taxing to the brain than 150 or 200 in slap dash form. Just ask likeforest or mousetrapper. It is the 16 ounce meateater version of tactics, or the top sirloin steak that you need to lay down from for a day after... the stomach is so full.
Books:
Like tempo and Mousetrapper, and Loomis, we have all read the books, maybe some more or less than others--in my case, ALL of them already... But we all have read Kotov or Silman, or whomever. As I recall, Jenefer Shihade in her interview at the Silman website says that (my paraphrase): "just to read ONE chess book, when you REALLY read it, takes a LONG time". Bingo! We all have done Pandolphini's Endgame Course, or Nimzovitsch or Aagaard. We all have read Renauld-Kahn's The Art of Attack. Of what value can I add that has not already been said 10,000 and much better by others, more nimble or articulate than I care to or can by me? So it seems to me, it is time for my own account of what I plan to do next, to broaden my discussion a bit, and in that sharing maybe contribute to our little "community of knowledge" here:
(i) 'Finishing school'
Finish:
Alburts, Chess Training Pocket Book.
I love this book, and in no way rebel against it. Everyone has a chess book that they hit so hard that they nearly destroyed it, well this is mine. All tatered in three months. I did the 300 positions without recourse to the text, and no am redoing it, and when in those 15% of instances where I am stumped, must resort to reading the notes. It is always a revelation. FYI, I have not cut corners, and when stumped would think nothing of staring at the position in the book, laying in bed, late at night, no matter how long it takes or however many days. I am at problem 64 and as soon as I complete the 300, will, without delay go back to:
Finish:
Averbakh's, Endings Essential Knowledge.
I have READ this book, exactly as I did with Pandolphini's Endgame Course, then the same, read Chernev's Practical Chess Endings. No board, just intense concentration. I only have maybe fifteen or twenty pages to go, but it gets thick at the end. At times am I certain that I fail to see it correctly? Yes, of course. But the exercise has great benefits, and, again, just as SamuraiChess raves about the delights and advantages of carrying around Blokh's Combinative Motifs or the printed version of CT-Art 3.0, so for me, getting away at times from CTS or CT-Art 3.0 is a great comfort to me. How many hours do we spend HERE each day, at our pc's, staring at a LCD screen???
Read With a chess set and board:
Seirawan's, Winning Chess Endings.
What can I possibly say? As Einstein said that he felt that he was "standing on the shoulders of giants" after Newton and Mach and Laplace and Euler, so Yaz does what PEC and PCE did quite well, but only better, more clearly, so well. For me, this is catechism that is needed, to redo the theory with a board and with care. Exceptions and special cases so well explained by him, a, b, c files, etc.
(ii) 'Meat and Potatoes', all slowly with a board, no fast food reading:
Muller, Secrets of Pawn Endings.
My coach said to my saying that I already did all this in PEC, PCE, and now EEK, "correct, but this is more than endings. This is learning to calculate in it's most exact and purest form. And from that you will gain much great confidence" (in your calculating abilities). Based on CT-Art 3.0 and what it did there, how can I doubt this???? No. Lets do it I say. Once I am about half way through this, since we all need a bit of air, I will then introduce it's companion in contrast;
Shereshsky's Endgame Strategy.
I love this book. I worship at it's alter. This is the book. The big Russian book. The book.
After above, read to fill out previous readings of Pachman, Tisdahl, Nimzovitsch, Silman, Kotov, et al, finally read:
Euwe/Kramer The Middlegame Books One, and Two.
Silman raves about this book. The plethora of diagrams quenches my thirst to be able to study laying down or at the beach, or at a stop light driving. Larsen said in Keene's Nimzovitsch A Reappraisal that "at a certain point in chess, that everything that Euwe says there is a lie", but I am not at the point yet that I can know that.
Soltis, Pawn Structure in Chess.
Such a nice book. Aught to fit well after Mueller, Shereshevsky, and Euwe as regards long term planning.
(iii) 'More Big Stuff'
Reinfeld, 1001 Winning Sacrifices and Combinations, and
1001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmate.
My coach says that these are unnecessary after CT-Art 3.0, but I love to carry stuff around. I will absorb these like candies, one bite at a time. The incrementalist approach (no board in this instance but all else supra and infra use board now).
Keres/Kotov.
Art of the Middlegame
More Silman raves. Such a nice little book. Since I read so many books without a board, this one also deserves a board, and so few diagrams. Keres was the prince of chess.
