Silman's Math?

I would like to quote my comment which I gave on this referred article.

"How did the old masters like Alekhine and Lasker produce such great tactical games? And how did the greats like Capablanca, Botvinnik and Fischer played great positional chess? They didn't had databases and access to millions of games."

Totally agree with that (in fact they already had some sort of database, but not millions of games - just some WC games and a few top 'master' games).

They, of course, had books and magazines. Books were published for all of the major tournaments and there were and are thousands more books available. Fischer could read some Russian and he got the Russian chess magazines and was always studying them, thats how he was able to beat the Russians because he knew as much as they do just from reading their magazines. 

This same thing I posted on the referred article. He studied the games, he didn't ran through the games. Studying of a single game takes 3-4 hours or even more. And BTW you mentioned only Fischer. I don't think there were zillions of games available to Alekhine, Capablanca, Botvinnik or even Fischer.

I love to help such persons. I'm not trying to offend you but you seem to be on the wrong track dude. Knowing a certain thing is not enough. This is a very common delusion that knowing more will make you better players automatically. You need to know how to apply that knowledge. Remember, chess is a game of skill, not of knowing more. You need to apply your knowledge to succeed in chess.

Let me give you a little test. Everyone knows that our pieces should be active, right. Then, can you find the correct idea for white in this position.

I dont know. I looked at it for a few minutes, noticed mainly that the c file and c6 in particluar looked like the most interesting feature of whites game.

Maybe Na4 to try to open the file up?

Also white's f1 rook is worthless but I dont see a good way to bring it in the game quickly, unless exchanges start happeneing along the c file.

I wish I knew the answer to the thread in general of fast games vs slow games. The best argument for slow games is that is obviously how players like Morphy, lasker, and Capablanca mastered the game.

Are there any world class GM's who claim that "system 1" is how they got to where they are?

Modern educationalist theory? :) Do you mean Silman or Heisman has a degree in education?

No , they are best selling authors. Like Steel, King, Koontz, Grisham, etc. They give the people what they want and are very popular.

Botvinnik, an all-time GM, founded the Russian school of chess and his pupils include Karpov, Kasparov, and Kramnik.

I don't know about Heisman. But, Silman is a very good author, few days ago, I enjoyed reading his "The Amateur's Mind". His "Endgame Course" is great too. But, he doesn't know the correct training methods. The zillion positions pattern recognition thing is just rubbish (at least for me).

So, you give up so easily? Should I post the answer?

My answer doesnt count?

But yeah, post both answers, both to the position and to the correct training methods!

Both answers are correct, I think hicetnunc hinted at the resolution, but he didn't elaborate on it.

If you are learning something new, you will have to go over it slowly in the beginning; you will have to grasp the basics at least. Take for instance in the KIA. White plays on the queenside and black plays on the king side (for the purposes of this example assume this is correct). 

It is impossible to understand this in abstract, you have to see many examples of how this works out. How Black's buried bishop is an asset.

So initially you might take an hour or couple of hours studying an opening, the ensuing middlegame, and the resulting endgame.

But then going over a couple of hundred master games will reveal to you where your attention needs to be focused, the weak squares, the standard maneuvers, the typical endgames. It gives you a birds-eye-view of the terrain, which is itself advantageous. IT as if you have a map of the map.

So to start off with you need to know what you are looking at. Blindly looking at random games may benefit you certainly in some way, but an  organised focused effort will be even more rewarding.

Here's the key idea in white font.

It doesn't need an expert eye to see that d5 pawn is a weakness and white should attack it. Now, the question arises how to attack it.Let's use a very simple and common rule "put your pieces in positions where they control the most squares", in short, keep your pieces active. Just by applying this rule you can see that the only piece which needs attention in white's camp is the f1 rook which actually controls nothing. That's it.

You can download the pgn file with solution here. This game is commented by GM Igor Smirnov.

As for the training methods, it is not a simple and short topic that it would fit in a single post. It may take even a whole book. And BTW I can't reveal the secrets so easily and for free. Igor Smirnov has put in a very hard work to make his courses and I can't ruin his efforts.

Here is a link that might be of interest to some:

http://www.chess.com/members/view_content/Silman?keyword=studying+master&type=

There are approximately 33000 active >2000 FIDE players, 101 000 active >1000 players. 2000 is the top 30% of all OTB (fide) tournament players. Without the players who played < 50 games, 2000 is probably the average rating of all OTB fide tournament players.

Top 0.2 % is >2600.

I am older...once a quickly improving teenager asked me a similiar question. I pointed out the I no longer care about improving...I really do not. I just want to have fun playing. i am happy being a 1600-1700 player. Why is this bad?

It is 50-50 for me. A chess player that has not reached top 100 in the world by the age of 21 should always just accept the rating that he has. Nothing wrong at all with a 1700 OTB, I would be very happy with that.

But the comment 'I no longer care about improving.' I hope this refers to rating and not the understanding of the chess position.

I am in the same rating range and I agree with you.  The reason is that most of the tournaments still offerring prices for under 1800 and/or under 1700 rated players. It is enough for me to win my section not the tournament. So just play and enjoy! 

why? what do you care if I just enjoy playing?

         Your a very patient, and astute reader. You took the time to read the entire thread of ; "What You Don't Know About Magnus Carlsen's Endorsements". And you summed it up perfectly. The OP is a 70 yr young man in Ireland,--The 1899Club. Call him for a game; he'll enjoy it also. That's is if all these animals didn't scare him away.

LePont,

'All chess players' including the ones who don't have a FIDE rating.  That puts you in the top 0.2% by my rough calculations.  (It depends on how you determine the number of non-rated chess players!)

Robbie

This is an interesting topic for those of us who are working to improve, but didactic views of non-titled players (myself included, where I'm daft enough to make them known!) are - by definition - worthless.

That sounds a very enlightened and mature attitude.

The only thing I would add (as an older player!) is that there are always ways to improve what we do, and life-long learning is good for the mind. 

I would not recommend a chronological age to stop looking for improvement, although clearly biological age is going to be a factor.  

The biggest problem with age is not cognitive decline but loss of the correct attitudes for learning and the cost of un-learning bad habits - both in time and ego (ie: the blank slate effect that children benefit from is lost).