There's no age to learn how to study chess (My FIDE Chess.com memoir Pt. 2)

Pt. 2 - Preparation: the daughter of dedication.

Anguish. That claustrauphobic sensation. The feeling of powerlessness of not having any room to manoeuvre with to move your pieces across the board. The realization that having developped this specific piece before pushing with the other would result in a flaw in your flank. The remorse of having to "explain" those blunders & misses during a game review in a blog series about getting a FIDE rating. It's quite the murky position to work with, wn't try to deny it, I'll own these big "L's". Knowing there are legions of helpful tools to help us with self-evaluation - to various degrees I concede -  is just one reason not to give up.  Selft-taught being the option I'm going for, we'll talk about doing the "auto-didacte" speedrun to that FQE initial rating and then get the mentor(s) required before thinking of FIDE level ELO. Step one will be preparations for the upcoming FQE event. Let's dig into some ways we can learn to study chess, all the while sharing thoughts and interrogations I had about a couple concepts of chess theory. This week we'll get a glimpse of fiery lines from known openings, middle game shortcuts & short-term capitalization in the end-game from the perspective of various sources of knowledge

♫ ♪ "What's My ELO again?" ♪ ♪

Find out here : MADC0W's ELO Estimator & here : ChessManiac's ELO Chess Rating form

These could be methods to help estimate your current progress if you don't have an official OTB ELO yet. Such being my case, I decided to take the time and honestly used about 3 minutes for most move/problem in these tests. The reason being they gave 5 minute as a reference to solve them and some seemed to appear in both tests taking a day in between helped reset the thoughts as well.

* Got a rating of 1375 ELO from the MADC0W's ELO Estimator :

* and 1400 from the ChessManiac's ELO Chess Rating form.

Evidently, by playing on Chess.com and other online Apps will also help you get estimates of your ELO in different time control settings. Traditionnal Chess is another beast altogether. Honestly it feels as if "slow" Classical Chess is to be considered akin to "asking StockFish to get to a depth of 108" with the way some detractors portray it.  This is why it might be complicated to get accustomed to "good practices" and the etiquette of classical chess in this << Expanding New Internet Age of Chess >>.

Books, teachers & computers:  the 3 Musketeers of the apprentice!

Learning "how to study" a topic might not be second nature for everyone. Luckily there are tools available nowadays to help us on the road to success. For the patient and dilligent student, the sky is the limit! (See Joke pinned at the end,.)
Players can leave without ever giving news back for decades (aka: The Fisher conundrum). Some write books, others become teachers of the new generation. But all leave their chess games as an heritage to posterity - in magazines, books, ChessBase and the wondrous Chess.com games database! But even if we have those listings of moves played in various settings by brilliant minds, could we not fail "getting" the hang of what made them so strong against top competition. How can we make sure we're following open minded objectives to reach optimal results dor our potentiakl? Kasparov could reply with his wisdom : "It's fine, especially for younger players to rest on the shoulders of giants and imitate the top players in the openings, relying on them (and their computers) not to have made mistakes[...]" -Garry Kasparov¹

From my return to chess in November 2022 to this day chess books and other printed media on my bookshelves have been the main pool of chess theory I peruse. Close behind are online ressources, where free content rests alongside pro & classical chess manuscripts. There is a large selection for sale affordably, and a lot of other content is available for free.  Understanding the principle of mentoring and coaching is important, this means we'll delve preemptively into the subject to look at some teachers who had direct impact on the success of their prestigious student(s). We'll take a look at what both sides of this mentoring can help us learn about chess pedagogy.  "The earlier on in the development tree you look, the bigger the potential for disruption is, and the more work it will take to achieve. If we only rely on our machines to show us how to be good imitators, we will never take that next step to becoming creative innovators. [...]" -Garry Kasparov²

Coaches: every Squire needs 1 to Promote!

