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The Moment of Zuke:
Critical Positions and
Pivotal Decisions for
Colle System Players

by David Rudel
author of Zuke 'Em

7 modules written just for Colle System Players.  Over 150 practice problems accompany lessons written in Rudel's crystal-clear, inimitable style

Thematic Lessons
on game-changing
decisions Colle Players
frequently face

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The Wit & Wisdom
of Nigel Davies
Part 2

Words of Wisdom from GM Nigel Davies (Ask the Tiger!) that we culled from the TigerChess email discussion list.

Read More in Part One
 

My boyhood idols were Lasker and Botvinnik - and I never got to play Kasparov.... Of course I'd like the chance, but these days there are no tournaments of 'mixed' strength.

Just as a boy becomes a man when he walks around his first puddle, chessplayers reach maturity when they are willing to play normal positions that arise from normal openings rather than the oddball stuff designed to trick your opponent early on or force the pace from the outset. And in this regard I have a confession to make; I was still jumping into the puddles age at the age of 30 with my slimy tricks in the Modern etc, but I became a GM when I started to play more 'normally'.

Two players I have the greatest admiration for are Victor Korchnoi and Bent Larsen. Both of them are tremendous fighters both on good days and on bad, and this is despite playing at the very top and having their livelihood depend on their results.

It's easy to be brave against weak opposition when you have nothing at stake. Much harder when you're a full time pro and it's the likes of Petrosian, Karpov or Botvinnik sitting opposite you...

It's amazing how bad much published analysis is; you discover this when you check it, especially with Fritz running in the background. And once a mistake has been made it is usually copied uncritically by other authors...

So don't be surprised when players rehabilitate variations which were thought to be bad. All that has happened is that someone checked the reason a variation was thrown away and discovered that the death certificate was signed prematurely.

As Victor Korchnoi points out in his book of best games, when you study openings you don't remember the variations. What happens is that the strategic motifs become familiar to you at a deeper level - which means getting the kind of positions in which you know what to do.

I see the division between tactics and strategy as being artificial; they should be interweaved at every moment of the thinking process.

One thing that I find very useful about even the worst books is that they provide can a starting point for thinking about something, even if completely wrong and full of mistakes...But I don't like to criticize books even if they are written rather quickly, instead taking the view that their usefulness depends on the reader rather than the author...

Most GMs will study complete and well-annotated games when trying to learn a new opening - in Dvoretsky's 'Opening Preparation' you can find a discussion of this with Razuvaev being quoted as suggesting 6 model games for each opening. I find lists of variations completely unfathomable myself, so the study requirement for GMs may not be as different as you believe...

So I'm sorry to say confusion is healthy and that there are no straightforward answers. The good news is that you don't need them, all that's required for chess is to play slightly better moves than your opponent...

I think that the amount of theory someone needs to know depends very much on what level they have to play at. Over the years it's been very noticeable to me that very few of my students' games have followed theoretical paths for very long (correspondence chess not included!). Probably this is because non-professionals don't have time to study, so everyone's looking for decent side-lines which don't make great demands on their time.

For most players it's better to have a knowledge of plans and ideas, be able to get playable positions out of the opening and put the main focus on general playing skills. And there's no need whatsoever to memorize sharp variations.

I must be fortunate in that I've never had an 'average' student and many of mine have made great strides. And if you believe that Grandmasters have no insights to offer 'average' players such as yourself, perhaps you have stumbled across the reason that you're not getting any better.

I consider myself very fortunate to have read the works of such great players as Lasker, Korchnoi, Capablanca and others and never fail to learn something. Even if I'm distinctly 'average' by comparison...

I personally am planning to be improving and winning tournaments into my 90s, despite a growing reluctance to leave home.... Only you can decide if you want a similar goal and then set about achieving it.

If someone is learning a language should they start off by intensely studying novels in that language or with simpler and clearer material? There's a reason why Capablanca, Karpov and others have recommended studying chess from the endgame..

If you are saying that the 'chess act' (Gerald Abrahams' description of the decision making process on a single move) is by far the most important thing then I think you are right. And there are many factors in this process; understanding, experience, vision, mental discipline and prejudice ('knowing' things that are not actually true).

Many things can help improve a player's decision making process, but one of the big problems is when someone doesn't know what's wrong with it. The most common explanation people have for their lack of success in chess is deficient opening knowledge; usually it's something else, but this something varies from person to person.

Imho it's really better not to try to memorize anything - the only stuff that will stick are things that can be hung on hooks of deep understanding. If you have good abilities in calculation and vision, much can be worked out during the game; what is 'theory' anyway other than a collection of imperfect games which have, for the most part, been analyzed rather badly.

You're best forearmed by understanding the middlegame structures that come from your openings.

A good way to conduct these trials is to imprison 160 chess players in solitary confinement arranging them in 4 groups of equal strength. Then you give 3 of the groups one of the chess books whilst the control group has something by Delia Smith. Then you compare their results when they're let out, discovering to your horror that Delia Smith was the winner.

During my teenage years I followed Kotov's advice in 'Think Like a Grandmaster' to practice analyzing positions, writing down what I saw in a certain amount of time and then comparing it with the notes to the position concerned. I believe it was very helpful and certainly my grade improved year after year.

I think that it's useful to compare the process of learning chess with that of learning a musical instrument (I was fortunate in having this model around because of familly members). It takes time and effort and there are no shortcuts or magic ingredients.

It's always been popular to scapegoat the players for 'Grandmaster draws', but the problem is that the players are often acting rationally in making them. I don't think it's that difficult to come up with tournament systems whereby draws would not make much sense (e.g. mini-matches at a faster time limit in which only a win or loss were possible) - so instead let's blame the governing bodies for their lack of imagination.

The problem with tournaments is that you only have a say in where you move your own pieces - not in those of your opponents or the rest of the players. I think it's important to understand that our control over the outcome is limited in this way, and that worrying about such matters is nothing but a distraction.

The best and only thing we can do is to try to keep playing good moves.

I'm not a big fan of the Blumenfeld rule (write down your move, look for simple threats and only then play it) and I've found that using it all the time takes my attention away from the game. But recently I've found that writing down my moves before playing them can be very useful in winning positions.

I believe that the reason for this is that in certain highly charged situations ones emotions can interfere with clear thinking. In such cases more methodical thinking, inefficient and stilted though it is, can produce stable results.

Draw offers are not covered much by the books but can be of great practical importance. The first thing to note is the information they are supposed to convey ("I am happy with a draw"), but I don't believe this
is necessarily the case. I've found them of value when my opponent has the better position but is not handling his clock too well. In this case a draw offer is a way of asking if he wants to roll the dice, And thinking about this question (i.e. using more clock time) can tip the odds further against him should he decline.

There are a number of top professionals (e.g. Morozevich & Korchnoi) who have expressed the view that White's supposed advantage in chess does not actually exist. This thought is very liberating, as we are not then obliged to follow the 'best' moves (& 30 moves of theory) in order to achieve nothing. Instead we can achieve nothing by other means, whilst playing fresh and interesting positions.
 

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