You're at 1200-something? Learn to keep your pieces and pawns protected to minimize blunders, train tactics tactics and some more tactics. Go through Morphy's and Tarrasches wins. Forget about Karpov at your low chessic understanding and low skill. You need to learn the basics of opening play, tactics and strategy. Positional play is NOT the same thing as strategy, It isn't a playing style either. It's uberkurs, and at your level, you are far far far from it.
Am I too Positional?
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The number of comments that attack the poster's rating is really quite shameful. First of all, rating is actually irrelevant in chess; the best player in the world could have never played on chess.com, and could create a new account and start at a modest 1200 -- but he would still be the best player in the world. From his obvious knowledge of chess history, once of the most important aspects of chess, Herceg demonstrates more chess potential than anyone else in this thread. On top of this, his theory that positional knowledge is useless shows that he is willing to bring up deep, radical ideas fearlessly, another quality of someone destined for greatness. Anyone on this thread who mocks him, I want you to know that you are playing a role analogous to that of the religious leaders who wished to silence the claims of those who believed the world was round in ancient times. I wish Herceg luck on his inevitable path as a great chess thinker of the modern world.
Dec 31, 2017
0
#64
sadkid2008 wrote:
The number of comments that attack the poster's rating is really quite shameful. First of all, rating is actually irrelevant in chess; the best player in the world could have never played on chess.com, and could create a new account and start at a modest 1200 -- but he would still be the best player in the world. From his obvious knowledge of chess history, once of the most important aspects of chess, Herceg demonstrates more chess potential than anyone else in this thread. On top of this, his theory that positional knowledge is useless shows that he is willing to bring up deep, radical ideas fearlessly, another quality of someone destined for greatness. Anyone on this thread who mocks him, I want you to know that you are playing a role analogous to that of the religious leaders who wished to silence the claims of those who believed the world was round in ancient times. I wish Herceg luck on his inevitable path as a great chess thinker of the modern world.
Unfortunately, this analogy breaks down when you see how many games he has played. Best player in the world would have a higher rating after playing that number of games. Honestly, the claim that rating is irrelevant is just false in general. What is true is that rating doesn't determine everything. In certain cases the stronger claim is true, such as your example of the best player (ahem Carlsen) joining chess.com, but the reason this is not pertinent is that the best player would easily have a 2800+ rating after hundreds of games. No one is actually attacking him, just claiming that such a rating is reason to reevaluate some things about his/her chess understanding and/or perception of it.
The fact is, reaching a level of chess understanding where one can fruitfully compare the games of Karpov/Fischer/Kasparov (at least on the level the OP wants to discuss) is hard. Really hard, and just knowing chess history/chess games is not sufficient. I know a ton of chess history too, but that doesn't change the fact that I am still a 1500+ player, because I don't actually have well-developed tactical vision, and my positional/strategic understanding is almost nil. I suppose what I'm really saying is, I'm not attacking him anymore than I'm attacking myself(!)
sadkid2008 wrote:
The number of comments that attack the poster's rating is really quite shameful. First of all, rating is actually irrelevant in chess; the best player in the world could have never played on chess.com, and could create a new account and start at a modest 1200 -- but he would still be the best player in the world. From his obvious knowledge of chess history, once of the most important aspects of chess, Herceg demonstrates more chess potential than anyone else in this thread. On top of this, his theory that positional knowledge is useless shows that he is willing to bring up deep, radical ideas fearlessly, another quality of someone destined for greatness. Anyone on this thread who mocks him, I want you to know that you are playing a role analogous to that of the religious leaders who wished to silence the claims of those who believed the world was round in ancient times. I wish Herceg luck on his inevitable path as a great chess thinker of the modern world.
Taking rating into account is quite useful because at different rating levels you need different knowledge. As I mentioned before tactical vision, combinational skill are the basis of good improvement.
If you identify all the undefended pieces in your position this alone will help you not to blunder any pieces. Once simple tactics and primitives can be spotted quickly you can learn more advanced stuff.