Teachers pass on their wisdom to the new generations, they are the first line of support for competitive players. Not knowing from experience - because this is what I currently lack, a coach - we'll discuss the subject by seing what makes a difference in that link between the master and their padawan. We can follow some of them live on TWITCH and YouTube, like Daniel Naroditsky ! 

The irrefutable benefit of having guidelines of a specialist teaching counterbalances the economical impact if we can afford it. It helps pupils set solid foundations of reasoning upon which will be assembled strategies required for national and international play. Specialized courses of dedicated educators have more preponderance over  the progress of a chess player once they cross the amateur player rating range.  Coaches could make or break a career : a compatible one offering the best developmental conditions to support a player is a working formula.

A unique case is the Polgar family. The patriarch, chess teacher Laszlo Polgar (1946-...), having raised 3 chess prodigies, who were in the 1990s among the top women chess players on the plantet.  "Geniuses are made, not born!" is said to be the moto of the Hungarian psychologist and educator (didn't find any quote of his exact words, online yet - but he reaffirmed how his daughters should have followed his way of teaching and educating for their own children).

His wife Karla and him offered the world 3 great chess minds :

  Susan Polgar  (b. 1969  |  2577 ELO in 08/2023  |  Women's WC 1996-1999);

  Sophia Polgar  (b. 1974  |  2450 ELO in 08/2023);

and arguably the greatest woman chess Grand Master of all time :

 Judit Polgar  (b. 1976 |  2675 ELO, in 08/2023  |  Peak : 2735 ELO, 07/2005).

Hard work and dedication. The Polgar didn't sleep on the task. They did study chess for 7 hours a day alongside home education. This led to some amazing results, Once the 4 Polgar played at the same tournament : Egilsstadir 1988 (Iceland), where Laszlo competed in the Open tournament, Judit and Sofia were in the B-group while the elder Susan was in the A-Group.³ A couple years later the Polgar sisters would play against the Greek national team in Corfu! The POLGAR vs GREECE! ⁴ And then early 2000s Judit finally deafeat Garry Kasparov in a match. This is how you prove a World Champion GM wrong.

From the facts accumulated since the birth of his eldest daughter, we can concur it produced great players, I'll let you watch the tale of their story for the human side of the equation.  Also be aware I won't delve into the details, but will recommend you to learn about this other family of chess prodigies who had a paternal figure as their mentor. USA born Jeff Sarwer & Julia, who grew up in a controversial lifestyle with their father Mike Sarwer. The following documentary mentions how governments were not as enthusiast as the erudites who brought their infants to mastery: See the clips at these timecodes : Gov't s. the Polgars & the Sarwer controversy and ethics dilemma)

As seen in profesionnal sports leagues, the characters of people can clash, sometimes moreso when the coaches are retired players who did not accomplish their goals. Being in a position of power or under the tutelage of a mentor can lead to complications. An incongruous pupil/tutor situation could also be rooted in the "client side". Be it from distorted expectations of "unformidable" prodigies, "mildly exceptional" prospects or from rough to attain goals set by the delusional people footing the bill (i.e. the parents...or a financially independent amateur), it's not always the coach that does not fit the student. .

After seing my results in this first tournament, it might become tempting to recruit a coach sooner than later. Chances are though that I'll attempt one or two more events before getting a chess teacher. It could be locally or over the web - it's not being picky , it's just a matter of M 0 N € ¥ ! The will to improve will indubitably lead me to recruiting one (though maybe not before 2024). We shall return to this subject soon enough.  

Hold the line! - Get in line! - Play online!

Nowadays playing chess online is easier than ever and it's a major part of preparation. Getting ready with a batch of games trying out specific deep opening lines is easier done on the app than over a board for ease of use. The Chess.com app is an amazing tool, it is not the only option available, but for today it's the one we'll delve into.  As far as computer resources are concerned, I know that one day I'll try to use ChessBase (a worthy inve$tment) but for now the Chess.com diamond membership tools are a guiding hand to level-up my progression.

