Wow, Mark, I know you worked long on this and it really shows! What a job recapping! :D
Chess.com/TV Pardon our Blunders recap for 2/9/2012!
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Welcome once again everyone to another recap of the weekly Chess.com/TV show Pardon our Blunders, hosted by IMs Danny Rensch and David Pruess. This week’s show was open to ALL Members of Chess.com and aired at 10 AM Pacific/1 PM Eastern/6 PM London time.
There were 9 topics today, in addition to the Blunder of the Week, and topics 7 through 9 were in a grouping together and included a lot of details from our Hosts. Hopefully I’ll be able to relay them here clearly enough. The replay for this show did save so you can watch it On-Demand in the VIDEOS section on the Chess.com/TV page. It should be listed right up top. The On-Demand library is open only to Platinum/Diamond members.
So here’s the topic list for today with accompanying links where necessary:
#1 – Hou WOWs in Gibraltar! – With her amazing result at Gibraltar, despite losing to Nigel Short in the tie-breaker blitz two-game finale, Hou Yifan, the 17-year-old from China showed that she can definitely play with the big boys. The current Women’s World Chess Champion finished with a 2872 Performance rating! Will this show that women have no less natural aptitude for the game? I think we all knew at some point there would be another woman GM to break the 2700 FIDE barrier other than Judit Polgar, who is known as the best female player in history. In this tournament, she beat that very same Judit Polgar in Round 7 in an epic and monumental clash. That game will be inserted below. But does this show the guys that chess should be integrated? There have been studies to show women’s brains are better at multi-tasking than men’s are. When Judit came along, it changed some minds about women and chess, but some saw her as an exception or perhaps a freak of nature. Did those same minds change now with Hou’s performance?
Round 7: Hou Yifan vs. Judit Polgar:
#2-The difference between 2650 and 2750 FIDE? – Now is the difference only how much work and effort that specific player puts into their studies? Does the 2650 player not only focus on chess but do other things? Is talent more of a factor in the 2750’s life? Danny actually mentioned something called the “Outlier’s Theory.” Author Malcolm Gladwell repeatedly in his book Outliers: The Story of Success, that in order to excel at anything in life, is to study and practice it for 10,000 hours. He was also seen on the documentary Bobby Fischer Against the World touting that very same theory. I am going to place a YouTube video below showing Gladwell on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 mentioning those same ideas. Danny said specifically that’s it is talent that makes the player better rather than David’s idea that 2750s are just spending most if not all their time studying or playing chess. So which is it everyone? Talent or dedication?
Here's the promised vid:
#3 & #4-Susan Polgar leaving Texas Tech! – OK, first there’s an awesome chess club built in St. Louis. Then Hikaru Nakamura moves there, and now Susan Polgar leaves and migrates northward. So what is the deal in St. Louis and what is luring top players and chess institutions like Susan Polgar’s SPICE program there? Is it just money being dangled in front of them by CCSCSL President and CEO Rex Sinquefield? He also wanted, if I remember correctly, the upcoming Candidates matches to be held in the U.S. so Hikaru Nakamura could participate. Was he also behind the marriage of Nakamura and Kasparov? It’s proving that St. Louis is THE Chess Mecca in the United States and everyone seems to want to flock there and be a part of this movement.
#4-And blending Topic 4 with topic #3, who’s going to be the next “big time chess player/coach” to migrate to St. Louis? David immediately threw Garry Kasparov out there. Danny, being the cultural attaché to Chess.com mentioned celebrities like Woody Harrelson (rated 1600), Lennox Louis (1700 rating) but then he got serious mentioning Ray Robson or Wesley So. He added that they might be recruited by Webster University as part of their program.
#5-What top player would you want to have live in your neighborhood? Garry Kasparov or Magnus Carlsen? Maybe Nakamura or Gata Kamsky? This is open to our Chess.com and Chess.com/TV community as more of an open-ended question and answer topic. So let us know who you would want to live in your neck of the world? Danny went with Alexander Onischuk. David went with Danny Rensch, since they could work together more, or David Petty, as they work together on chesskid.com.
