Dan
Heisman Speaks
Part II
Interviewed by Kelly Atkins
Read Part I of our interview with
National Master, Chess Instructor, and award winning chess writer Dan
Heisman.
Atkins: Dan, how did your Novice Nook column at ChessCafe
come about?
Heisman: An interesting thing
happened; my son's friend, Will Yu, suddenly got much stronger. Will jumped
from 1200 to 1600 and I had to know why! I developed a theory and talked
with him - then I wrote an article on it, "The Secrets of Real Chess". It
was a breakthrough! Not just in teaching, but in my writing. Someone put me
onto Chess Cafe, and they agreed to publish the article. I submitted it for
a Chess Journalists of America award and it won Honorable Mention. I wrote
two more articles for Chess Cafe on Time Management and Using Steinitz's
Laws. Then Hanon asked me to write an adult Beginner's column! Soon
afterwards, Watson's book came out vindicating my earlier Elements work,
too.
Atkins: Have you spoken with Watson about this?
Heisman: Yes, I spoke to
Watson right before his stroke. He had never heard of me, but someone put
him onto my book. He was very gracious and agreed I had been on the right
track all along. Of course his book was so much more than mine, but where
they overlapped we basically agreed! I was 25 years ahead of my time on
theory, so to speak. So with the publication of Novice Nook and the
widespread publication of Everyone's 2nd Chess Book, all of a sudden
some people started knowing who I was. But even today at many events I can
walk around and no one recognizes me.
Atkins: Let’s
talk about your philosophy of “Real Chess”. What is it?
Heisman: In a nutshell, it’s
making sure that before you make a move, you make sure you can safely meet
your opponents checks, captures, and threats that he could play in reply to
your move, and you must do that every move. So in terms of threats:
1) Flip coin chess - you don't
look at your opponent's threats
2) Hope chess - you look at
your opponent's threats from LAST move, but not from what he can do next
move, and
3) Real Chess - you make sure
you can meet next move's threat (actually checks, captures, and threats).
Atkins: This all
seems so obvious & basic. Why does the average player not follow its
application more often?
Heisman: Because no one ever
explained it to them. How many books besides mine, or instructors besides me
ever put it this way? I never read it anywhere - I had to figure it out.
Atkins: Purdy
touched on it, but not as clearly & directly as you.
Heisman: I did not read Purdy,
but I have been told my writings are somewhat similar to his, a great
compliment!
Atkins: Month
after month, the reaction to your ChessCafe articles seems to be the same:
"Wow! I never realized this before!"
Heisman: Unfortunately there
are only so many "original" theoretical articles I can write - then I have
to resort to trying to show things others have (but hopefully in an
insightful way). I have about 6 Novice Nooks written but not yet published.
My latest one is on using the computer, but I am not yet happy with it - it
is necessary (for a future book), but hard to do in one column.
Atkins: You're
not teaching some hard-to-grasp principles or concepts, but nuts & bolts
this-is-what-you-need-to-do chess, and the reaction seems overwhelmingly
positive.
Heisman: Yes, if you do the
things I say, they are far more important than learning a new opening, etc.
- at least for players under 1700 USCF. And although most players still have
not heard of Novice Nook, doing what I talked about in The 10 Roadblocks to
Improvement is much more important than most things they will probably read.
Some people don't read Novice Nook because they think it tells people how to
move the pieces - "I am not a Novice!" It is really "The Improving
Chessplayers Guide" - at least for players below Class A, I would say.
Atkins: You're
basically just teaching readers how to consistently play quality chess.
Heisman: Yes, but it is also
work to play good chess (not just study work, but work on each move) and
from instructing, it is clear that many players do not wish to do this,
because it takes the fun out of it. Playing Real Chess is hard work when you
first try, until it becomes 2nd nature, but playing well consistently leads
to winning, and that's fun!
Atkins: You recommend playing slow games instead of blitz.
Why?
Heisman: Two reasons, well
documented by me: 1) No world-class blitz player got that way by playing
blitz, and 2) You can't learn about a position without thinking about it for
a while, and you can't compare similarities of a previous position's
"lessons learned" to see if they apply in a short amount of time. Therefore
to learn how to play positions you must play lots of slow games - and
besides you can't play Real Chess quickly - it is just not possible.
Atkins: OK, so it
doesn't do much to help your game. Do you think it hurts a player's overall
play?
