Matt writes:
Dennis,Thank you for the time you dedicate online within the Broadcast rooms on Thursday evenings.
I am a relatively newbie player and recently began to become more serious with studying chess. I was recently trying to approach studying games with the various tools available through Fritz9. It is a bit overwhelming to say the least!
Could you recommend a source of information perhaps describing how to even begin to approach studying played games?
Thank you for any direction of advice.
Matt :)
There are many ways and materials that discuss this. Here's my suggestion, and I think it holds for anyone from "relative newbie" through master.
First, you need to pick a game. I recommend using games that are annotated, though you should make a copy of the game without the comments and cover up the moves, revealing each half-move only after you've made your guesses. (If you're using Fritz or ChessBase, that's easy. First, open a commented game, then use "delete all commentary" and save the result. (NOT "replace"!) Then use the "training" tab, which will hide all moves but the preceding one.)
Having picked out a game, go through it one half-move at a time (i.e. first one player's move, then the other's, etc.), starting from the end of your book knowledge, and try to guess the moves. (By "guess" I mean "work out as best as you can".) Do that all the way through, writing your guesses down.
Next, go through the game as played, a half-move at a time, and try to figure out why the players made the moves they did. Work out the positional moves, work out the tactics - the whole thing. Don't use your computer chess engines (and if you are doing all this on a computer, make sure you turn the heumas move-input tool off)! You might want to go through it twice - first without moving pieces to analyze, then moving them. If you can't figure something out, make a note of it.
Step four: see if you can figure out what was wrong with your mistaken guesses in part one. You could break this up into three sub-steps: working out mentally, then moving pieces, and then with a chess engine's help.
Now that you've extracted all you can from your own abilities and understand the game as deeply as you can, it's time to look at the annotated version. This should prove a real eye-opener after your preliminary work! I recommend you go through the notes the same way as in step three: try to understand all the analysis, and make a note of whatever you don't understand. (After doing this, you might make a second run-through with the chess engine, especially to check any tactical questions you might have.)
Finally, if you've done all that, ask a (sufficiently strong) friend or chess teacher to have a look at your analysis and to help you understand whatever leftover questions you might have.
Hypothetical Q&A:
Q: Gee, that sounds like a lot of work.
A: Who said chess was easy?Q: I don't have time to do all that.
A: You don't have to do it in one setting, though there are benefits to doing so. One is that tournament games take a long time to play, so this exercise will help improve your mental stamina. But if you can't, or can't always finish steps 1-5 in a single sitting, break it up into several sessions. Do make sure, though, not to let too much time elapse between sessions.Q: When copying games, I see moves and annotations, and that ruins the whole exercise.
A: There are ways of avoiding or overcoming this problem. If you have a database, it's no problem at all, because you can open a game in training mode without seeing anything, delete the annotations without looking at them, and so on. If you don't have any databases and are using a game from a book, no problem: print the game from an online database (here's ChessBase's - find the game there, select it, choose "View* as PGN, paste it into something you can print from and you're good to go). Another thing you can do is to pick out a bunch of games, copy them out by hand, and then wait a while - give yourself time to forget what you've seen.Q: Will this really help my chess?
A: Immensely.Q: Why are you sharing this information with the general public?
A: I'm a nice guy! Besides, most people are lazy - probably all of us, at least some of the time - and they'd rather buy "Winning with the Four-Move Mate" or similar rubbish. You'll lose a game here and there to these trapmeisters, but you'll leave them in the dust if you make a habit of studying games in depth.Q: I think I still see some dregs at the bottom of the cup: what else haven't you told me about studying a game for all it's worth?
A: Practically speaking, there's no end to what you can extract from a good game if you're willing to dig. Here are two more suggestions. First, you can look up other games that use the same variation, looking for similarities and dissimilarities, and doing so with an eye to solving whatever problems you became aware of while studying the first game. Second, you can do a search for games featuring similar motifs. (E.g. two bishops vs. two knights, a certain attacking pattern, endgames with a given material balance, and so on.)Q: Should I just buy a "Solitaire Chess" book?