Dvoretsky, Endgame Manual.
Much of this here consists of books. But this one, in addition to the physical book, I have the cbv file of, given to me by my coach. I emailed Yasser the day I got the much anticipated printed edition before any of us ever really got to see it, and asked if he wanted me to bring it, the day of our next "walk around Greenlake", a popular place to walk in Seattle we always go to, and well within view of many *himmmmm* on roller skates and other **fitness** endeavors, involving tiny shorts and ... he said, "you know, mine came today too". A man needs blood.
(iv) 'Cannonical'
Muller, Fundamental Chess Endings
Blokh, Combinative Motifs (The Illiad, Inferno, Shakespear, Faust, and Proust of combo's)
I really want to chew down on the two 1001 books first, quickly, so this naturally is the product thereafer.
Gelfer, Positional Chess Handbook (a Tisdahl IYCN rave)
This books is to positional chess, what Blokh's is to tactics.
(v) 'Other, Advanced'
I do not believe any of us except in the rarest of instances can make long range plans. We can approximate them, but it all changes. Jobs change, our bodies, we get married or have children, we age, we get new passions, etc. But On my shelf in sequence near by [I do arrange them sequentially]:
Ziyatdinov, GM Ram
Emms, Ultimate Chess Puzzle Book
Dvoretsky, School of Excellence, Tactics (another Tisdahl rave, from IYCN)
Damsky, Chess Brilliancy
Vukovic, Art of Attack
Nunn, Nunn's Chess Openings
(vi) 'Extensive'
To some degree, the more you add, the less you have. But dreams cannot hurt. Schopenhauer once aptly said: "The ownership of books is not to be confused with the appropriation of their contents". It is well known tht Psakhis became a GM by dedicating himself exclusively and soley to the total absorbtion of just 200 Informator Games, as Thoreau only Homer in Greek, and Nineteenth century pragmatist philosopher and New Englander/ Harvard alumnai C.S. Pierce to "four hours reading per day of Kants Critique of Pure Reason" till he "had almost memorized it in its entirety", so, at a certain point, as architect Mies Van Der Rhone once said, "less is more":
Agur, Bobby Fischer, His Approach to Chess (an Aagaard rave)
Tartakower, 500 Master Games (the older endroads of the opening tree before building a reporator)
Dvoretsky, School of Excellence, Strategy
OBP:
Play 100 Standard games 25/10 or 30: 40at ICC and analysis them thoroughly.
Establish USCF Rating once I leave my most thoroughtly exhausting crazy retail job, in which weekends off are de rigour.
Play 400 rapid, 6/12 or 0:14 min for 40 moves.
Warm ups with 3/8 or 8:20 for 40 moves, continued from present.
Goal 1800 Standard, ICC/ USCF
GM game review:
Continue my analysis of the games in Chernevs, Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played. I am on game 13. Only 49 more to go! I have already seen ALL these games, all 941 of them, Stohl, Praxis, Fischer 60, Greatest Games of Chess, Burgess, Creative Chess Strategy, et al, as I previously noted at Edwin Meyer DutchDefences big post on his books last month...
Thereafer, same for:
Nunn, Understanding Chess Move by Move (30)
Nunn, Secretes of Grandmaster Chess (24)
Timman, Art of Analysis (24)
Stohl, Instructive Modern Chess Masterpieces (50)
Romero, Creative Chess Strategy (55)
Burgess, The Worlds Greatest Chess Games (100). 345 games carefully viewed, repeated from among the 941 pgn's previously viewed.
Mountaineering...
Equity Trading/quantitative and predictive analysis...
Creative Writing/publishing/public speaking/mentoring/globalism...
Fine Cooking/fitness/health/wellness...
this aught to do for awhile? Oh, then relationships/marriage, and children, and home improvement...
and then ...
:)
posted by transformation at 7:07 PM
15 Comments:
In terms of basic books : Chess amateur vs chessmaster by Euwe really gave me the ground rules of how chess is played by someone who has studied the game. This is one of the first books I read and played through the games over a 1/2 year period during lunch. Also I am glad you have pictures of happy smiling people once again. I found the hypo pictures a little disturbing. Good luck with Ct-art
I see by your success numbers you are scoring well for an early pass. I am almost done my first complete circle and it was not as painfull as I thought.