#6-IMs/GMs in LIVE Chess!: How often do you go to LIVE Chess hoping to see top players (IMs/GMs) play or do you just go there being a chess fan in general and just watch anyone in general? Me personally I go to see Masters mainly play and have spent hours just following Masters around. When there are not that many online, I look to see the highest rated average games and observe them. David said that 1 out of 10 of our members think it’s really important to see IMs/GMs play and Danny suggested as much as 50% of the members want to watch IMs/GMs play. An example, as Danny was doing his BIG Show yesterday, GM Jon Ludwig Hammer (SultanofKings on Chess.com) was playing LIVE and had around 100 people watching him. That alone just goes to show you that members are looking for that kind of quality in LIVE Chess. What do you think everyone?
#7-So you have 6 months…: This is the first topic of a 3-part larger topic where the guys let loose a lot of details on what it takes to improve within a 6-month time frame.
a) You’re an 1850 USCF adult player who has a steady job, a family, and decide to take a 6-month break and just work on and study chess. How much can you improve over that time frame?
Danny – 200 points. If you work/study 6-8 hours a day every day over that time period, you’re not going to see results immediately in that frame of time. He said players at that level, have a lot of bad habits in how they approach the game. Knowledge he said, doesn’t overcome a bad approach. The bad approach tends to be in how the categorize the game. He broke it down to where players would say I’ll do this much tactics, this much this and that and they need to see the game as a whole, and not categories the different fields and aspects of chess.
The question came up in the chat room of does this player have access to a coach? Nope
David: It’s possible to gain that many points but you would see a range of successes depending on the person even if they do keep that 6-8 hour a day study habit. It also could come down to talent as well in how much a player would improve. Perhaps it would be +100 to +200 rating points, averaging out to +150 points to their rating.
b)-The Optimal Training plan – OK the guys begin to break down the second sub-topic in this section when it comes to analysis, playing, calculation, tactics and so on but as Danny said, it’s so hard to figure out because by that time with a player of that rating, they might already have and acknowledge what their weaknesses and strengths are and might not have to devote time to this or that. A coach would definitely say OK work on endgames since that is your weak point or work on openings since you tend to mis-play them.
Danny: When you go over and analyze an entire game, especially if you have a coach, you see the whole picture and how you’re progressing. You can see improvements in your opening, how you’re handling critical positions, and if you make it to the endgame, you can improve your knowledge in the technical aspects of the game. He said that play a tournament every weekend, have a coach that spends 3-4 hours going over those games and the rest of the time you can divide up into calculation, exercises, tactics, etc.
David: Play and study all the games you play and with the rest of the time, if you don’t have a precise direction on what to do, do a mix of tactics, calculations, openings, study some endgames and exercise physically at least an hour a day. That latter piece of advice came from our own FM Kostya Kavutskiy, who occasionally hosts shows for Chess.com/TV.
c)Now finally we get down to the last sub-topic, which is an "optimal" regimen or daily schedule. Now you're doing everything mentioned in the first two sub-topics (a & b) and now what is your regular daily schedule?
Danny: Eventually you cross the line where time itself no longer makes a difference in your improvement, but it's HOW you use that time that becomes more important. Deliberate practice challenges the traditional "practice makes perfect" theory. Practice means nothing unless you challenge yourself to make the practice more difficult. You should try to do half of your daily plan in the morning because studies prove that you retain more of what you study and learn when you first get up in the morning before you focus on the rest of the day. The last part of your studies should come at the point where you feel the most exhausted, right before you go to sleep, where your brain doesn't want to study. This builds stamina, discipline, and focus for those times at tourneys where you just want to fall asleep.
David: This is more of what he did at some points in using a regimen. Split learning up into 2-hour chunks where he could learn more and learn better while in shorter periods of focus called "self-investigation." He would do 4 2-hour periods of training and break it up perhaps taking a walk. Then every two days or so, have a 4-6 hour session where he would push himself and making himself more "battle ready."
#10 - Blunder of the Week:
Danny: who put up the banner today one hour before the show started OR
David: The Gibraltar organizers for making Nigel Short and Hou Yifan play a 2-game blitz match to determine the winner of the tournament, which Nigel won. It wasn't fair to have such a short match decide the final winner. It was a 10,000 pound difference between 1st and 2nd. They should've shared prizes or done a performance rating tie-breaker, which Hou would've won.
All links for the topics are in the first section above and I did what I could to try to relay what Danny and David said. As mentioned, the show did save so for those curious to get it "from the horses mouth," can watch the replay.
Have a good night folks!
-Mark