As much as some might dismiss it, they offer so many different ressources that it completely offsets the cost of that yearly price of admission. First off, Chess.com has a coaching section with independent workers who offer their services to the various levels of players.  Doubting the quality of the teachings if you're first earing of this concept now? Fear not, there are actual International Masters offering classes and that badge [ IM ] can't be faked on the app. We'll talk more about these in a future blog about coaching.

The game evaluation tools and review engine are quite the treasure trove of information on how we can better our play. The mistakes we most often make can be spotted using the tools mentionning our tendencies to hang pieces, to miss forks (defensive or offensive) and when we miss freebies the adversary hung for our benefit. We can play "Vote Chess" with members of clubs we adhere to, which is a good way to work on our compromises to ideas we don't cherish, while discussing and reasoning with others as brainstorming partners.

We could spend years in the Chess Games Database, learn everything about the jargon and rulesets, but we also have the amazing Openings tool, which is backed by the End Game section and Game Explorer, as well as a game practice section with drills and custom positions which act as the perfect complements. They also offer the possibility to create and manage your own games lists in the Library side, without affecting the full archive of your games in the least.

<< [...] When it comes to big innovations, you have to start earlier, not where the database ends. You have to dig into the tree of established moves that everyone assumes are the best because they've been played so many times before. This is one way i kept pressure on my opponents, year in and year out. [...] I would also appear with new ideas very early on that occasionally led to a renaissance of a discarded opening or variation. >>
- Garry Kasparov (ibid, p.229) 

Here is a great of gaming this week I had on LIVE Chess.com :

Where the Knight goes full dynamo and Tridents the King, Queen and Rook!

Regularity being key, a lil' reminder like the Daily Puzzles popping up in the app wil have you remember to work on your brain power even if on the go. You can also work your way towards the highest possible "score" / "Puzzle ELO", but know that it can be a rocky pathway (gowing up and down ratings like a turbulent ocean during a storm). What's fun is that the puzzles section offers the option to play standalone daily puzzles that won't affect your Puzzle ELO. This is a great tool for anyone because you can turn back time and replay older daily treats and complete your calendar as far back as you can scroll through (my patience brought me to 2012 or so I think before I reloaded by mistake). The Puzzle Rush will help you learn to make quick decisions and help a lot for Rapid games and moreso with Blitz/Bullet enthusiasts. The Puzzle Battle are indeed a good way to challenge a friend and learn in a diffrent way, adding a dose of motivation once again.

We have rough lessons ready at the touch of the fingertip, yet it's easier to be complacent and do the bare minimum. Unless we kick ourselves in the @$$ - Chess.com helps us withe "GAMEification" of the Art of Chess.

 

Those are like stamps our teachers put on our homework, and this "gameification" of the learning experience helps motivate some players. I won't lie : I enjoyed speed running the Awards section! They offer :

 • Achievements : gotta catch' em all!
{ Current status : 107/144 }
Lots are about your stats in various Chess time formats and chess variants (the big ones: Crazy House, Bug House, King of the Hill, Fours Player Chess, Vote Chess). Some of them are about winning a game by causing checkmate with each of the pieces, major or minor. Others are a mark of dedication to your various parasocial endeavors on Chess.com (blogs, watching videos, chess TV, reading articles, commenting in clubs, forums, etc.) The "hidden" ones appear when unlocked. As said by a blogger who covered the subjet : "There are 144 achievements total: making 48 Hidden achievements." -ChampoftheBepoCamp

 • Books (Openings) : learn the MCO by heart... not!
{ Current status : 25 / 33 }
Trying to complete the Books list is a primary motivation to get through the whole "Modern Chess Openings". You might prefer sticking with what works best in competitive play, but it really has a way to bring out the creativity if you work around the various unheralded orphan openings.  8 left to win with!

 • Passport : to challenge players from all around the globe!
{ Current status : 174 / 242 }
With the diamond membership you get stats of  how you fare against citizens of other regions and countries of the world. It ends up feeling like the olympiads of Chess once you've got enough matchups/countries in your resume! 68 left to play!

