Belles Lettres or Beautiful Hearts

St. Peters, Vast!

We all had the equivalent of our first love in 'real chess' and mine was named Ibrahim. He was the first giant I had met along the path of getting started back in real chess. And before he went back to Bahrain, eloping in secret with the very lovely sister of our mutual best friend Benjamin, but in the end leaving me out of their circle, when they coldly made sure not to invite me back with them for Thanksgiving dinner, before he left, he made many, many astute recommendations about how to study chess that I use to this day. I did much if not nearly not all that he said and his sporting a 2,000 FIDE elo seemed ample evidence enough. That is another story.

But like our first mentors or guides who have strong opinions, not all of them can be judiciously correct. For example, he had a very low opinion of Bruce Pandolfini. Now, lets be clear: after a life time of scholarship, I have found it most important to draw a distinction between the man and his work. Early on, I discovered in copious checking that mythographer Joseph Campbell never mentioned Romanian French expatriate Mircea Eliade, nor the latter the prior. I always preferred Campbell's views, but somehow, despite my inability to ever read Eliade with satisfaction or utility, nevertheless also always found the man fascinating [1]. Similarly, I loved Nietzsche's books in my younger days, but the man could be a real ass, not to mention Thoreau or Veblen assuredly as well. And so I found that this young man had really confused the work of Pandolphini with the man, and if not the work, then the production.



Years latter, after using 'Pandolphini's Endgame Course: Basic Endgame Concepts Explained' with great benefit, upon AJ Goldsy's glowing recommendation at Amazon [2], I had to agree that despite the well known innocuous typo's, that his book was even more useful than Chernev's already very, very useful Practical Chess Endings [3].

I have lived a lot of years by now. I have learned not to judge. Some of Pandolphini's books had well known production problems, but are we to blame him concretely? Were we there? Did we know the publishers or editors or printers? Did we know the circumstances? No. But mark my words, I have been reading his monthly column 'The Q & A Way', at chessCafe, for as long as I can remember, and always enjoy it, and never fail to read him.

He is both affably and warmly kind and unpretendingly eruditely sophisticated without grandstanding or pretense if not on occasion acerbic [4], in a way well beyond most chess scholars and teachers. He gives ample evidence bespeaking of wide awareness, well beyond the narrow specisim of the our beloved chess venues. His humanity [5] at times reminds me of Znosko-Borovsky, who not only managed to beat quite a few of the truly great world chess champions, but starving as he was between the two great wars, demonstrated a enormous familiarity with belles lettres in what must have been a beautiful heart.

Warmest, dk

Mr Pandolphini, who wrote me back promptly and without any complications, very kindly approved my copying the first part of his most recent column below. There have been many Q & A's over the years, but this one simply struck me as if not among his best then surely most representative. Without further ado:

Beware of Regimens

Question:

After five to ten years of practice, chess players usually reach a plateau. This supposes the chess player has over this long period of time: participated in a number of chess tournaments, played in over 100 classical games (40 moves in 2 hours, 20 moves per hour, etc); gone through classic books on openings, tactics, middlegames, and endings; analyzed his own games, as well as having gone through classic games (World Chess Champions, current top GM games, etc.); and played many blitz games in a chess club or on the Internet. Let’s assume, for sake of argument, that all this brings the player to a level of a seasoned club player, corresponding to a USCF 2150 player (FIDE 2100). How do you suggest improving your own level of play (obviously not as strong as the FM/IM level), without repeating the basic stuff? How do you separate what you already know (rook endings, typical tactics, such as pins, skewers, and double attacks) from what you should learn to make progress? What should you pay attention to when you replay grandmasters games? Frank Fortune (USA)





















Josh Waitzkin and his first chess coach, Bruce Pandolfini

Answer:

Chess players don’t have to wait five or ten years before reaching a plateau. It can happen much sooner than that, and typically does. Nor need there be just one plateau. Periods of stasis occur all the time. They can last a few weeks or go on for years. All along the way are potential obstacles halting improvement, putting our playing ability in a virtual freeze. Regressions are even possible, where our method of addressing troublesome stages can retard progress, if not detract from overall skill. Clearly, how we cope with such troubling circumstances plays a role in shortening those episodes. It also is a key determinant in how far we can ultimately go.

