The Chess Mind

Needless to say (I hope!), the previous post was completely hyperbolic, though with more than a few grains of truth. Here's how things really work for me.

First of all, there are different situations.

Sometimes I'm watching a game on a chess server and something catches my eye. If I'm on ICC, I type "copy [board number]" and start analyzing; if on playchess.com, I click the monitor-shaped icon in the upper right corner that stops incoming moves and allows private analysis. And I start analyzing!

Analyzing for my show is a different story. Then what I'll do is to play through the moves on the board (either a real board or on the computer - but absolutely, positively not with an engine running) and stop when I don't understand something or when my initial inclination is to play something else. I'll try to figure out what's going on, and when I feel I've succeeded or gone as far with it as I can at the moment, I go on. Once I've done that, then I'll take a look at the "professional" analysis (which is sometimes genuinely insightful, but sometimes - especially in the pre-computer era - is quite sloppy and superficial) and try to evaluate it. Only after I've done all that will I flip on the engine and see what it thinks, and even there I'll try to argue with and steer it.

And still another story is when I'm deliberately doing some sort of training exercise. Then I'm a bit more formal about it, sometimes even to the point where there is some general similarity to the exaggerations presented in the previous post.

Finally, there's postal/email play. There, and when I want to learn a new opening, I perform many of the same steps I mentioned in the previous post. I'll look for a couple of "heroes" in a given variation. (E.g. in the Najdorf, people like Kasparov and Gelfand come to mind; in the Tartakower QGD, Kramnik and Short; on the White side of the mainline Ruy with 9.h3, Svidler, etc.) I'll make a mini-database of their games in that variation, play through them all pretty quickly, noting common motifs, middlegame patterns, etc.

Somewhat related to my initial opening research is my endgame procedure. If I've played a certain type of endgame and misplayed it, I'll look for similar endings in my books and databases, and go through them in an attempt to grasp what was happening in my game. (Viewers of my ChessBase show might remember the two-part series on rook endings culminating in the Kharlov-Nisipeanu ending from the FIDE world championships in Tripoli last year.)

A couple of closing comments addressing parts of my fairy tale (the preceding post) not yet discussed here: my "GM pals on retainer". I've had the privilege and pleasure of analyzing with GMs on more than one occasion, but as far as I know, unlike Judy from Time/Life, none is standing by for my call. That said, it is a good idea to check one's analysis with the computer, and, when possible, with a stronger human player. The computer is great at punishing your errors (and mine too, of course), but it's only marginally better than a chimp when it comes to explaining mistakes subtler than "hey, buddy, you dropped your knight!"

Second, I'd like to assure everyone that I don't have posters of Botvinnik and Kotov in my possession, let alone hanging from the walls of some fabled, antiseptic analysis room. And speaking of Kotov, of candidate move and tree of analysis fame, I think it's a bad idea as a general method. If your sniffer is telling you that this is the move to consider, then get on with it. If you're stymied, however, or if multiple continuations come to mind, then analyze them, starting with the ones that look either most promising or most easily refuted. (There's a good critical discussion of Kotov's approach in Tisdall's Improve Your Chess Now!.)

I hope this was more helpful (and less intimidating), but I also hope the first post was good for a laugh. Unless, that is, you want to become a world champion. Then you might want to follow the advice of the first column. If so, I'll start looking for your posters - and a good psychologist - right away.

A reader writes, by email:

Hello Dennis,

Could you sketch out how you go about analyzing a game? Do you prefer to work with pencil and paper, jotting down a series of candidate moves at each critical juncture? Or you fire up Fritz and track your analysis with the aid of a computer (recently I find myself doing this more often)? Or perhaps some other process?

Great question! Here's what I do. Sitting in a clean, spare, brightly-lit room, with only the sounds of nature to remind me of the world, I look beseechingly at my posters of Botvinnik and Kotov and get down to business. Feeling their authoritative but benevolent gaze, I open my book, make the first several moves on the board, and then cover up the next move with an index card. Using a chess clock set to a tournament time control, I write on a separate piece of paper not only the move I'm predicting, but all the variations I've calculated as well. Of course, I note all the candidate moves at each juncture, using pencils of different colors to keep track of all the sub-variations.

Four hours later, I stop and compare my notes to the GM's analysis. The next stage, especially for a somewhat older game, is to check both sets of analysis with the computer. It's especially important to do that with the opening phase as well, lest now discredited ideas find a home in one's understanding of the game. So once I'm out of book-as-I-know-it, I play through every single game in all my databases from that point on, looking especially for the motifs from the game and in my own analysis.

Once that's done, I call up one of the many GM buddies I have on retainer, and ask him to double-check my original analysis and the semi-final, refined version. We spend an hour or so doing that, and then I (a) double-check his analysis, both on my own and with the computer, and then (b) I go through all his games in that variation a second time.