Chess.com is not the only ressource online evidently to play or learn about chess. You prefer listening and watching courses instead of reading and working ? Another way to benefit from online Chess teachings is browsing the archive of videos on the channels of Grand Masters and International Masters or even amateurs who share their love of the hobby. Be it on Twitch, Youtube or on here in the ChessTV and Videos section, you can learn from the likes of : 

* Gotham Chess, Levy Rozman; (aka : "DaRukh Sacrifice Meister")
* Daniel Naroditsky; ("Danya"  is a mentor of mine through his books, see this previous blog)
* Hikaru Nakamura; (his Twitch is always entertaining)
* Eric Rosen; (another International Master that teaches well!)

The only thing is ... they should kill 2 birds with 1 stone and file Chess under : Strategy & Drama. Because the etimology of Drama literally meaning "action" in greek. The category "Thriller" could also be appropriate when following some matches... cue MJ𝅘𝅥𝅯

The Chess Bible? Is there a Holy book for the 64 square-minded ?

As far as my pet peeve, physical media, we will mention some great ones to try and find
before you have to rely on digital ebooks because of expensive prices...

▢ Books
◼Magazines

"Bobby Fisher's Outrageous Chess Moves: A study of 101 Outrageous moves by the Greatest chess champion of all time" by Bruce Pandolfini! (hint : we'll come back to this one in the teachers & and the books blogs!) 

American Chess Magazine : offers great takes on hot topics from young & old masters!

"On Top Of The Chess World" : a repertoire of games from (and prior to) the 1995 World Chess championship tournament between Garry Kasparov & Anand!

"Modern Chess Openings 15th ed.", by Nick de Firmian, Mckay Chess Library publishing. 

Before you think I'm going chauvinist and hiding the information from the layman, be assure I'm just dipping my toe. This section of the blog was left cut short because next time around we shall talk specifically about how to use the good old book to get ready for an event! That one will be focusing on studying for a tournament using printed manuals, books and other medias. Stay tuned for more on the "old school" way of feeding your need of peculiar lines and strategies!

Why try if we can't be the best? 4 The Love Of Chess!

The technicality at the upper level of competition factually became insane in the past decade. With 18yo dudes and dudettes challenging Magnus, Anand, Kramnik, Polgar & other 90s/2000s prodigies. The generations that follow them could retort in the same breath when 2030 comes around.  Dedicated students of Chess are climbing the ladder barely slightly quicker than ever with their poise and confidence reinforced by multi-layered reasoning. Notice none of the previously named legends are at the very top of the world anymore? Like Kasparov, Karpov, Botvinik, Alekhine, Morphy... Their time came and went. Only Ding Liren can currently show that prestigious confirmation about his work ethics: the title of Chess World Champion. His era could last, or not. Time flies away for every single one of us. But hopefully the elders will keep passing the torch to their pupils - even if they can't all be prodigies - so they can in turn be the next ones to identify and correct the course of imperfect strategic lines. We have limited years in bank, we must learn using what we have and live the incertitudes of reality concomitantly.  Let's try to assimilate as much as we can while battling peacefully over the chess board whenever possible. Never forget to keep in mind the tragic stories of lost chess geniuses (Fisher,  Steinitz, Steiner, Kubbel, Ragozin). We must play now. Win or lose. Don't stop at those first thousand "L". Push forward, since we cannot know how much sand is left in the hourglass of our lifetimes, we could be settting the last board of next couple years without even realizing it (trust me : it had been 25 years!). Circumstances can affect a lot of things in a career. Chess tournaments  more specifically have proven to be subject to one of these old sayings about chaos theory :

DISCLAIMER : no A.I. has ben used in the composition, writing, correction of this blog.
The thumbnail painting is the sole A.I. involvement in this project.

Dall·E 2 credits
https://openai.com/dall-e-2
Illustration instructions : "A CARAVAGGIO PAINTING OF A ROBOT PLAYING CHESS GAME IN FOREST." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caravaggio

[Citations]
1) KASPAROV, Garry (1963-...). "Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins",
Public Affairs, 2017. ISBN13: 9781610397865. From : Page 229.

