Chess

Thanks!

Do you think it is worth buying the Chessmaster computer program for $40? Or does the free stuff out there do the trick for a complete novice?

Interesting what you said about openings. It is difficult, psychologically, to get past the idea that I have to master openings before moving onto the next step. My mind wants to learn this in a linear fashion, but it sounds like that's not the way. Wonder if a lot of people get hung up on that.

 

I'm not really familiar with the chessmaster program. I guess it depends on what you want. If it comes with some training programs and such, and you don't want to have to find those another way, then that's fine. If it's just to play chess against, then don't bother spending your money. The free programs will do everything you need, and really you should try practicing against other humans at a place like the Free Internet Chess Server (freechess.org). Practicing against a computer isn't always optimal, because the way they make a computer weaker is to have it make randomly awful moves every so often.

Openings are probably the *least* important phase of the game. You have a ton of choices, and on a practical level they all pretty much do the same thing: You take control of some space and get your pieces out.

At the master level, the tiny differences in openings can make all the difference. If you are playing someone with flawless middlegame and endgame technique, then a small inaccuracy in the first 10 moves will doom you even though you might not lose for another 40 moves. Amateur players see masters spending all their time on openings and assume they should do the same, but really they are probably the last thing you should learn. (That's oversimplifying a bit, everyone should know a little bit of openings and you can't help but pick some up as you play more).

If I were to really, really, really oversimplify, it basically goes like this:
Casual players: Need to get better at tactics.
Tournament amateurs (like me): Need to get better at positional techniques (i.e. the middlegame) and endgames.
Experts and low-level masters: Need to master openings.

 

I apply my chess strategy to Stratego.

 

In stratego, I always had a ring of bombs around my flag, with a few sixes inside to take care of the miners that got through.

 

I play Stratego with my boys and still love it. I think the more effective strategy is to randomly put your flag without any real obvious defense.

 

I feel like I'm improving slightly, just by learning some basic principles and being careful with my moves. I'm still in the 900s on Yahoo, but I actually won a match today (granted against an even lesser player, but it still felt good) and then forced a stalemate.

I'm thinking about buying an end game book so that I can at least learn some checkmating strategies for when the opportunity arises, unlike my opponent today.

I'd love to work my way up to 1200 or so eventually.

 

What kind of mates are you having trouble with?

Like "I have a rook and a king and he just has a king" stuff? Or more complicated?

This article might help:
http://chess.about.com/od/tipsforbeginners/ss/BasicCheckmates.htm

If you are serious enough to be wanting to buy a book, this is the one I've heard almost universally recommended for players at your level. Ignore the for-kids-sounding name:

http://www.amazon.com/How-Beat-Your-Chess-Gambit/dp/1901983056/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325455105&sr=8-1


Side chess note: I've completed my application to become a certified tournament director with the USCF, so that I can help our little local club can host more rated tournaments.

 

We played "Capture the Flag" IRL when I was a freshman and sophomore in school. Our second-best basketball player tore his ACL and that got the kibosh put on it. I was glad because it was an upperclassman-driven thing and I thought it was the biggest pain in the ass.

 

Rick, I've gone to some of the sites you've suggested for tactics practice. The problem is that although they provide a solution, they don't very frequently explain WHY that is the solution. I'm in the stage right now where I'm extremely frustrated, which is probably something a lot of beginners go through. It feels like my opponents, even the ones with low rankings, know everything and I know nothing. I think I'm just going to have to be patient. I'm just afraid that I'll be able to recognize things in puzzles, but not see anything I recognize in actual matches.

I told my wife, half-jokingly, a couple nights ago that I won't feel like an intelligent person unless I can become a competent chess player.

 

Try to figure out for yourself why they are good moves. You'll start to get it eventually, and after a few tries it'll figure out your level and give you appropriate puzzles.

The first thing you have to set aside (and this took me almost 20 years of very casual play to understand before I finally took the game up seriously) is to check your intelligence at the door. Chess is a game of experience and developed skills. Raw intelligence has virtually nothing to do with it. That line to your wife was pretty much exactly the sort of thing I used to say. "I'm a smart guy, I should be able to figure this out." I'd usually just get frustrated and go play something else after a few weeks. Then about two years ago, I decided I wanted to get serious and started really getting into the game. I'm now considered a fairly strong tournament-quality player.

The most analogous thing to getting better at chess is learning a foreign language. You aren't "learning" in the sense of memorizing facts or rules of thumb. You are literally trying to rewire your brain to see things in a new way. It almost doesn't even matter if you understand the puzzles, you are trying to build up tactical pattern recognition in your mind.

I can fairly easily beat anyone say 300 points or so below me without thinking about my moves. The things I can look at a chessboard and see instinctively and instantly are more than enough. Players 300 or so points above me can do the same to me. A *huge* portion of chess skill is internalizing ideas to the point that you don't even have to think about them.

At your level (800-1200 on Yahoo Chess) the most important thing to learn is don't hang pieces and take your opponent's hanging pieces. (A "hung" piece is one that is placed on a square where it can be captured either for nothing or for a lesser piece). That sounds a lot easier than it is, it mostly just requires repeated practice and exposure.

If you want some coaching, PM me and we can set something up. I'm a year or two away from the level where I can charge for my coaching, and I've been looking for some novice players to practice on.

 

Rick, I will likely take you up on that offer after a couple more weeks of seasoning.

I seem to be OK at the material battle early on. Sometimes, even against higher rated players (and I mean people in the 1100 range), I even surge ahead momentarily.

Where I begin to fall apart is after that, when I'm ahead and I don't really know what to do. My pieces just are kind of sitting there and I feel like any move puts me at a disadvantage because I'm trying to so hard to just hold court.

I ordered Mac's Chessmaster program today. It's supposed to be really outstanding as training. Tutorials and also guided game play with hints about where to move and why, etc., etc.

I hope that it works. I am determined, but so far, my determination does not match my performance.

 

It just takes time and experience. Trust me, you can't just sit at the board and decide "I'm going to play really well." and make it happen, any more than you could show up at a basketball court one day and say "I'm going to be an awesome player." It takes practice and training.

I think one of my favorite lines ever, and I can't remember who said it, is "The secret to chess is that there are no secrets." You can try to learn rules of thumb and such, but really it just takes experience to know when to apply them and when not to.