By now the sun is starting to set, and I've only just started working. The next step is to call another of my GM pals, and play a series of training games from the starting position of my original analysis, and sometimes also from later positions in the game. It's a way of testing myself to make sure I really learned from the original game, and of overlearning my opening theory.

Finally, the night has come. I smile at the Patriarch and his industrious fellow-grandmaster, hoping they're proud of me. Taking in the clear night air as I enjoy my daily constitutional, I relax my mind, eager for the start of the next day...

Doug in Seattle writes, via comments:

Dennis,

Wondering if you had the chance to watch this. I had high hopes for it as the production value (sets, sync'd boards, etc.) was quite good, but overall the experience left me disappointed. I thought Paul Troung and Phil Innes commentary was quite weak and unstructured - you would have done a far better job, and do every week.

It was obvious that the piece was edited together, which I had hoped the commentators would take full advantage of i.e. describing the various strategies employed from various opening structures, the aims of the different openings being employed, what middlegame/endgame the players are aiming toward,...'try' to create some tension,...more than the little anecdote here and there thrown in between Paul's 'insightful' commentary along the lines of, "Susan's Knight is stuck,...she's going to want to get that Knight out of there,...it's not doing anything where it is right now,...Fritz says that she's 1-pawn down right now,...On to the Gulko game,..." If I'd have been sitting there, I would have driven a Bishop through his forehead.

Overall, my thoughts after turning it off were, "what a wasted opportunity". Paul and Phil proved they are 'not' qualified commentators and had no business representing the chess community in offering their 'expert-commentary' during the games, nor did they utilize Palatnik's expertise to full effect - he should have been much more involved.

In any case,...wondering what you thought of it.

Hi Doug,

In addition to my weekly show, I used to do live commentary on my previous "network". I think I did a decent job, considering my strength relative to the players whose games I was discussing, but I had three advantages relative to Truong.

First, I was dealing with a classical time control as opposed to G/20. It's a lot easier to engage in exposition with a slower time limit!

Second, I could count on a pretty sophisticated audience and didn't need to worry about overly basic explanations, the need to hype the event or other non-chess distractions.

And third, it helped having Tony Rook as the host. I know some people were put off by his occasionally cornball style and his relative lack of sophistication at the game, but I think it was very helpful to have someone with experience as a "personality", who could deal with the non-chess aspects of the presentation. In my opinion, the Truong/Innes team was handicapped by the lack of a genuine host/emcee.

So I'm inclined to give Truong a bit of a break in terms of his actual performance - at least if the commentary was live. (There were commercial cuts, but I'm not sure that proves the commentary was done after the fact - maybe they were told when the cuts would be and how to react at those moments.) Also, re GM Palatnik, while I don't recall his saying anything at all, I think his job was to provide commentary for the Russian audience. (I'm assuming there's a second feed out there presented in Russian. Does anyone know?)

That said, there were some odd elements to the show. If the commentary was live rather than a post-event fabrication, it's reasonable to ask why. Second, why no player interviews? Even a few perfunctory post-game comments by some designated player would have livened things up, especially for casual players new to the broader chess world. Another idea: those whose games finished early could have strapped on a headset - at least for the second set of games - and been interviewed/joined in the commentary. Maybe Bering Strait could have been interviewed about chess in their lives - assuming they play, of course! Third, why Truong and Innes? If the point was to really make a big splash ("300 million potential viewers" and all that), then why not fork over a little extra and have GM commentary?

I'm glad there were people who put this event together - that's the only way chess will achieve a more prominent place in the public consciousness. But if you're going to arrange such an event, then pull out all the stops: you may not get a second chance.

The latest issue of New in Chess magazine (2005/5) is out, and as usual, it's a good one. Readers can find an overview of the current issue here.

I want to single out two small bits from the magazine for comment: (1) the greatest game Ponomariov has ever seen, and (2) Jonathan Rowson's review of Igor Stohl's Kasparov book.

(1) For some years now, each issue of NIC concludes with the "Just Checking" interview, a one-page mini-interview always featuring the same questions. This month the interviewee is Ponomariov, and his response to "What is the best game you ever saw?" is one I don't think I had ever seen before: game 5 of the Spielmann-Stoltz match. It's a mind-blower, and I'm considering having it as my ChessBase show game for this week. You can replay it here.

(2) For several years, Matthew! Sadler!! was NIC's book reviewer!!! (loved by some and hated by others for his exuberant use of exclamation points!), but Jonathan Rowson has recently taken over the job. In this issue, Rowson reviews four books: Jan Timman's Curacao 1962, Alexey Shirov's Fire on Board Part II: 1997-2004, Boris Gelfand's eponymous Boris Gelfand: My Most Memorable Games, and Igor Stohl's Gary [sic] Kasparov's Greatest Chess Games Volume 1.

