12 day training progress

Gilachess, got a few suggestions to turbo charged your 12 day training plan.

bullet, this is a no-no. bad, bad, bad! what u will end up developing is your tendency to play stupidly and bad openings to confuse your opponent (or just move for the sake of moving (ie., randomly). ONLY play G/5 min to speed up your thinking (where at least u can have a semblance of a reasonable game). OR train playing G/20 to develop deeper thinking (for G/25, so your time management should pretty good)

after game, go thru with a top chess engine Get toga 1.2.1. (perhaps with arena as the interface) Currently, toga is the world’s strongest free engine, and the 2nd best. Stronger than the latest Fritz 9/Shredder 10. Now if $$$ is no objection, and if u have a dual/quad 64bit AMD CPU, get Rybka, the world’s strongest. Even the single CPU 32bit version is 75points better than toga . 64bit version is an additional ~ 50 elo stronger. With dual (core) CPU, another ~50 points stronger due to the 1.7x scaling. With 4 CPUs possibly another 50 points stronger.

Bottom line, u will hv arguably the top 1-2 world class GM working tirelessly 24/7 for u for next to nothing. Believe me, this works. It’s too bad that I started out late (being serious (and now too old to improve much) but it has helped me reach the equivalent of 2100+ fide. (Can occasionally take down a few slow FMs in G/3.)

Btw, from what little I know, top malaysians tend to frequent WCN. I wonder why. Esp that ICC is some 6X bigger and costs the same. do u also happen to know of any other malaysians who play online? (I no longer live in Malaysia but am still quite interested in the Malaysian chess scene (after accidentally stumbling onto a tourny in progress at sungai wang plaza in 02. ))

Well, good luck in your chess training. Btw, the pain in your hand is probably a form of carpal syndrome. I also got that playing bullet too. That’s why I said, it’s bad, bad, bad!

I had wanted to post a comment similar to a blitz bashing being treated as a training tool in a 12 day plan. Powerizer of course has his point that blitz does nothing much to improve your play. It does help with you recognizing patterns but until you’ve reached some point in chess strength blitz wouldn’t help much in your development.

Chess thought requires organization. Often one has already a set of questions, 1 or 100 depends. We seem to either understand what we’re trying to do or completely clueless making believe that we do. The thought process would usually try to first realize what the threats on the board are, tactical motifs about and the interaction between the pieces. Pawn structure comes next as well as the general consideration for middle game and endgames. After some concrete analysis on forced moves, we go about thinking of a realizable plan and that becomes our objective. To make things short, for training purposes, training games should be more than about half an hour, slowly disciplining you to work on the lines of thought that should be constanly flowing in your mind. This is no easy work and every strong player from Polgar to Morozevich have done the same thing and playing blitz wouldn’t hurt their play as they have already developed a structured and organized thinking process.

I know it’s fun playing blitz, but limit them to 4 or 5 games a day. It gets the blood pumping and it’s nice being able to try out different sacrifices which work for a position and to try out new wrinkles in a new opening.

My RM 0.02

hi gilachess,

i agree with the two posted comments above. bullet is just not the way to go. especially 1 minute games. at most i would suggest 3min+1sec increments, or probably 5″+0. i have done the same mistakes playing too much online blitz and it just didnt help me during real tournament games. chess is a strategy game, requiring a sound plan and execution of flawless tactics to win a game. not just merely winning on time. you wont get a lot of stupid/obvious blunders from a strong opposition in a real game.

i would recommend u play online at playchess. dunno why, but i find the interface better compared to others like wcn and icc. many masters play there at night like adams, short, nakamura, karjakin, carlsen etc. watching nakamura’s Qh4 is just exciting! its just great to be kibitzing.

tacticwise, i think george renko’s tactics cd is quite useful during leisure and when ur short of time. i also think studying the endgame manual by dvoretsky is really really necessary. also his book on positional play, or mihai suba’s book on dynamic play. as for a chess engine, having a version of fritz would be sufficient (even the older version like fritz 6 or 7would do). if ur planning to splash a little more money, i would suggest hiarcs compared to rybka/zapchess. the hiarcs engine is more human-like and is able to learn from its games - more intelligent in my opinion. btw, don’t be too bogged down by openings. its not just worth it.

i believe u have the passion, determination and initiative to succeed and break the 2000 barrier. all the best!!

papyn chase:

yes, never thot of it that way but u r absolutely correct in that the better the player is the better the improvement/benefit he will experience getting out of playing blitz. (ie., GMs, etc. wld be able to beta-test out his new opening ideas and have them all battle tested against a multitude of diff players in hundreds of games, etc; whereas the avg joe will be doomed to repeat the same blunders game after game, after game - ad infinitum.