Moreover, there’s no single path that guarantees advance. Some players achieve success naturally, absorbing ideas in the context of regular play, with aptitude developing over time, without specific effort. Others do it by dint of hard work, studying this and that, until all major areas are reviewed systematically and everything seems to fall into place. Still others, taking definite steps or not, never get beyond a point. Either they accept who they are or give up altogether.

I’m going to take slight issue with another one of your implications, which is that it’s wasteful to study things you’ve already gone over. Indeed, constant review of the same or similar techniques and concepts, viewed for a variety of situations, reinforces what you know. And it gives you a range of conditions under which you can adapt that knowledge to efficient use. This modus operandi is a chief weapon in the chess player’s arsenal. That is, players are always looking for analogies. You can’t employ analogous reasoning so effectively, however, if you haven’t a proficient grasp of what you’ve already experienced. The way you acquire such facility is by constant reconsideration and repeated immersion. To that end, the argument that learning some things well, rather than lots of things on the surface, may have greater impact here. I’m not suggesting that tangential treatment of many different notions doesn’t have value, too. But if you don’t constantly review your past experiences, you’re bound to make the same mistakes, fall into the same snares, miss the same shots, and form the wrong plans, again and again.





















Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart

So, even though you’ve laid out your question hypothetically, I’m going to take exception with the nature of your basic premise anyway. It implies that one has to do certain things in order to succeed (play at least one hundred serious tournament and match games, study particular tactics and strategies, examine the games of great players, and so on). Yet, there’s no accepted evidence whatsoever that one has to follow a definite regimen of any kind before attaining specific playing levels. To be sure, such an approach is antithetical to the idea that each of us is an individual. Put simply, an activity is more rewarding if we’re able to pursue it along a unique pathway, to the Thoreau inspired beat of our own drummer.

Here’s my advice for those who are decent players but seem to have been stymied in their recent attempts at progress. Begin by playing a bunch of serious games at respectable time controls. Take those games and have them assessed by a competent observer. Have the analyst spell out what he or she thinks you need to work on in order to move ahead. It probably won’t be right on the money – it almost never is – but it’s a place to start.

Acquire, borrow, or tap into the recommended materials. Start using them on a regular basis, and in accordance with the laid out program. Play lots of serious games, all of which should then be analyzed by you first, then by a strong player who cares that you exist. The strong player could be named Fritz, even though Fritz is likely to be indifferent. Modify your original program as it reflects your recent experience. Over time this constant testing of challenging opposition, intense review, from within and without, should direct you to relevant areas worthy of attention. It’s typically the best way to break the stalemate in your progress and move you along. It’s tough to say what may be the best thing to study to push improvement along. But probably it should be pertinent to your needs, rather than satisfying some abstract ideal. If you want to get more out of you, study you [6].



[1] Such as his systematically reducing his sleep, so that he could study study Sanskrit for twelve hours a day, ultimately settling for only four hours sleep in the end. See his wonderful Autobiography: Ordeal by Labyrinth: Conversations With Claude-Henri Rocquet.

[2] As well as his colorful and wonderful, if not idiosyncratic website. His site reads like the Arabian Knights on Acid for chess denizens. Enjoy!

[3] At the same time, to be clear, I cannot praise Chernev's book too highly: READ and STUDY both, might I suggest: first PEC/BECE, then move onto PCE. In this order, the latter will mean more.

[4] Bertrand Russell, AKA Lord Russell, who if anyone ever could write the English language, was said to be acerbic. He relates in his wonderful Autobiography that he had learned to write the English language with precision by taking the advise of his brother in law, to take the already very, very clear a and concise writings of John Stewart Mill, and TRY to summarize each of his paragraphs with one sentence. Can you imagine?

[5] My definition of humanist, quoted from my 1989 letter of application to teach architecture, at UNC Charlotte: "As a humanist, I believe in the betterment of man through self knowledge".

[6] His original ChessCafe article in full, directly here.