I wouldn't teach a 1200 player how to do a minority attack.
chessman1504 wrote:
sadkid2008 wrote:
The number of comments that attack the poster's rating is really quite shameful. First of all, rating is actually irrelevant in chess; the best player in the world could have never played on chess.com, and could create a new account and start at a modest 1200 -- but he would still be the best player in the world. From his obvious knowledge of chess history, once of the most important aspects of chess, Herceg demonstrates more chess potential than anyone else in this thread. On top of this, his theory that positional knowledge is useless shows that he is willing to bring up deep, radical ideas fearlessly, another quality of someone destined for greatness. Anyone on this thread who mocks him, I want you to know that you are playing a role analogous to that of the religious leaders who wished to silence the claims of those who believed the world was round in ancient times. I wish Herceg luck on his inevitable path as a great chess thinker of the modern world.
Unfortunately, this analogy breaks down when you see how many games he has played. Best player in the world would have a higher rating after playing that number of games. Honestly, the claim that rating is irrelevant is just false in general. What is true is that rating doesn't determine everything. In certain cases the stronger claim is true, such as your example of the best player (ahem Carlsen) joining chess.com, but the reason this is not pertinent is that the best player would easily have a 2800+ rating after hundreds of games. No one is actually attacking him, just claiming that such a rating is reason to reevaluate some things about his/her chess understanding and/or perception of it.
The fact is, reaching a level of chess understanding where one can fruitfully compare the games of Karpov/Fischer/Kasparov (at least on the level the OP wants to discuss) is hard. Really hard, and just knowing chess history/chess games is not sufficient. I know a ton of chess history too, but that doesn't change the fact that I am still a 1500+ player, because I don't actually have well-developed tactical vision, and my positional/strategic understanding is almost nil. I suppose what I'm really saying is, I'm not attacking him anymore than I'm attacking myself(!)
I can see you are a reasonable person; I was referring to others who made clearly degrading comments. Your argument makes sense in theory, but, as Dwight Eisenhower cleverly stated, "All rating systems are arbitrary. The only proof of skill is on the battlefield." This underrated maxim completely undermines your claim that playing more games will show your true skill level in your rating, because, after all, these minor games mean naught when the real battle takes place.
Jan 1, 2018
0
#67
sadkid2008 wrote:
chessman1504 wrote:
sadkid2008 wrote:
The number of comments that attack the poster's rating is really quite shameful. First of all, rating is actually irrelevant in chess; the best player in the world could have never played on chess.com, and could create a new account and start at a modest 1200 -- but he would still be the best player in the world. From his obvious knowledge of chess history, once of the most important aspects of chess, Herceg demonstrates more chess potential than anyone else in this thread. On top of this, his theory that positional knowledge is useless shows that he is willing to bring up deep, radical ideas fearlessly, another quality of someone destined for greatness. Anyone on this thread who mocks him, I want you to know that you are playing a role analogous to that of the religious leaders who wished to silence the claims of those who believed the world was round in ancient times. I wish Herceg luck on his inevitable path as a great chess thinker of the modern world.
Unfortunately, this analogy breaks down when you see how many games he has played. Best player in the world would have a higher rating after playing that number of games. Honestly, the claim that rating is irrelevant is just false in general. What is true is that rating doesn't determine everything. In certain cases the stronger claim is true, such as your example of the best player (ahem Carlsen) joining chess.com, but the reason this is not pertinent is that the best player would easily have a 2800+ rating after hundreds of games. No one is actually attacking him, just claiming that such a rating is reason to reevaluate some things about his/her chess understanding and/or perception of it.
The fact is, reaching a level of chess understanding where one can fruitfully compare the games of Karpov/Fischer/Kasparov (at least on the level the OP wants to discuss) is hard. Really hard, and just knowing chess history/chess games is not sufficient. I know a ton of chess history too, but that doesn't change the fact that I am still a 1500+ player, because I don't actually have well-developed tactical vision, and my positional/strategic understanding is almost nil. I suppose what I'm really saying is, I'm not attacking him anymore than I'm attacking myself(!)