Jim
I'm amazed--you've read so many good chess books, and absorbing all that only gets one to 1650. You've perused Averbakh, Chernev, and Pandolfini on endgames... still so much to learn. It's common, even, from looking at other blogs. I guess that's a good thing. I won't master chess and get bored after a year.
But, if Yasser ever shows you the secret to mastering chess, be sure to pass it on! :)
My library is rather small:
*** Openings
Starting Out: The English
Starting Out: The Scandinavian
*** Middlegames
The Amateur Mind
Understanding Chess Move by Move
*** Endgames
Pandolfini's Endgame Course
Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual
I read the pawn endings 5-7 times, the rook endings 2-3 times, and I've read most of the rest at least once (in Pandolfini). I wouldn't say I mastered it, but I'm ready for a fresh approach.
Dvoretsky requires deep calculation just like Secrets of Pawn Endings. It's quite readable, but the studies are very difficult to solve. I'm having fun with it.
I faced the Saavedra Rook vs Pawn ending yesterday. If you've never seen it before, it's a neat study.
1.c7 Rd6+ 2.Kb5! Rd5+ 3.Kb4 Rd4+ 4.Kb3 Rd3+ 5. Kc2 Rd4 6.c8=Q Rc4+ 7.Qxc4 1/2-1/2
likeForests, to be very, very honest, i think that in addition to really truly loving the game, and attaining a very high rank from the backwaters of seattle, where youd try to play the lattest line of theory and no matter what you did, the soviets had all passed the games scores around to each other months before you could see it in informator or other publications in the much predated internet era, so that you could never be adequated prepared in THAT WAY, so you had to really train, very, very hard, in addition to so many persons in washington state here doing all they could to assist his development or helping him get to europe or go to tournements back east, but again, just as you were not in russia or europe, you were NOT in new york city or environs, i think that in addition to all that he was just plain smart, very, very smart. not in a brash way, but truly.
to this day, i am amazed by his stories of software ventures, publishing ventures, book ventures, deals, proposals to the mayor, the goodwill games, teaching studios, early chessMaster efforts, many famous wins that were loses because the rest of the big guns were all gunning for you, second to korchnoi because you impressed him, all that, but above and beyond that, he amazes me with references to mideast politics, chinese agriculture and migration patterns into cities from the farm belt, dimonds book collapse, mining and petrolieum magazine (he reads this stuff on precious metals and oil insider stuff), financial savy, stock savy, contract savy, diplomacy savy, all of it, and still manages to be a nice guy AND loves his wife very much!
so when i sought him out, it was via my proposal to be the fundraiser for the usChess Championship, the american foundation for chess, previously called the seattle foundation for chess, but the director didnt even want to meet me, odd, but i had raised $40,000,000 at first boutique firm 'Pipes Gaffry' then global powerhouse 'Migrane Stintly' :).
i studied with a guru throughout that time and, believe you me, they did not know what to do with me, they still dont in corporate america, but, you know what? it get sh_t done, i really get stuff done.
have you ever seen safety orange? the stuff road workers or hunters wear? at the end, when i was ranking 1, 3, or 5 depending how you measure it, out of 12,000 brokers in a major sales category, i gave up wearing suites and came in daily wearing saftey orange turtle necks. how long could i last???? but they never forgot me!
so instead i made a friend, first meeting for coffee, then persistence and a lot of walks and emails, and now much rich conversation about global and current affairs with someone who does not mind my ideosyncratic nature but appreciates it, lower case and all!
what is it that i sought?
chess knowledge? heck no. no, no, no.
i sought to learn from him as a diplomat, a polite civilized person who was in harmony with his world. and who is chearfull in a way i might never be.
always kind to children, and strangers, and affable.
so when he proposed prague, you see, it was his parting gift to chess without any aim to gain ANYTHING. HE HAD already made his...
this was his plan. a gift. truly. he told me this right after during a long walk at the ocean, i can see it like yesterday. we walked at the bi-annual low tide at the puget sound, and you could walk way out to the ocean, where its gentle slope was opened up for half a mile or 800 meters. the sun was out, a lovely day, and never to be forgotten.
and so now what do they do? fight over a comode room.
but let us forget, and be glad we aught to soon have unity, probably by K, when i favored T greatly, but how can i now???? fide set it up so that the loser was out, and now poetic justice?
let them play it out now.
I really like your rambling book list, I must look into some of those.