Heisman: No, in fact it helps
if mixed with slow play - it only hurts when it is done instead of slow
play. In other words, only slow play is good; slow + fast chess is OK (and
may even be better if that enables you to play more hours); and only fast
chess is not so good for your improvement. And yes, you can get into bad
habits.
Atkins: On the
subject of fast chess, what about FIDE's push for faster time controls? Do
you think this kills the quality of top-level chess and will it be the end
of the type of quality chess we've had from the giants of the past century+?
Heisman: Well, it is not THAT
fast! Not exactly 3 0, but it does lead the best players to play much faster
than they are used to and the quality of play must inevitably decline. And
the idea that this will make it attractive for TV (or whatever) is certainly
yet to be proven. In general, chess is only attractive to those that
understand it, unlike music - unfortunate, but true.
Atkins: Yes, but
what about the FIDE knockout tournaments & blitz playoffs & tiebreakers?
Over & over we see patzer-level mistakes from top-level GM's under these
reduced time controls.
Heisman: Yes, it is not good
for the quality of their chess.
Atkins: Dan, your
Chess.FM show has been a hit and recently was expanded to two hours. What's
this been like for you and how did the show come about?
Heisman: Apparently Tony Rook
tried to contact me at my old e-mail address, so he gave up. Someone suggested I might be a
good host, so I contacted him and he immediately offered me a trial show. So
the trial show went well, it became a regular show, and that also went well,
so we expanded into 2 hrs! When I first told my wife about it, she said,
"You are a born talk-show host!" When I was young I always wanted to host a
talk show on sports on the radio.
Atkins: Shyness isn't a problem then?
Heisman: Not after my 8th
grade spelling bee, no! The show is tiring, but fun - more fun when people
call so I don't have to monologue their questions. But some people only have
one line and cannot listen and call. When they call it is much better - can
get a real dialog going. Sometimes typing leads to misunderstandings due to
English ambiguity or maybe the poster types something a little nastier than
he meant! Also my show is not limited to Adult Improvement - it makes use of
my other chess background - Thus "Ask the Renaissance Man". So I get to talk
about computer chess, rules, organizing tournaments, opinions of chess
politics, international play, etc.
Atkins: Speaking
of Renaissance Man, that does indeed fit. Briefly, tell me about your other
areas of specialty, such as TD, Computer chess, baseball, software
developer, investment adviser.
Heisman: Briefly!?
Atkins: Well, the
baseball part at least. We’ve discussed most of the rest.
Heisman: My Masters is in
Engineering Science with Emphasis on Computer Design and my final job was to
work 13 years for Intermetrics as a Software Manager and then Quality
Manager. I have been a member of the Society of Baseball Research since
1981. I have been keeping private stats since 1960 and for ten years
published my (great) newsletter Baseball's Active Leaders, which was
mentioned in Newsweek magazine. In fact my web site was started just so
readers of Newsweek would be able to find out about my newsletter on-line!
Of course, now the two BAL pages off my homepage are now afterthoughts
compared to my 100 or so pages on chess. Even my homepage is not
www.danheisman.com - that is my chess sub-page!
Atkins: You've also written several chess & sci-fi short
stories, right?
Heisman: Yes, my chess story
last year "The Cheating Chess Tournament" won the CJA award for "Most
Humorous Contribution". Even I chuckle when I re-read it! Could never get a
sci-fi story published, but of course that was pre-web days.
Atkins: You set a new record with the Chess Journalists of
America Awards last year, didn't you?
Heisman: Yes, but Neil Brennen
thinks I may have only tied the CJA record of 3 firsts in one year - Edward
Winter in 1999 won three, he thinks.
Atkins: Dan,
besides your Novice Nook column at ChessCafe and your books, what other
chess projects are you involved in?
Heisman: I do work for the
Pennsylvania State Chess Federation - I was the Scholastic Coordinator of PA
from 1999-2002, thus my book "A Parent's Guide to Chess". I’m now stepping
back to SE PA Scholastic Coordinator. I am also a leading expert on the
Insufficient Losing Chances rule, but that does not mean much! I am a PSCF
Delegate to the USCF and attended the August delegates meeting - very
interesting! And
my
proposal to "hide" ratings is very controversial! The basic idea is to
keep the rating system, but don't publicize it or use it for pairings or
prizes. Instead use classes, like International titles, with norms to make
those titles based on the underlying ratings.
Atkins: What's the advantage to this?
