The Chess Thread - Page 28

On April 28 2014 00:55 Yorbon wrote:
Hi all,

I've been playing chess more often in the last few weeks, playing some against computer opponents and trying to increase my understanding of the game. I thought the 'academic' section of chessmaster grandmaster edition with very useful and I'm also watching a series of youtube video's with some elaborate analysis on games (example: + Show Spoiler +).

Do you guys have any recommendations on these analyses video's or more general, on improving in general?

I'm quite a low level player. I played chess pretty high for my age between my 7th and 11th year before quitting the chess club i was a part of, but i haven't played chess a lot since then (im 24 now). I did study my old chess book and went through them without any trouble. I think the level of the video i gave as an example is about what i'd need (not too hard to follow, but i'm learning..). Although i know it probably doesnt say much, but as an indication my ranking on the chessmaster program against computer opponents averages around 1260.

Thanks for any time spent

On April 28 2014 03:51 Yorbon wrote:
@urboss: Thanks for the links! I'll be sure to look into them

Very fun site. I noticed I played standard very slowly and made some stupid mistakes, i even dropped to around 1200 to return to 1500 in 50ish problems. ):
But it was fun nonetheless. I havent played the sections blitz, theory and practice yet, though.

On April 28 2014 05:36 marvellosity wrote:

Honestly until you get to about 1800 standard on that site, you will improve fastest by simply doing tactics until you get to about that level. I understand that that might get a bit dull and obviously do whatever you enjoy, but purely for improvement purposes, getting your tactics level up is the best way to go.

On April 28 2014 06:58 Mothra wrote:


It's true that tactics are important, but solving puzzles isn't the only way to learn them. I think tactics puzzles are sometimes emphasized too much to the exclusion of all else. People were able to develop strong tactics before there were online puzzle sites... playing slowly and analyzing games (with stronger player preferably) will strengthen tactics in real positions that actually arise in your games. The added benefit is you're learning strategy and how games progress as well, instead of only tactical positions in isolation. As analogy I think of tactics puzzles like bicep curls, whereas game analysis is like pullups that hit many muscle groups. Tactics puzzles may lead to beating bad players, but game analysis will yield more real improvement per time put in I think.

On April 29 2014 00:29 Yorbon wrote:
I tried both, but i couldn't win the harder one. The QvR endgame is not really playable for me atm. There's supposed to be a way to do it, but i couldn't figure it out on my own. Or did I miss something and is there a way to get the 1.a7 scenario into a K+QvK ending? (if so, i couldnt find it, due to some skewer not being there as opposed to the easier scenario)

On April 28 2014 19:57 marvellosity wrote:

Yes, people used books before instead of sites
And I disagree, until you're a certain level of tactical proficiency, it's simply the best way to improve. Because maybe you will have better strategic/positional/endgame play to some extent by doing other things, but actually games will be won or lost based on tactical mistakes/opportunities missed/taken. There's someone in the blog section who was publishing detailed analyses of their games, but basically multiple times per game, both sides were missing tactical blows that totally change the evaluation of the position and basically make the rest of the "strategic" analysis totally irrelevant.
But yes, of course playing games is also a pretty good way to improve :D
Incidentally, all positions on chesstempo.com are taken from actual games.

I play at around 2100 level, and still most games are decided by tactical mistakes/opportunities. From my last otb game:



I'd just played 1...g5 and my opponent played the terrible 2.Qf6?? allowing 2...Qf3! practically winning on the spot (the game finished 3.Qd4 Re2+ 4.Rxe2 Qxe2+ 5.Kg1 Ne3 6.Rd2 Qe1+ 7.Kh2 Nf1+ (7...Re8!) 8.Kg2 Nxd2 0-1).

On April 29 2014 02:18 Mothra wrote:


You're a much stronger player than me so I should defer to your judgement on improvement. I agree that tactics should take precedence, but I just wanted to put out there that there are other ways to train tactics besides puzzles, such as reviewing master games (solitaire chess), and stoyko exercises.

On April 30 2014 00:14 Yorbon wrote:
When you guys mention a rating, which one do you mean? I saw on wikipedia the elo rating and the USCF rating.
And where do you get them? From sites like chess.com or other related sites? Or are you participating in (real life) tourneys and get a rating from there?
Like I previously said, i estimated my rating through computer opponents, but i'm trying to get a somewhat more reliable estimation of my rating in a certain system. So if you say you're rated ~xx00, on what basis is that? Would you say that rating is comparable to other ratings, if one would make a connection?

On April 30 2014 00:20 Chewbacca. wrote:


Yeah I'm a little confused by the ratings as well. I'm sure they aren't all comparable because I believe Jerry (ChessNetwork) is something like 2800 on whatever website he uses, but that is near the top GM levels and I'm sure he can't compete there..