I confess to being a hopeless book collector; I probably have close to 300 chess books now in my library. But I just love to have books. Of these books, there are maybe 4 that I use intensively at present:
Chernev, Most Instructive Games
Seirawan, Winning Chess Tactics
Pandolfini, PEC
Gufeld, Opening Repertoire for the Attacking Player
I do use one openings book, something which I see you and likesforest both never mention. Perhaps it is a mistake on my part, but even as a lowly ranker I like to at least have a few ideas. But I spend 80% of my study time on tactics, I think.
baloner: I own two such books: "Starting Out: The English" & "The Scandinavian". I also have a program called Bookup Express that helps me track and train openings, but I limit these studies to 1-2 days per month.
takchess:
thank you. what is it about amateur vs chessmaster that you like, and, is there anything in it that isnt already well covered by the middlegame vol's I & II? euwe the school teacher, mathematician, gentleman! and gracious in extending a prompt rematch to alekhine, who got over the drink for it.
ct-art 3.0 practice problem 531 tonight about did me in. killer. so clear after you have seen it. i just knew the g1 square was weak, but couldnt find my way to it. 15 minutes staring! calculating 'every which way'.
likeforests:
this is nothing, how many you say... i am surrounded by 150' of books here, or 40 meters in this room i study in, i.e. seven translations of lao tzu's tao te ching, one copied by hand when i was 18, three or four homers, etc. as i age, i value reading a few books well more than many books cursorily. i once spent a year only reading thoreau's walden, then jung's memories, dreams, reflections, then sophicles, then the Tale of Genji then reading nothing for a year to cook it deeply inside me, etc. to eat heartily, then to fast, or mind-fasting. to make room for new perception.
as for amazed... well, i thirsted for many years for answers in religion, philosophy, then with age, sincerely feel that most of it already lies within our very own selves, but we must first read voluminously to find that. principly i model the world in my brain then read for confirmation and addition, rather than to read to create models.
balooner, aka "bob":
openings, i learned from the first aspiring master i ever met in chess, are the last thing that anyone should study, in chess, and i whole heartedly agree. at the same time, likeforest has two books on relatively forcing lines, which is the least worst to study.
paretos law basically says that we get 80% of the effectiveness of any set derives from the 20% of it that is the most important or predominant, so the issue is less can openings not help (yes they can), but rather, can we not get much more from tactics and endings.
et al: i feel that we need less books, but do need to read the right few. Endgame Strategy is definitely one of them, and Most Instructive Games by Chernev as a game set is way on up there, too.
likeForests:
same comment. endings last. but it is hard to improve on what you say, like tempo, i find that you have great common sense about your own time and energy, and i can learn from you.
warmly, dk
ps 1525 elo to finish, hit 1529, but 1530 is not to be today, nor 1540 as wished, as my gas tank is starting to flash red! early sleep tonight. i am one good session from 1540. 85.07%.
Transformation,
How can I put it...you just seem to be an extraordinary person. It's always interesting to take part of what you have in your mind. I recognise a lot of your intensity in myself. Some people call it a curse, I've always seen it as a gift. It has always helped me to develop within the fields that I love; juggling, magic, music...
I think the world would be a really boring place if all of us were calm as cucumbers sitting on a mountain top. Keep the fire burning I say!
I also enjoyed Chess Amateur vs Chessmaster for the simple fact that I thought it was easy to understand. It was also refreshing to read annoted games where one of the players played just as lousy as I did. :)
To get away from tactics I tend to have a weird fascination with opening books. It might not be very beneficial, but it keeps my love and passion for the game alive.
It's nice to see that you have started CT-Art again. I'm having a really rough time at level 40 right now. Sometimes I wonder if I have reached some sort of limit where my brain just can't handle any longer variations. I have my doubts and insecurities about what I'm capable of with tactics, but I have promised myself to keep pushing on no matter what. Keep up the good work and the flood of interesting ideas and thoughts! Take care and don't forget to rest. :)
/Chris
Tranformation --- you share my love of books I think --- my library is now about 7,000 books, so at say 1 inch each that is 583' or maybe 188 meters --- but I don't know because I don't have that much room in the house and they are scattered everywhere, on shelves, in floor to ceiling piles, etc. Finding something is the real challenge. I try to keep all the chess, checker, and Go books together, at least :)
---Bob aka Bungerting Baloner
ah bob. ahhh, bob! but beautiful women, or women with european accents. or good beer. or good wine. ah, ah so good!
