what the #$%^was he playing and how did he win?

yes, makes sense. about  2. Just add/delete from the working list of weaknesses. thanks aronchuck. your three are very easy to remember.  and about 3. thank you for clarifying improve worst piece =, far from the action, blocked by pawns, and don't trade a good piece for a bad piece. Interesting, and important. thanks. 

This is worth it's weight in gold. I mean it as an expression, not literally, since I don't think bytes weigh much :P, but thank you for this clear ideas and very precise recommendations. It's really encouraging.

totally. I agree, and it makes sense to me. That's why I tried to not put a lot of thought or words into the description of targets, or weaknesses. I understand the importance of developing a visual sense of the weaknessess, and potential for tactics. Last week Jaglavak referenced Reshevsky's introduction to Horowitz' Point Count Chess; in this introduction, which I looked up last night, Reshevsky asks the question 'how was it that I was such a good chess player from such a young age' and Reshevsky answers his own question with the answer "I was particularly good at spotting weaknesses". We have to assume that these weaknesses are sptted in much the same way that Red is spotted as Red, Yellow as Yellow. We don't see Red and think "it is reflecting light at such and such wavelength, hence it much be red', just like we don't look at a position with a tactic and say 'those pieces are lined up and there is this over there so there must be a tactic'...we spot it instantly, or we spot something instantly, and work becakward from that. 

So, influenced by aronchuck's second  rule, 'where are the weaknesses', I've just been doing some tactics puzzles, and I decided I was going to start each puzzle by asking the question 'where is my opponent's loose pieces". By finding loose pieces, I then looked for tactics, and found them. I have to do this because I don't see them instantly yet, but I can see an obviously loose piece. 

about the tactics trainer on here, I ignore the time. I trust that my rating will go up as I get more of them correct in the amount of time alloted. I aim for accuracy, not speed. I understand speed will come. If only I could aim for accuracy not speed, in otb play. That's where discipline and sitting on hands adhering to a disciplined thought process will prove to be essential. 

And, I will look for the Lou Hays book. thanks again. 

As far as nicnames go QTKO is fine or any other abbreviation as long as I know its me & it isn't too obscure.

On the e5 pawn move my initial thought was to play it, but I have been playing closed center pawn structures while coaching my wife & I didn't want the level of complexity that arises while using a tight time limit so exd5 was a compromise to the rules of the experiment. I believe e5 is a stronger move for many reasons but not for me in this experiment. An open position was far easier for me to play & calculate under the time pressure & still make targets my focus & get a win.

thanks qtko. I'm going to play two tournament games tomorrow, one in the morning, and one in the evening. I'll post them unannotated, but I'll annotate them for myself, and then once you participants have posted your annotations I'll post mine and we'll compare. I invite you qtko to post another one of your games, whenever you're ready. And, to repeat, we'll try to annotate each others games focussing on targets, along with some of the other traditional annotations, like when the game turned in our estimation, lines we considered, what our reasoning was for choices we made. etc. But we'll try to eliminate our maximal or principle-based language, and instead replace it with target-based language. Remember, its not that the maxims are wrong; its that they're shorthand for maximizing targets, at least that's my understanding of it.  e.g. a knight on the rim usu. has fewer targets than a centralized one, and sometimes putting a knight on the rim is the best place for it to target a piece.

One more thing...when we annotate games we probably should try to put them into the viewer, otherwise its easy to lose track of which game we're annotating. Does that make sense? 

Somebodysson

The viewer is not working for me at the moment, the annotations won't save & I don't know why yet. Has anyone else had this problem? I annotaed the whole game & then had to do it again, not sure if the problem is browser related or a chess.com prob or something else.

Looking forward to your games, I tried a test on the 1600 hard level & when I move up to it I am going to have to adjust my time limit, so for now I'll stay with medium (1200) I think the 1600 level will be much better but unless I can get at least an occaisional win it may not give us what we want.

@Somebodysson

The reason that I introduced the idea of pawn break squares as being targets is because there is another target(s) known as a "color square weakness". There are 2 types of color square weakness: dark square color weakness and light square color weakness. I try to introduce information a little at a time to keep you from going into information overload.

The following is an istructional series of lessons by IM David Pruess:

http://www.chess.com/chessmentor/view_course?id=339

Something amusing!

I just played the computer again on medium, we can now resolve the question of the e5 pawn push from my last game. I got the 1/- ....b6 opening after a few tries & proceeded from there. The position was similar but not identical.

e5 appears to be so strong that it moved a pinned Knight & gave up its Queen?????? Game over. I'll see if I can come up with a system that works for me at the 1600 level

hi Yaroslavl. YES, about color square weakness, I have seen that written many times, and I haven 't been able to see what they were talking about. I'm going to look at the David Pruess stuff today. Thanks very much. 

@qtko: ummm, maybe you don't have to win the game in order to post it here. Maybe you can lose it too, and it doens\t matter. the thing we're pushing, and testing for, is the target consciousness. So whatever the computer plays, and whatever the result, we can still annotate the targets/weaknesses in the game, and you can still annotate that specific aspect too. 