The first three books receive positive reviews, but Stohl's work gets a thumbs-down. Of this work, Rowson writes

While this book might give readers some pleasant moments, I find it a bit pointless. The selected games are wonderful of course, and the annotations are by no means bad, but they are somewhat dry, and given that most of these games are extremely well known, and that many of them have been analysed by Kasparov himself elsewhere, I am not sure that the chess world really needed this book.

Ideally Kasparov's greatest games should be analysed by the man himself, and I hope we can look forward to that happening in due course. Until then, the role of guiding us through his greatest games should go to somebody who has known him well throughout his life, played against him frequently, or analysed with him extensively (ideally all three).

Ok, let's sum up: (a) great games, (b) competent analysis, but the games are (c) almost all well-known and (d) have been analyzed before, (e) Stohl's writing style lacks pizazz and (f) an insider's perspective. Of course, (a) & (b) are positives, but (c)-(f) make the book unworthy of his recommendation. Let's consider these critiques in turn.

I found (c) and (d) somewhat perplexing. It's true that most of the games have been analyzed before - most if not all by Kasparov, but in my opinion not that many are well-known to the general chess public. Kasparov has not published a book on his games since the mid-80s (The Test of Time in 1984 and books on his world championship matches with Karpov in 1985 and 1986), and no major books on his career that I'm aware of since Fighting Chess in 1995. Of course Kasparov has continued to annotate his games for the Informant, but the percentage of the chess public giving their money to Matanovic and the gang is miniscule. So sure: serious fans who have been playing through the Kasparov era or purchase Informants have seen his analyses; for the broader public and those who have taken up the game in the internet generation, most of these games - and thus their annotations, too - will be a revelation.

Further, Rowson acknowledges the issue of repeated analysis with the Gelfand and Shirov books, but concludes that those books' virtues outweigh that vice. Leaving aside the other virtues for the moment, I'll note that the analytical overlap is much greater in the other books than in Stohl's - Stohl offers an independent perspective analyzing older games whose original annotations came before strong chess engines burst onto the scene.

Moving on to (e), I'll grant it. Stohl's prose is objective and a bit flat, though his explanations are clear enough to be effective. So he's no Tal (or Sadler!), fine. Should readers lacking Kasparov's old books and the last 40-50 Informants therefore pass up this book? Not in my opinion.

Rowson thinks it would have been better if someone close to Kasparov had written this book - preferably Kasparov himself. I'm certainly looking forward to Kasparov's getting around to it myself (as he has promised he will, as a sort of addendum to the My Great Predecessors series), but that's at least a few years off. And who else is there? It's wildly improbable that one of his peers would write such a book, while the only one of his trainers who seems strong enough and close enough to write such a book is Yuri Dokhoian. But Dokhoian's prose, at least in the NIC analyses of Kasparov games that I've seen, is hardly more vibrant than Stohl's. (Maybe that's his writing style, or maybe he takes it as part of his professional obligation as a second.)

One more Rowson quote:

More to the point, Kasparov is a living legend. The heart of his appeal as a player and a person is his passion, which reveals itself in his deep love of chess and his strong sense of purpose. Sadly, I don't feel that this passion has been captured by the book, and therefore I cannot recommend it.

Here too, as with objection (e), I have some sympathy with Rowson's objection. Stohl could have done more here, or perhaps someone else could have written an introductory article describing Kasparov's creative approach to the game. Perhaps Stohl/Gambit Publishing can incorporate these ideas in the prospective volume 2. Nevertheless, while I think this means it's not a great book, it doesn't disqualify it, for me, as a worthwhile effort.

In sum, if you're buying a book on Kasparov for the fabulous prose or behind-the-scenes stories, then don't buy Stohl's effort. If you want to see a nice collection of fantastic, well-annotated games by the (arguably) greatest player of all time and you don't have a pile of Informants (which, I note, tend to be short on inspirational prose as well) or other old sources handy, then I recommend this book. Ten years between books on Kasparov's career is too long, and I'm pleased that a good one has been published - even if a better one may be forthcoming in a few years.

One of the best things we can do to improve our chess is to analyze, and - generally speaking - the deeper, the better. But how often do we do it? Many of us analyze our losses, but often just to find where we went wrong in the opening or lost it. Perhaps because we find it too painful, we don't spend any more time on those games than we need to for the aforementioned purposes.

On the other hand, while we might be intoxicated by the magnificence of our successes, it's hard for us to cast a sufficiently critical eye on those games. Draws tend to leave us emotionally flat, so they receive even less attention, while it's only a dedicated few that will actually spend time analyzing others' games in any real detail.