2)  KASPAROV, Garry (1963-...). ibid. From : Page 229.

3) POLGAR, Judit (1976-...). "How I beat Fisher's Record"
Quality Chess, 2012, ISBN: 9781907982194. From: page 189.

4)  POLGAR, Judit (1976-...). ibid. From : Page 377.

5)about JUDIT being the best of her family and beating Kasparov in 2002:
https://youtu.be/9ejKTip0tRQ?t=584 (timecode)

6)About Achievements that are "hidden" on chess.com :
https://www.chess.com/blog/ChampoftheCommieCamp/complete-guide-to-achievements-regular-edition

References in this article refer to timecodes seen in documentary :
[ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ejKTip0tRQ&ab_channel=TheFifthEstate ]

[ Sources & References ]
http://www.chessmaniac.com/chess-masters-who-died-young/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Morphy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Steinitz
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_chess_grandmasters
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship
https://www.chess.com/blog/ChampoftheCommieCamp/complete-guide-to-achievements-regular-edition

No textual words of Laszlo Polgar's thoughts though : https://en.chessbase.com/post/new-documentary-on-the-polgar-family
Jeff Sarwer, his sister Julia and their father and educator Mike Sarwer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_SarwerDUMAS, Alexandre. "Les Trois Mousquetaires" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Musketeers
Laszlo Polgar : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Polg%C3%A1r
And his daughter's legacy : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judit_Polg%C3%A1r
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Polgar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sofia_Polgar
https://en.chessbase.com/post/queen-of-chess-documentary-with-polgar-and-kasparov
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DgosX9_T2U
https://educatingamy.com/en-ca/blogs/early-child-development/a-genius-is-made-not-born
https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/articles/200507/the-grandmaster-experiment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ejKTip0tRQ&ab_channel=TheFifthEstate

[ Additional Chess Ressources & Online Classes for readers ]
https://www.fide.com/
https://www.fqechecs.qc.ca/
https://www.chess.ca/en/
https://en.chessbase.com/
https://madc0w.github.io/elo-estimator/
http://www.chessmaniac.com/ELORating/ELO_Chess_Rating.shtml
https://players.chessbase.com/en/list/world-top-100

[ Tools credits ]
Thanks to Microsoft WordPad for ease of use/no humbug composition.
Graphics design / thumbnail layout & editing : https://www.gimp.org/
Dictionary : https://www.linguee.com/french-english/translation/
Synonyms dictionary : https://www.thesaurus.com/
Code Javascript pour un echiquier en-ligne : https://chessboardjs.com/
by Chris Oakman /  https://github.com/oakmac/chessboardjs
uner MIT License - https://github.com/oakmac/chessboardjs/blob/master/LICENSE.md

Link code used to show an empty picture instead of opponent's avatar in PGN :
https://www.chess.com/bundles/web/images/noavatar_l.84a92436.gif

P.S. Why tournaments being affected by the Butterfly effect
or "La Sauterelle Pese Lourd" ? A novel by Philip Kindred D.
If you don't get it, think about Fisher & Spassky! 
https://the-man-in-the-high-castle.fandom.com/wiki/The_Grasshopper_Lies_Heavy_(Novel)

P.P.S. Pinned Joke I've penned about Nepo, in hommage to Chris Rock,
he wrote the OG joke of "the sky's the limit", inspired by this picture / headline :
www.chess.com/news/view/fide-announces-2024-candidates-tournament-qualification-paths
  << [...] The sky is the limit! Well..if the sky is considered to be playing in the Candidates tournament to see if you will be the one to end up against Nepo  in the candidates to challenge for the World title, I'm almost not joking.  Dear GM Ian Nepomniachtchi is becoming one of the longest lasting "gatekeeper" contenders
to the World title in modern chess history. >> - T.H.