Showing posts with label Training. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Training. Show all posts
Saturday, May 21, 2016
The Big Leap
ChessBase has an interesting/inspirational article by Albert Silver, Chess Progress: making the big leap. He shares his tale of the time he made a 350 ELO leap in ability, and discusses what he believes are methods to pursue such leaps. I hope some of you find it as interesting as I did.
Monday, October 19, 2015
Training Exercise
A couple of posts back I went over part of a game Jim McTigue and I played at the club last Saturday. Analysis from both carbon- and silicon-based life forms went into that post. Along the way we determined that Black should have emerged with a much better position in several lines.
But those advantages are only theoretical unless a player can convert them into wins. So as a training exercise I have been trying something I've been meaning to do for years: play the position out against a strong program.
I had had the idea many years ago while reading books & magazines. Invariably some GM would reel off a long string of analysis and end it with "White is winning" and leave it at that. Many times it was clear enough. But many times it wasn't at all clear, especially not to a mere B-class player such as myself. Later, after playing programs became strong enough, I thought, "If that's a winning position, I should be able to beat Crafty/Fritz/[flavor-of-the-month] most of the time from that point." Now that's a tall order, because even back then Crafty itself was much, much stronger than I. It would certainly punish all my tactical mistakes at the very least.
But that's the whole point of training, isn't it? I've started doing this off and on in recent months, but now I'm going to try an make this a regular feature of my work.
Anyhow, below is a position from the analysis of the game from Saturday. (I believe there's probably at least two other such positions one could use for training from that analysis.) Stockfish 6.64 evaluates this as a -2.71, meaning Black is winning.
So far I'm not doing well. I keep giving up easy draws, except for the one time I conspired to lose! (That can be done by leaving White with both his g- and h-pawns, and then moving the Black king too far into White's queen-side position.)
Give it a try. I'm probably going to try playing the White side when I have the time, to see how the machine handles this winning position. But I'm only going to do that after a couple more tries as Black tonight, after everyone else goes to bed. I'm not finished yet!
But those advantages are only theoretical unless a player can convert them into wins. So as a training exercise I have been trying something I've been meaning to do for years: play the position out against a strong program.
I had had the idea many years ago while reading books & magazines. Invariably some GM would reel off a long string of analysis and end it with "White is winning" and leave it at that. Many times it was clear enough. But many times it wasn't at all clear, especially not to a mere B-class player such as myself. Later, after playing programs became strong enough, I thought, "If that's a winning position, I should be able to beat Crafty/Fritz/[flavor-of-the-month] most of the time from that point." Now that's a tall order, because even back then Crafty itself was much, much stronger than I. It would certainly punish all my tactical mistakes at the very least.
But that's the whole point of training, isn't it? I've started doing this off and on in recent months, but now I'm going to try an make this a regular feature of my work.
Anyhow, below is a position from the analysis of the game from Saturday. (I believe there's probably at least two other such positions one could use for training from that analysis.) Stockfish 6.64 evaluates this as a -2.71, meaning Black is winning.
White to play, Black to win
5k2/1p1n2p1/p3p3/3pP3/8/3B4/PP3rPP/R2K4 w - - 0 9
So far I'm not doing well. I keep giving up easy draws, except for the one time I conspired to lose! (That can be done by leaving White with both his g- and h-pawns, and then moving the Black king too far into White's queen-side position.)
Give it a try. I'm probably going to try playing the White side when I have the time, to see how the machine handles this winning position. But I'm only going to do that after a couple more tries as Black tonight, after everyone else goes to bed. I'm not finished yet!
Saturday, October 3, 2015
The Stoyko Training Method
Several months back we had the pleasure of a visit from USCF Life Master Stephen Stoyko. I missed most of the visit, unfortunately, but I did hear very positive reviews of a lecture he had given. Stoyko has the original USCF Life Master title, meaning he played over 300 games while maintaining a Master rating (ELO 2200+), and has been a Senior Master (ELO 2400+) on the national level.
I mention all of this because Stoyko has his own training method, which has fortunately been written up and posted online: The Stephen Stoyko Training Method. [That link appears to be defunct: Here's a link to another site that explains it.] The link is to Dan Heisman's personal site, and you will need to scroll down to section 3.1. There are several training methods listed on that page, starting with methods for beginners, which might be of interest to some readers.
In addition to that I should mention that Stoyko was also a longtime member of the Kenilworth Chess Club in New Jersey, which had a most excellent chess blog of its own called The Kenilworthian. I believe if you look through that site carefully enough you will find several lectures by Stoyko himself.
Anyone interested in training methods can certainly find much of use within the links provided. Happy hunting!
ADDED: Stoyko also has a point count method that he's used. That was mentioned at the club as well, I've been told. Here's a link to that methodology.
ADDED: Stoyko also has a point count method that he's used. That was mentioned at the club as well, I've been told. Here's a link to that methodology.
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