but what, as a man i really, really like and is my fatal downfall is, i am most attracted to strong women, strong characters. really, really strong ladies, the ones that can scare a man. wew.
but truthfully, i sincerely believe, especially working retail where i must listen to everyone all day long all the time, all of it, the greatest thing is actually to share with a good friend and to actually be heard or listened to. that is so fine. or to hear a good friend tell a good story....
very kind of you to address me by my handle, so courteous. but please feel free to call me david. i dont mind. just so long as folks dont know my last name or what street i live or the company i work for. i work for a big american company that tries to destroy employees while smiling faces are shown.
and the day before 9-11, i had the seattle police homicide squad to my house. why? a Migraen Stintly client kept calling me even though i told him not to and the phone company would do nothing despite extensive and copious records. mr B was threating my life. who was he? oh, he was just a man from pakistan. and so the begining of my new spiritual life began, because as he called me to threaten me again, i handed the reciever to the police officer, who heard it, so there were no questions. heaven is very deep and my faith is firm.
they called him the day of 9-11 to warn him and he denied it... "Mr. B, we were in Mr. K's room when you called". himmmm? divine providence.
How have the first few days of CT-ART training gone? My last couple days on CTS have been dreadful from an accuracy perspective--only 89% and 87%, but I'll pick that up over the weekend.
You wore safety orange as a broker? How funny! I'm an engineer, so I can get away with that as long as I'm not meeting a customer. I was a top producer until new management took over and gave my promotion to one of their guys. Now I do the minimum to keep receiving a healthy paycheck--mostly advice and designs. That allows me to focus my energies elsewhere.
Yasser sounds like an amazing person... chess, diplomacy, diamonds, and still time for the all-important wife and kids. I guess that's why everyone in the chess world respect him so. Now I know his secret--talent and hard work. Oh well, I can aim to do the second part.
I hope we'll see a decisive end to the Kramnik-Topalov match. If Kramnik wins, or (groan) Topalov wins by 2 points we should have a united chess world again. In any case we're in for some exciting games now that it's tied up.
likeforest:
thank you. a few bookeeping notes in no way forgotten by me!: as regards your question from Sun Oct 01, at post: "Sweet Perfection (well, shucks, almost...)" from Saturday, September 30, 2006", you asked me: "Have you played any games recently to see how your recent tactical gains have improved your overall game? If I recall correctly, you were 1625-1650 a couple months ago."
no, i have not. i do not like to play chess. can you believe that? im being slightly tongue in cheak, but it is half true. i love to study, and i store my energy to play when i have it. when i play, i play EVERY DAY for months. last year, from august to feb i think that i played maybe 1,100 games, and not blitz, but fast rapids, 3/12 then migrated to 3/8.
when after a long time away i do play, there is a certain OBP rust that i need to shake off, and am a bit worse, but like an athlete who has trained hard, very hard (22,000 CTS since march; Levels one to three on CT-Art, then another pass, now to level three practice problem 538 2007 elo at 76% overall), once i get back in form, each and every time i am better and better. i do not have the claim to fame of wormstar or tempo, beating or drawning 1900 or drawing 2100, but have many a 1850 scalp on my wall, and nearly beat a 1950.
it is not time yet, but that time is coming to start again. i have trained mightyly. then my book work or alburt, and averbakh, after chernev PCE, so much absorbed...
my job is exhausting, so training allows me to go in spurts, and to play i must play every day, every single day to build that energy and establish that rhythm.
after losing my $1,000,000 business, $300,000 income, and sh_t, never mind the money who really cares, but after my devolution i went through a severe depression. i got through it without medication or drugs, and rest and natural food, and a lot of downtime. chess is my healing tool. i wanted to die. literally. i had to decide to live again. chess guided me back. early on in my blogging history, blueDevil and i corresponded on this, and never got to post them or this basic bio stuff... with his permission ex policital discussion...
so now i smile again, but i notice depression, for me, is fed by fatigue. my job is very visercal, and the physicality really balances me, since i have my chess and writing and financial market analysis for after hours...
do you know how heavy everything is in flooring? tile, big rolls are carpet, sheet vinyl. at age 48 i am stronger than i have ever been as a man. by the way, GM S has a hand like an iron vice. martial arts as he demonstrated at Gormally gate at the olympiad demonstrated some skills... and another thing he and i have in common...
i have a BIG post i wrote in july that i am not shy to publish called an open note to tempschlucker, but need time to edit, given its nature, and it discusses 'this', that is to say, the idea of shifting channels and not wearing the same rut to the point of deminishing returns, as discussed in the very fine book Walrups Complexity, and complex adaptive systems...
so my CT-Art is chiefly responsible for getting me to 1540.7 tonight, as expected, i felt it coming on. from 1500 in 36 hours, or 1.5 sessions. or just 203 tries since my big post on CTS percentage success...
yes, i love to play chess. but only by grabbing my guts and giving every pore of my body, every cell like a laser, to focus all into the game.
