The Chess Thread - Page 14

On March 15 2014 09:35 fishjie wrote:
So I want to study chess, but isn't it kind of pointless memorization now? Seems like the best moves for all the openings already been calculated up to the first 20 or so moves, which would mean the real game doesn't even start until the endgame anyway.

And the endgame is just heavily biased toward calculation and tactics. Whereas the midgame has more room for creativity and strategy. As computers get better, pretty sure all the openings, even the unorthodox lines, will continue to get figured out.

So then what's the point of even doing an opening or midgame? Isn't it basically just a formality at this point.

I guess for noobs like me, chess will be exciting because I am ignorant and don't know the best moves to make in any given situation, but that the game would get more and more boring the more knowledge one accumulates, which seems soul crushing. My favorite chess games are the ones from back in the day, when the game was still new and hadn't been figured out yet, and so guys like Morphy, Alekhine, Capablanca, Lasker and other old school legendary players could rip opponents apart with brilliant combos and sacrifices. I fondly recall as a kid reading books by Irving Chernev where he documented those chess legends in descriptive notation, which even feels more nostalgic and romantic than algebraic.

Seems like today with modern chess is more about entering the mid and end game with each player having slight subtle advantages that they then try to improve upon. This seems to be a result of the game being figured out so that huge blunders no longer exist, resulting in the inability to do stuff like sick queen sacrifices. I dunno maybe I'm talking out of my ass, but iirc Josh Waitzkin lost his passion for chess because as he became better and better at the game, it became more about cold rote memorization and calculation than creativity.

On March 15 2014 19:03 Mafe wrote:
Who is supposed to be the favorite? I don't think Anand should be underestimated.

On March 12 2014 01:57 Raysalis wrote:



Haha, I just finished playing a tournament in the weekend after 3 years of chess inactivity. The TL close tourney must have been pretty inspiring :D

As for advice for 3FFA, one of the biggest problems i faced was the terrible visualization and calculation skills after not playing chess for so long. I have only been playing blitz online where calculations were superficial or the online correspondence chess where one can be lazy and just move the pieces on the analysis board without visualizing anything :p. Unfortunately bad visualization & calculation = take long time = time trouble = unnecessary loss.

If you think you might have this problem, i suggest going over games of masters and try to calculate and visualize the ideas and moves just to warm up the calculation muscles. Probably a good idea to use a real tournament size chess board instead of the computer screen. Also do some tactics everyday to warmup. I don't think studying any new stuff before the tournament will help too much, unless is some basic important stuff that might be lacking or you know your specific opponent and is preparing something special for him. Most of the learning will be from the games after the tournaments have finished.

Well good luck to both of you and hope you guys have fun .

On March 16 2014 19:48 don_kyuhote wrote:

Just got back from the chess club. Man, playing OTB chess is really something. Not like online chess at all. I shall write a blog on it in coming week.

On March 16 2014 19:48 don_kyuhote wrote:

Just got back from the chess club. Man, playing OTB chess is really something. Not like online chess at all. I shall write a blog on it in coming week.