That's unfortunate enough, but then we compound it. Instead of breaking out the set and getting to work - or really, to play! - we "analyze" by firing up our "little German friend" (as Fritz is sometimes called) and letting it do the work. We open our beaks, let mommy feed us the predigested analysis she has caught, and pride ourselves on catching our own dinner.

Not a pretty picture! Of course there's a place for the computer - it's a fantastic tool whose proper use makes improvement far easier than it was in the purely print days. But many of us don't use it properly, and our skills atrophy as a result.

Unfortunately, I suspect that for most of us, just sitting down to analyze GM games is an acquired taste. We need motivation to do this sort of rigorous analytical work, and the promise of ratings points in the sweet by-and-by isn't likely to sustain our interest.

So here's a suggestion: play correspondence or email chess. This will provide motivation aplenty for the heavy-duty work I'm recommending, the chance to do it in a context that counts, and finally, as a terrific fringe benefit, a marvelous chance to really learn your openings in a deep, immersive way. But remember, do NOT use your chess engines!

Here's a game I played by email in early 2001 against a friend rated 1900+ USCF (played with the proviso that neither of use chess engines). My analysis is there, in all its original unvarnished glory, uncorrected by computers. As you'll see, I enjoyed myself - not so much because of the result, but because I was able to find all sorts of neat possibilities! Some of my variations were almost three times as long as the game, and I hope you'll enjoy exploring them as much as I enjoyed producing them.

Finally, to close on the utilitarian note with which this post began, my OTB play grew stronger as a result. Indeed, I've noticed that whenever I've either played correspondence chess with a real effort, or when I've done really sustained, difficult analytical work (as during a two-week chess camp with Dvoretsky and Yusupov a few years back), my chess has grown measurably stronger as a result. So enjoy the game, do likewise, and reap the benefit!

Lance Armstrong is a biological freak (in a good way), but he was a freak and a non-Tour de France winner for many years. What made the difference? Jim Caple quotes these excerpts from Armstrong's autobiography, It's Not About the Bike:

As he writes in his autobiography, "It's Not About the Bike," Armstrong learned early on that he was always willing to endure whatever it took to win. "It didn't seem to matter what the sport was … if it was a suffer-fest, I was good at it."

And this: "Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever. That surrender, even the smallest act of giving up, stays with me. So when I feel like quitting, I ask myself, which would I rather live with?"

Another time, he told a reporter, "I would really be upset if I didn't have the opportunity to suffer."

Fortunately, serious chess improvement doesn't entail physical pain, but after a certain point, it does require some hard work. Put away your 101 Snappy Tricks for Lazy People to Beat Lazy Opponents Who Don't Have This Book and get cracking on tactics, endgames and analysis. It's a pain, it's frustrating, and it is (or can be) tedious. It's also the best way for (almost) all amateurs to improve. It might be a little painful (in the boredom sense), at least at first, but don't quit on yourself. Let your opponents take short cuts; in the end, you'll win.

In response to my craziest game ever, Oscar comments:

Neat, even if your opponent should have won. Thanks!

You're welcome - I'm glad you enjoyed the game! I don't mean to pick on your first statement, which was most likely an off-the-cuff way of saying that I was lucky, but it provides the occasion for a brief discussion of the place of luck in chess.

My thesis, which may or may not be controversial, is that although I was lucky, it's not true that my opponent should have won. He could have won, certainly, and had he won, it would have been the logical result of his resourceful defense. But he didn't, and so while it's true I was lucky, it doesn't follows that he was unlucky.

That might seem incoherent: if I had good fortune, doesn't it mean that my opponent had bad fortune? Not necessarily. The reason I was fortunate to draw is that my opponent had to miss something that was well within his ability to detect. There was nothing I, as a chessplayer, could do, other than set the trap and keep a straight face. It was out of my hands and no longer in my power to earn a draw or a win, so it was fortunate that my last gasp succeeded.

There was nothing unlucky about his fate, however. The lighting didn't go out, cell phones didn't ring, babies didn't cry, and no one engaged in any gamesmanship. He just prematurely relaxed and missed something he had the ability to see. (If the position before 54.Qd6+ had been in a problem book, I think he'd have found the solution in under five seconds, quite possibly in under two.) Carelessness isn't bad luck, and while it's certainly a pity that he didn't finish what had been a well-played game, I can't agree that he should have won.

Of course, I'm not singling out Barcarola here. I've blown half and even full points, and so has every other even moderately serious chess player - recall Kasparov's last game, featuring (at least) three half-point-losing blunders.

In short: we can't necessarily take full credit for our successes on the chessboard, but (with very rare exceptions) we have only ourselves to blame for our failures. Some might see the lack of a scapegoat as the glass half-empty, but I see it as the glass half-full: I can only have good luck!

Check out this post on Mig's "Daily Dirt" blog, noting especially the comments section.

(Hat tip: fluffy)