So maybe it doens't make sense to be too concerned about the computer strength, or the result. 

Btw, that's one of the reasons I couldn't care less if someone  I played was cheating. So what if they cheat, I say. I still have the challenge of working on my targetting, my seeing patterns, etc. By cheating they are only cheating themselves, not me. I have the same learning challenge whatever methods they use for their playing. 

This is off topic, though, and I don't want to get into discussion about cheating. Definitely not. I just wanted to insert that so that qtkOops could have some more perspective on the computer strength. In a sense, you're playing a 'cheater', i.e. a computer, using computer assistance! Your target consciousness, and your thought process is still the issue.

Wish me luck in my game this morning. I'm going to go read that Pruess material, and then do some tactics puzzles. 

Over and out. 

@Somebodysson

Good luck in your game this morning. Don't forget 1. Sit on your hands. Check your list twice before deciding on a move. Look at the pawn structure for your overall strategy and to see where the pawn break squares are.

hehe, you know what you're talking about. I tend to look at a position and think 'no, that wasn't the right move in such and uch game, so I won't make it here' without understanding that the positions were different! 

@Yaroslavl: I'm doing the Pruess material. I'm finding it very difficult. Its obviously very important, and I'm going to do it more. Its very good. I didn't realize the chess mentor material was so good. thanks for the link and the recommnedation. 

He was having fun with u!

My post about the e5 move & the computer dropping its Queen was meant as a joke, I know e5 is a stronger move, obviously the algorythm that the computer uses to limit its playing strength is inadequate in many situations.

I'm hoping that at 1600 level the computer will be more of a realistic test.

Somebodysson, I am being critical of the computer only because it skews the result when it plays like that, its easy to find targets when the opponent is a Queen & Rook down. In the game today almost everything was a target, it was so bad I abandoned it. But I think the experiment has merit, I designed many experiments working in Chemical research & this is typical of having to get the parameters right to get meaningful results. I'll stick with it & modify as necessary.

Good luck for the games today, looking forward to something to analyse that isn't mine

Somebodysson wrote:

aronchuck wrote:

This post reminds me of the dangerous mindset I have witnessed on several occasions after I have taught an opening (Let's say the Colle) to a new beginner.  They play the same opening moves regardless of what the opponent does sometimes dropping a Queen in 1 move.  When asked why they did this they say they were taught to play it.  At least they soon learn the lesson that moves are only good in specific positions fairly quickly then...

hehe, you know what you're talking about. I tend to look at a position and think 'no, that wasn't the right move in such and uch game, so I won't make it here' without understanding that the positions were different! 

@Yaroslavl: I'm doing the Pruess material. I'm finding it very difficult. Its obviously very important, and I'm going to do it more. Its very good. I didn't realize the chess mentor material was so good. thanks for the link and the recommnedation. 

_______________________________

I introduced you to the color square weakness complex at this time in order to help you make the "targets"definition more complete and comprehensive. You needed to know that squares are targets too. Also that is the reason for the item on your list that cautions you about pawn moves by you or your opponent. Color square weaknesses are usually caused by careless pawn moves.

There are other weaknesses that are targets: doubled pawns, isolated pawns, the isolani pair, backward isolated pawns, hanging pawns, etc.

I would remind you, regarding the e5 move and it's strength, that QueenTakesKnightOops's opponent is not a human child that has just learned some moves in an opening. It is a computer set on medium strength, that has an opening book in its memory and can analyze millions of moves per second

yes aronchuck, we understood that it was about qtko's comment about e5 strong in a different position. 

Yaroslavl, please re-read my comments about the irrelevance of the computer, and the focus on QTKO and my focus on targets. aronchuck's comment was very clear. We will not get into fights about analysis of individual moves. We are conducting an experiement here about thinking processes, at least at this point. Thanks. 

thanks QTKO!  about the viewer and losing annotations, yes, its a problem. If you spend more than a certain amount of time on the annotation before saving, it loses the whole thing. We've all had that problem. Let's ask chess.com to fix it. 

In the meantime, you could write your annotations out in a word or wordpad or notepad doc, and paste the notes to a post here. thanks. 

off to the races 

My misunderstanding. I will read with more attention to detail in the future.

Regarding the experiment about the thinking process, the first step in developing a thinking process is the Before I Make A Move Checklist. It is a "dues ex machina" tool for an initial formulating and disciplining of your thinking process.

I won! I'll post the game. I won! Yay! I played carefully. I saw a tactic, and then another. I looked for weaknesses. I didn't see weaknesses for a long time, but then I saw a weakness and I went after it. I'll post. I'm sooooo happy. I reallly wanted to win this, for you guys, as for me. We'll analyze it. I played Caro Kan, and I think it changed to a Slav or one of those things. We'll look at it together. 

http://www.chess.com/analysis-board-editor

Anotate it in the editor in that link, and then select "copy pgn" and insert it in the forum reply. I had this problem earlier, if you take too long to insert a game and annotate it will timeout and you will lose your work.