A: You can, but I have two caveats and a more serious objection. The first caveat is that if you use the book directly, you'll often be given information that helps you with subsequent moves, and the notes are almost always given for the winning side's moves. That means you'll get too much information (when you're doing the exercise) and too little (when you're working on step 5). Caveat number two is that it's only a temporary fix at best: what happens when you finish the book? Save your money and use the resources you already have. The most serious objection is that I dislike the "points" system and the imaginary ratings attached to them. The goal is to work and to learn, not to achieve a completely meaningless score. If you want to know how strong you are, play in tournaments, and you'll get a rating.(Speaking of which, don't be one of those players (i.e. almost everyone) who says "my rating is x, but I'm reeeeeeeeeeeeeeally 200 points stronger." No, you're not, unless you're a sandbagger or a clearly improving player who has avoided tournaments for an extended period of time. Chess is a performance business, and your ability to score like an x + 200 player on a tactics test or your alleged possession of the "understanding" of an x + 200 player doesn't prove you're an x + 200 player when it counts, in a real life game. To paraphrase Bruce Lee, diagrams don't punch back.)
Related Posts (on one page):
- Going over a game for all its worth: Example time
- The Readers Write: Going over a game for all it's worth
Thank you Dennis for the outstanding info!
Where does one obtain commented/annotated games? And, are there must study games you recommend?
Matt
Thing is that most of those old games are still pretty good.
in theory Dennis's five stage plan is excellent - and would definitely lead to improvement
i think the problem is that it is too much - it's like those gym programs recommending two hours a day with various warm ups, complicated exercises, and warm downs. people start off enthusiasticly only to give up going to the gym completely after a couple of weeks. a simple half houf programme with "fun" challenges is much more likely to be followed.
i think that the way to go is the "guess the move" type books which Dennis mentions - not because they give you a rating you can boast about (or not) but because they introduce an element of challenge and fun
there are many to choose from: 2 volumes of "Test your chess" by Daniel King
"Chess Self-Improvement" by Zeno Franco
"Test your Chess" by Steffen Pedersen
"Chess Combat Simulator" by Jeroen Bosch (possibly the best because it just gives the plain game score followed by analysis on subsequent pages)
and for the endgame "Test your Endgame" by Crouch and Mednis
very few players would be able conssistently to follow Dennis's programme but i think most would enjoy and benefit from these books
i should also mention that recently i said to a strong British IM that i was setting up complicated postions and thinking about them for 20 mins as recommended by Rowson in "Chess for Zebras" and he replied that in his life he had never trained by this type of method - "head in hands trying to analyse with the clock ticking - save that for the tournament hall" he said!
I think your comment is very useful, and reflects the way many people will react to my suggestion. So let me offer some further clarification and explanation:
1. I'm not recommending this as the only or even primary means to chess improvement. Instead, I was answering a question about how to study games.
2. The gym analogy would work if my "program" had to be done all at once, or was the only thing I suggested doing, but neither is the case.
3. I think "Test your Endgame" is a good book, but it's because of the book's specific focus. I don't have the Pedersen and Bosch books, but the Franco book struck me as a waste of money. The games were fine and so was the commentary, but you're blowing money on a gimmick. One can easily get more games for the money - games of at least equal (intrinsic and instructive) value and depth with at least equally deep, insightful commentary. The point of studying is to improve, not to make chess book publishers wealthy.
4. Of course it's true that not everyone does this, but my suggestion, or something like it, has been a staple of many outstanding players' training going back to at least Kotov. My suggestion is to stick with the GMs' (Kotov and Rowson) advice over the IM's.
5. I should add that I'm not against chess as entertainment and aesthetics; that's what keeps me in the game even when I'm uninterested in the competitive and improvement aspects. Everyone has his or her own reasons for playing and goals - or not - for improvement. So if you'll spend more time with the Bosch book than you would with my plan, use the Bosch book. (But what happens when you finish it?)
