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Online Chess
The Net's
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The Wit & Wisdom of Nigel Davies Words of Wisdom from GM Nigel
Davies (Ask
the Tiger!) that we culled from the
TigerChess email discussion list.
I crush therefore I am!
One of the biggest causes of lost games in chess is not because someone was beaten from the outset. It's when they believed, rightly or wrongly, that they had a good position and then found themselves playing 'for the win' when the position didn't merit it. At times like this every single assessment can be wrong, distorted to maintain the hoped for reality for as long as possible. Accordingly one of the greatest strengths a player can have is objectivity, the ability to snap out of a euphoric state as quickly as possible. And this is easier when you're calm.
(re: Master and Commander) I haven't seen the film yet but I can highly recommend the book as being far more useful for chessplayers than most chess books. The rough seas of tournament competition require a no excuses/success orientated mentality, everything else flowing from that. Too many people are beaten before they start, but not Jack Aubrey.
The question any chessplayer has to answer with this and other openings is whether you'd REALLY be willing to play such positions for Black. If not, and it's not a dead draw, then you should be happy to play it for White.
This is why it's good to be a generalist, whereby you have more patterns to draw on in any new situations and then draw multiple comparisons. People are often surprised by my ignorance of variations ... but the same is true of many GMs, IMs and just good club players. But if you have a good knowledge of various middlegame positions you will know what to go for and should be able to position your pieces well in the opening. On the other hand the mnemonic approach to chess openings will leave a player disorientated as soon as something he hasn't studied comes along. And this ALWAYS happens, either when your opponent varies from your line through ignorance or because he cooperates to the VERY END.
It would be very unwise for a writer to say everything he knows about an opening he plays; Gallagher gave up the King's Gambit after his book because everyone was ready for him. I often write about things I don't play or don't intend to play again, but tell the whole truth as I see it at the time.
Most rapid improvement (with limited time)? Look at things that might affect your play most directly such as sleep, food, having a clear head. So check carefully what you may be eating and drinking before and/or during a game; some things can kill your concentration and caffeine can make you jittery.
There is one very important question you must ask when analyzing a game; where did the position go from being tenable to lost? And Fritz/Shredder are not always very useful in this.
You're right about post-mortem analysis - it's usually charged with emotion and not done very seriously. Away from the tournament very few people analyze seriously .... except professionals.
Yes, it's usually the case that the perceived mistake follows several moves in which the wrong plan was chosen; often it's a question of frustration creeping in. For finding things like this Fritz and Shredder are useless, maybe worse than useless because they mislead players with the huge number of variations they churn out.
The big difference between chess problems and practical play is that you're told in advance that there's something there and that it works. I guess it's like shooting clay pigeons and then moving on to hungry uncaged tigers.
People often underestimate the difficulty of chess, others overestimate their aptitude. The ones who make the most of their abilities just love to study and play.
Don't blame the tools, it's how you use them that counts. It's very well known that it's unwise to use other peoples' ideas uncritically, even if they're really good books. Worse still is scapegoating the authors for your own mistakes; players should be trying to find the source of their defeats WITHIN THEMSELVES. I've found some very mediocre openings books useful in that they lay out the structure of the opening and usually contain a lot of basic material. Then I go through certain parts, asking questions and trying to answer them. For example I learned the Kan Sicilian using Mortazavi's book, which is not great but saved me heaps of time (probably around 10-15 hours). That works out at about a buck an hour, so for me the book was a good investment.
Most strong players advocate exactly the right thing -study annotated games, analyse things for yourself (including your own games), study endgames and PLAY. But who is doing this? Hands up everybody!
The last couple of days I've actually found some time to study some chess, printing out 35 selected games in a particular opening and playing through them with a board and pieces. The next step is to look at some details, for which I have a few bad and error-filled openings books in mind as reference. Then I'll try playing it.
I've been thinking back to a couple of incidents when I was a teenager. In one game I got a lost position but fought with everything ounce of strength I had and eventually won. After the game my opponent (the LOSER) commented that he wouldn't want to get so worked up over a game, as if this was something odd and unhealthy. In another game my opponent, a middle-aged and respectable person, explained to me afterwards how he 'played to a level at bridge', 'ran a department' etc etc and for him chess wasn't the only thing. Were they trying to lead me towards a better and more balanced life or just congratulate themselves on being 'well balanced' after their defeats? (OK, maybe I was an obnoxious teenager, but still...) It's funny, but I never had a similar inclination to lecture people on how 'balance' is detrimental to one's chess; it is of course, but I don't feel the need to tell them how they should run their lives. I'm happy being a monomaniacal, unbalanced fanatic; it gives me enormous pleasure to win my games if I can and I'll do a lot to achieve that. I crush therefore I am!
As I've advised many times here, the important issues in chess are not connected with the particular strength of any opening.
The hardest thing to do in chess is to go beyond your natural level. Someone can only get so far by just being themselves, but to go that extra mile they have to become what they're not. Up to 1992 my natural level seemed to be that of a strong International Master, but the Grandmaster title seemed out of reach. There came a moment when I had to look myself in the eye to go any further, and this was by far the hardest but most rewarding thing I've ever done. It has never been about talent, rating or trophies, it's about character. The test of character offered by competitive chess is what makes it so valuable.
A far better approach to openings is to first find some middlegame positions that you like and study them. After that you can look at sequences which lead to these types of structure. Players who understand how to play Isolated Queen's Pawns, Gruenfeld/Catalan positions, Hedgehogs or King's Indian Structures never go through the much reported agonies of club players who attempt to memorize things.
A lot of players will make it a point of principle to defend their decisions and attribute their eventual defeat to bad luck. But one should never forget that one of the great things about chess is that you can swap sides, and do to your next opponent what was done unto you!
These sorts of tournament 'strategies' can be distracting. The best thing to focus on is playing another good move.
I think you're spot on with the idea that 'style' is often used as an excuse. The ideal is to be good at everything.
More of Nigel's unique perspective: Part One More of Nigel's unique perspective: Part Two
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