Heisman: Enormous!! All
rating-based silly stuff would disappear and there would be no disincentive
to play! Everyone who likes to play chess would play - there would be no
downside to playing anywhere! Now many people skip various events or don't
play at all for rating-related purposes - like my college roommate. He got
to 1800 and said he did not want to quit a "B" player (if he lost a rating
point) so he never played again - that was 30 years ago!
Atkins: You've
been a fixture at Chessville's forum since its start. Not many (none that I
know of other than you) famous chess teachers & writers make themselves
available to the average player like you have. Leko has spoken about meeting
& talking with the average chess players & fans, and Susan Polgar wrote
about this recently, encouraging her peers to put more effort into this.
Heisman: That's the ham in me!
And the fact that I do this full-time and have the time to do so. I don't
think many GM's would do it; they are busy with other chess activities.
Atkins: Part of
your appeal at the Chessville forum is that you come across as a regular
person. You're in there involved with the analysis, the humor, etc.
Heisman: Yes, sometimes my
humor is a little like "pun-ishment" but that's the way I am. My wife said
she married me because I could make her laugh.
Atkins: It's
greatly appreciated by the people in the forum who get to pick your brain
and have their questions answered, I can assure you.
Heisman: I enjoy it - although
sometimes I feel bad when someone thinks I am being malicious, which I never
am. But like anyone else, a little sarcasm might sneak in now and then. One
of the worst things about being a chess instructor is that you are supposed
to criticize people. And even though I make it constructive criticism, many
times it has to be repeated over and over (because the student is stuck on
playing too fast or whatever) and they take it personally.
Atkins: Chess is
very ego-related. Any criticism of a player's play is often tough to handle.
Heisman: So my best students
understand this and don't hold it against me when I have to repeat a
criticism. One gentleman on the ICC took something I typed completely the
wrong way and got insulted and stopped lessons. That is why I greatly prefer
my ICC students to call!
Atkins: ICC & the Internet have absolutely revolutionized
chess in many ways, haven’t they?
Heisman: Yes, Chess is a great
Internet game, although I wish the on-line players developed the same good
manners of OTB players. Many players act rude because they can get away with
it. OTB they would be in a fight! Luckily the ICC existed and I was able to
supplement my in-person lesson business through on-line coaching. Today 75%
of my lessons are on-line, up even from last year. My wife asks me, "Is your
lesson real or Memorex"? Meaning real = in person, or Memorex, meaning
"on-line".
Atkins: Dan, what
are the benefits of taking lessons versus a disciplined self-administered
study routine?
Heisman: This was the subject
of my Novice Nook, "Finding a Good Instructor". There is no way anyone can
ever get good just reading chess books! They can do OK, but without serious
competition and good instruction there is no chance. No top chess player got
there by staying in his room and reading Capablanca's best games! It is not
that it isn’t helpful, but it is ridiculously overrated in terms of the
perception of how much it can help. And you get diminishing returns from
"just" reading more books if you have already read some good ones.
Atkins: How is this overrated?
Heisman: Well, it is overrated
in that too many players think that if they read the "next" one it will help
them. For example, I have 3-4 pages in Everyone's 2nd Chess Book on Real
Chess. Over 50% of adult tournament players don't even follow those 3-4
pages - if they did they would be a lot better. But instead they read 10
more chess books! I can tell because I test so many people in deGroot’s
thought process tests. Even my student Scott Kerns, who won the NM State
Championship, said that he was not really doing it, and that is why when he
began doing so, he shot up from 1650 to win the State Championship - a
miracle, I might add!
Atkins: Indeed!
We were all pleasantly stunned by that - a testament to your ideas on "Real
Chess". You're not asserting that studying books is not helpful, but that it
needs to be complemented with lots of serious OTB play, analysis, and
following the "Real Chess" guidelines then, right?
Heisman: Well, no. I am
asserting reading "more" chess books after you have a certain amount of
knowledge cannot in itself help you hardly at all. But yes, reading more can
augment serious play, study, and lessons. But without those you eventually
get almost no further benefit, as I postulated in The 10 Roadblocks to
Improvement.
Atkins: As for lessons, what do they add to the mix?
Heisman: Well, at that point
lessons and play are crucial. In fact, one could argue that after you pick
up the basics, serious lessons and play are all your really need, beyond
opening study (we are talking 1800+ here). And lessons do not have to be
formal, like the ones I give. They could just be going over a game you lost
as a 1900 player against a master, afterwards in the skittles room. Or
hanging out with masters at a local club and listening to them go over a
game or opening. But every strong player was bootstrapped up that way by
other strong players. No one sent Kasparov back to read 20 more books. I am
sure right now Nakamura is not doing that, either.