That said, I'm skeptical about the claim that "very few players would be able [consistently] to follow [my] programme but [that] most would enjoy and benefit from these books." First, I think my plan will work, but use it in moderation - don't go crazy and burn yourself out.
As for the substitute version using pre-formatted books, my experience and conversations with others suggest that their value is questionable. What usually happens with such books is that the player, excited about his purchase, quickly goes through one or two games carefully, and then one of four things happens.
(1) The player gets increasingly impatient and goes through the game faster and faster, telling himself stories about how good is he to have achieved the score he did using so little time.
(2) He gets obsessed by the point totals, and almost never uses the book because he wants to be really, really ready to work at it. (Don't let your ego get in the way of learning! That's very difficult to do, though, and that's a reason to not use such books: there's no scoring involved to distract or threaten when we're doing it ourselves.)
(3) He doesn't feel like working that hard at it, so it becomes another collection of nice games - it becomes another primarily entertainment book.
(4) The book finds its way to the shelf, where it begins in earnest its career as a home for dust mites.
very good points
i suppose the key to studying games for improvement is to have some independent thoughts about them before looking at the moves and analysis - and thus avoid the "read and nod" method criticised by Rowson
whether this is done by the "covering the scoresheet" method recommended by yourself or by using formatted books is probably not as important as the necessity for independent thinking and analysis.
ozzie (-:
So what we want to do is to foster that skill in ourselves, and my concern is that the pre-fab method undermines it in a several important ways. It's probably better than nothing though - especially for the author. :)
Update to my study efforts!
I own Chess: the art of logical thinking and Logical Chess, Move my Move. I felt these qualifed for a start of how to begin studying games by using their annotated comments. Now to find their PGN somewhere on the web or in my Fritz9 DB.
To add to the above discussion, by the way, Ozzie, are we related? >;)
I almost feel there is a learning curve to how to begin studying effectively. This reminds me of a quote I always stated regarding educators... "Anyone can teach, but not everyone can teach well." I am just initially trying to figure out how to study well, and use my time effectively.
I decided to begin studying "A.Karpov - V.Korchnoi World Championship, Baguio City 1978"
I felt focusing on games with Kings Pawn openings were to my benefit as a newbie :) I did order some of the books you suggested Dennis, thank you.
Also, I noticed that a variety of ChessBase Magazine issues and the ChessBase database advertise x amount of annotated games. Are these annotated/commented well enough for my purposes of study?
Thanks for any info,
Matt Ozzie :)
Dennis you mentioned when using Fritz9 to use the training tab... "(If you're using Fritz or ChessBase, that's easy. First, open a commented game, then use "delete all commentary" and save the result. (NOT "replace"!) Then use the "training" tab, which will hide all moves but the preceding one.)"
I opened up the game, which I found in Fritz9 DB,I selected Chess Course, how do I set up the game to hide all moves but the preceding one!? I do not have a training tab...
bah, I feel high maintenance!
Many games in CBM and Mega2007 are well-annotated, but you don't need either. You'll be much better off going through the books you mentioned and the ones I recommended. After you've gone through all of them, I'd recommend vol. 1 of Kasparov's My Great Predecessors and work your way through the classics, one player at a time.
About Fritz: you're right that there's no training tab. So just close the notation pane! You can do that by right-clicking on the pane, or by going to Window-Panes and unchecking the Notation box. (To restore it, do the same, but check it again.)
My favorite method of going through games is to select a game from a collection of well annotated games and play through the game until I reach a "what was he thinking?" point where a player makes a move that I would never have considered. At that point, I try to work out why the move works and why I didn't see it coming. I am currently enjoying Stohl's first volume of Kasparov's games. Great annotations and 8-12 diagrams per game, which makes it easy to read without a board.
Quiz books are great fun, too. One thing I have found useful is to make sure to spend time after you turn the page and see the answer to work out the solution and be able to recreate all of the analysis from the diagram. Even when you know the answer it is not always easy to see it from the diagram. Chris Ward's Chess Choice Challenge is one of the only chess books I have read cover to cover and he gives very instructive answers to his puzzles.
Domer