Bungerting:
thank you for reference to the Stoyko method. since i had read the rapidChessImpr articles the very day they first came out at chessCafe.com, i knew about this but could not remember where.
books... ken wilber read a few books, aye? but there were like ten i think that he really, really read and absorbed, so this is my model now. a few books that i have truly read.
in my bathroom: sun tzu art of war, griffen transl; julius caesar the gaelic wars (my god, what a man, making bridges over the rhein, those men must have loved a good bath and facial afterwards, and soft female...); Odyssey transl by fitzgerald; I-Ching, Wilhelm-Baynes english transl from german rendered from chinese; gai fu feng, tao te ching and jane english transl, handwriten from 1979 in pencil in a little school notebook, A Course in Miracles, foundation for inner peace; i usually have alburt pocket chess training pocket book there, but it is near my bed ramped up for late tonight). this is not a representative sample, but these have been 'there' for awhile...
marco polo's travels were there, or Kafka, or Borghes, but i quit drinking two years ago, so it is time to stop now.
:)
am i understated bob?
warmly, dk
an open note to tempschlucker
Is it still underway or did I miss it?
David, understated, maybe that's the word; I would say "mild" is a better word. You express your opinions clearly but in a way that appeals and never threatens.
Beer, indeed; good beer is a fine art and a fine pleasure. The same is true of fine tea. I am less of a wine fan but that is just personal choice.
Women, yes, but I am married to the same fine lady literally for decades and there is simply no one else nor could I even imagine it.
I had to count the chess books to see if I really have 300; according to my database I have, alas, only 283, but a number are on order and I should achieve the 300 milestone this year or early next. I am an inveterate collector but as I stated earlier, perhaps four of these see constant use and the rest are "for fun."
Dear Bob, I hope that this day finds you well. When you said [in your personal email] that checker people are quite different than chess people, I really get a vivid picture. The idea of folks in an endeavor being nicer than chess players is also a real picture.
I have a very good book by a very Swiss psychoanalyst that I have actually read or tried to read, called The Narcissistic Character Disorder. I watch for that. With some folks, the conversation is always about them. Me? I must watch for it the way an endomorphic build person must always watch calories, with a preternatural tendency towards obesity. I am a recovering narcissist. Not good. We must unfold a conversation, such as how are you, how goes it, how is your family, how is your day, and balance 'I's with 'you's'.
There is a woman I work with, five minutes, non stop all about her, then it never turns, such as how are you xyz? But she just walks away. But in a kind way, it must be said, that she had thirteen children, all her own; so she just craves her own attention and I cannot really blame her, but I used to be like that and must be vigilant.
I check for your weekly story, but it must be Sundays not Saturdays, so quid pro quo my good friend, and get to listen in on your world and shake your tree or sit near it.
You are lucky to have a fine woman in your life. Long term bachelardom at age 48 leads long term to odd behavior :) if not self absorbtion, and the socialised person is kinder.
I did not know you were doing CT-Art or had a hunkering for Dvoretsky, I will post comment at LikeForests fine post next, back to you there...
Just lastly, what if instead of getting books 301 to 310, you focused more the little time a man must have towards carefully 'burning the ideas into the circuitry of your brain' [as Yasser said to me in front of his condo once, after I told him my chess plan in detail, to which he gave a resounding thumbs up], in the form of carefully reading three or four books and digesting them. more @ likeForests now et al.
warmest regards, dk
I am actually not pursuing Dvoretsky at this time; his books are far above my skill level. Better for me (at this time) Pandolfini and Seirawan, which is what I am doing.
Your comments on ego are interesting. As I have written to you in email, I find it easy to be a good listener because I find other people infinitely more interesting than I find myself. Presumably, I already know all about myself, so there is little new; the stimulus of hearing about other people is always welcome. Each person is multiple stories and it is fascinating.
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