Atkins:
Obviously, you should analyze & go over your own games to find what you need
to correct, but what about studying GM games? Is this just as, or even more
beneficial?
Heisman: Depends on who is
looking at them and what the notes are like. The more of a beginner you are,
the more you need instructive notes. That is why Logical Chess Move by Move
and The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played (recommended to me by
Schumsky!) are so important. But when a GM looks at a game, he doesn't need
any notes! There is also the Ken Smith "osmosis" theory, which makes sense
too, or the Michael de la Maza approach, again a good one. There are many
ways to skin a cat, but all of them include playing strong opponents and
then finding out what you did wrong and correcting it. The key is you can't
improve if you make the same mistakes over and over - there are too many
mistakes in chess!
Atkins: Could an
adult player become strong by playing regularly and analyzing all his games
in depth with a strong teacher?
Heisman: Absolutely! So long
as he is the type of person who won't continue to make the same mistakes
over and over.
Atkins: What
about using programs like Fritz? Admittedly, they lack a lot of the feedback
you'd get from a coach, but how much use could they be to someone in this
area?
Heisman: But this is primarily
tactics. Fritz can't tell you that you don't understand the minority attack,
or that you are playing Hope Chess! If you play Hope Chess you will never
get good, and no software program can detect that.
Atkins: In your
experience as a professional chess coach, what makes a good student and what
makes a bad one?
Heisman: It seems my worst
students are the ones who want their lessons formal and humorless, and know
exactly what they want. They’re the ones who end up getting the least
benefit. They also interview me for two hours before hiring me as a coach,
and say they want long-term lessons and then quit with no explanation after
two or three sessions. Well, no one gets terrific benefit from 2-3 violin
lessons so why should they expect so in 2-3 chess lessons?
Atkins: So, what type of student IS the one who benefits
the most?
Heisman: My best students
question me to make sure they understand what I am saying, but they don’t
"fight" me as if they know better - there is a big difference. The ones who
benefit the most are the ones who are friendly and relaxed, play in lots of
serious tournaments, and keep things ongoing. This could be a youngster like
Danny Benjamin, or an adult, of course. Almost all my ICC lessons are with
adults these days.
Atkins:
Typically, let's say for a "good" student who is an average player, what is
a lesson like?
Heisman: About 70% of my
non-early lessons are going over a student's slow games. Or possibly mine.
But first they need to take some deGroot exercises, etc. so I know where
they are coming from.
Atkins: What are you doing in these lessons, just
explaining concepts & why this and why that type stuff?
Heisman: Depends on their
level. And not all players at the same level know the same things. But if I
cannot get them to do the Big 5 then they are in trouble!
Atkins: You’ve got a new book coming out soon. What's it
about?
Heisman: Threats - just like
that list of 3 ways to look at threats in terms of your thinking process.
Except it is my first "problem" book: 220+ problems ranging from deadly easy
to deadly hard.
Atkins: How will this be different from a typical problem
book?
Heisman: In each you have to
identify the threat(s) of the previous move as a first answer and then
identify the best reply. So there are two answers to every problem, not one.
And in many cases it is not "play and win" but "play and not lose" or "play
and stay equal" or whatever!
Atkins: Not
always a winning tactical shot then, but sometimes the solution will be a
saving defensive move?
Heisman: And lots of practical
advice among the answers!
Atkins: This is a
format that hasn't existed in the chess book market yet, right?
Heisman: That's one of my
credos for all my books (and most of my Novice Nooks until now) - don't
publish anything you can easily get elsewhere! It ranges from winning
tactical shots to defensive moves to just plain old best ideas to only
possible way to continue, etc. So all my books are different, but the one
thing they have in common is that no one has written anything similar
before. Like A Parent's Guide To Chess or Everyone's 2nd Chess
Book.
Atkins: When is it due out?
Heisman: I don't know - they
will get to it sometime - they are not as slow as one of my publishers who
sat on one of my books for 2 years! Hopefully spring 2003.
Atkins: Dan, it’s been a pleasure. Any final words?
Heisman: Just that if anyone
wants to take lessons, they do not have to do it weekly (a common
misconception) and, at least now, I can always fit someone on my schedule.
And that I was honored that Donald Byrne was finally elected to the US Hall
of Fame (chess) this summer! I nominated him, although informally - I think
Harold Winston put in the formal nomination.
Learn
more about
Dan’s chess coaching services, or
go to
Dan’s excellent web site, full of chess information.
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