i suggested g/20 for 2 reasons. 1) to simulate slightly stringent time control to best prepare gilachess to “perform” in G/25. 2) if he wasn’t into G/25, i would, of course, sugggested playing even slower games. but G/20 seems to be perhaps a good compromise between getting as many games in as possible and still having enuf time for decent play. also, there is the issue of diminishing return in quality of play/learning value the weaker the player is in slower play (G/2h, etc). IE., if u give a 1000 elo player 3hr/G instead of 1hr/G, I doubt v much that he can play any better ‘coz he doesn’t have the knowledge to utilize the extra time to better discern the subtleties in a position, etc.

playing 4 or 5 game limit seems a bit too low tho’, but i do agree with the general recommendation of not playing too many blitz games as i can state from experience that the quality of game play *will* drop after perhaps some 30-40+ games. (note: to be fair, there is an advantage in engaging in a chess marathon - builds up your chess thinking stamina.)

Hope gilachess will benefit from all this chess talk.

matt:

absolutely right. fast and slow games are really 2 different kinds of games. to wit, some (1500) kids r vv good (acutually, just vvvv fast) in g/1min, and i can even lose to them (on time), but in G/3min, i just kill them.

i think wcn interface is pretty but not at all user friendly. v cumbersome interface. limited features/commands. only menu driven. no programmability or command prompt. also, not so many players.

icc, well, *used* to be clearly #1, but playchess has caught up (has best technology tho’ i dont like the actually small chess interface. (no choice for other interfaces). at 1 time, advertizing a seek at icc will get u a game in 1-2 seconds (there were thousands of players then), but not true these days. (btw, the only malaysian that i know of who plays at icc is yusof kamaluddin. any others, anyone know of? i wld like to test how sharp their swords r. why aren’t there any malaysian at fics? not so many GMs, IMs there, and perhaps only low hundreds of players at any given time , but it’s most icc-like, and it’s free!! (and monitored, so no cheating).

simple checkmates by sunil w. (father of nakamura). there r some 440 mate in 1 and 2’s (practical real life posn). v good to get the chess mating juice going. i solved all the puzzles in 1h 30m. it’s fun and non-tiring. strongly recommend gilachess this book (but dunno if avail in m’sia!?) btw, my library (system) carries 168 chess books, and I can renew them for upto 6 months (online), so if anyone wants a review/opinion to books not available locally, i might be able to help out here. (but be patient pls. kinda bz.)

dvoretsky book is kinda heavy. recommended to > 2000 elo. best for players without much time and

< 2000 - practical rook ending by GM edmar mednis (nice guy). chess endings - essential knowledge by yuri averbakh. all thin books.

re: chess engine (fritz 6/7). i have to respectfully disagree. sure, if u play and lose to a 2600 or 2800 engine, it doesnt' matter much. but when u do real time analyzing like i do (and at my level), it makes a HUGE difference when using a 2600 or 2800 engine esp. in the openings. Sometimes, the top few variations in critical (or sacrificial lines) can differ by only a centipawn (1/100 of a pawn), so yes, it pays to use the top engines*. also, u must realize that a 2800 (or 2600, etc) engine is 2800 (/2600) rated by virtue of its ability to win/draw games cz' they don't blunder like humans do. (ie., a 2800 human play more like 2600 or 3000 from 1 move to another + an occasional 2200 weakie/blunder). Point is a 2800 engine isn't 2800 strength but maybe averages 50-100+ points lower move per move strength than what u expect a 2800 would play when he doesnt' blunder.

* of course, hiarcs is one of the elite engine. I like its play. (human-like means human like blunders too. think cstal or gambit tiger.) your suggestion of Fritz 6/7 is actually quite ironic 'cz they, in fact, play v v computer like. the top engines (fritz 9 included), all play non-computer like moves these days. for blunder checking, i agree with u, with using fritz 6/7 or other lower engines.

if book learning is so great than why is hiarccs

Rybka 1.2 32-bit
Gaksch/Letouzey 440 250 113 77 306,5 25,7% 69,7% 2714 2857 25 35
3 Shredder 10 UCI 28.04.2006 [UCI-€]
S. Meyer-Kahlen (D) 440 228 135 77 295,5 30,7% 67,2% 2715 2838 25 31
4 Fruit 2.2.1 28.10.2005 [UCI-€]
F. Letouzey (F) 440 220 124 96 282,0 28,2% 64,1% 2716 2815 26 31
5 Fritz 9 11.09.2005 [Native-€]
F. Morsch (NL/D) 440 225 106 109 278,0 24,1% 63,2% 2716 2808 27 32
6 Hiarcs X50 UCI 31.05.2006 [UCI-€]
M. Uniacke (GB) 440 206 140 94 276,0 31,8% 62,7% 2716 2805 27 29
7 Spike 1.1 06.02.2006 [UCI]
Schäfer, Böhm (D) 440 180 139 121 249,5 31,6% 56,7% 2718 2763 30 26