I can see you are a reasonable person; I was referring to others who made clearly degrading comments. Your argument makes sense in theory, but, as Dwight Eisenhower cleverly stated, "All rating systems are arbitrary. The only proof of skill is on the battlefield." This underrated maxim completely undermines your claim that playing more games will show your true skill level in your rating, because, after all, these minor games mean naught when the real battle takes place.
One should be careful to argue a point from vague general principles, or purely from authority, or from "underrated maxims" that are taken purely out of context. These arguments have no substance if not properly executed. Dwight Eisenhower was awesome, and also perfectly capable of being wrong. We must use our own heads here. The claim is that it's reasonable to believe the OP's rating is only low because these are minor games, and that should he be put in a more serious context, then we would really know his true strength. The thing is, I believe this is naive, because playing actual tournament games is much tougher than playing online games. In my (admittedly limited) experience, if one only has a 1200 rating on chess.com, it's unlikely they would reach even that level in real world chess (say USCF or FIDE). Especially for the simple fact that playing on the "battle field" is much more pressure. However, let's forget about whether or not the games are minor. I would say, no matter how minor the games, there are certain mistakes anyone trying to win would not make if they are a strong player with well-developed understanding. It's like how someone who knows English relatively well might misspell a word such as occurrence with something like "occurence"; however, if someone typed akdhksdhkdhs and meant to type "corndog," I would seriously question their spelling ability, regardless of how little effort they put into typing what they meant. This is a ridiculous example, but it's only used for illustrative purposes. The main point being, if someone has a 1200 chess.com rating after hundreds of games, that reflects something about their ability to understand certain games.
But don't you think that both areas have to be trained? Tactics and strategy. You can't do only one of them. Tactics helps you to spot and avoid blunders while strategy helps you to plan your game.
The third area you should study is smositional understanding. It is essential so learn many smositions.
Smositional understanding is the correct evaluation of a given smosition.
Jan 4, 2018
0
#69
Positional chess > tactical chess >>>>>>> unfunny jokes about smositional chess.
Jan 12, 2018
0
#71
Pashak1989 wrote:
The reason your awesome rating suffered a decline is because you didn't know how to handle your fame.
After so much praising, interviews, invitations from presidents all around the world, you really believed that you are a God of chess and stopped working a minimum of 19 hours a day like you should have.
It is like what happened to Rocky Balboa. He started spending time on other things and then Ted Clubber-Lang destroyed him.
The problem is not your style, your style is very difficult to figure out and to prepare for. The problem is that you need to get greedy, you need to be hungry again.
Then you will get to the 1293 rating again. Hell, you may even achieve the unachievable and get to 1300! I know it sounds impossible, but 10 years ago no one believed Donaldo Trump would be US president.
i laughed so hard on this post
Jan 27, 2018
0
#72
Don't mind them Vlad. You can be a strong chess player if you put more heart and more hard study.
chessman1504 wrote:
sadkid2008 wrote:
chessman1504 wrote:
sadkid2008 wrote:
The number of comments that attack the poster's rating is really quite shameful. First of all, rating is actually irrelevant in chess; the best player in the world could have never played on chess.com, and could create a new account and start at a modest 1200 -- but he would still be the best player in the world. From his obvious knowledge of chess history, once of the most important aspects of chess, Herceg demonstrates more chess potential than anyone else in this thread. On top of this, his theory that positional knowledge is useless shows that he is willing to bring up deep, radical ideas fearlessly, another quality of someone destined for greatness. Anyone on this thread who mocks him, I want you to know that you are playing a role analogous to that of the religious leaders who wished to silence the claims of those who believed the world was round in ancient times. I wish Herceg luck on his inevitable path as a great chess thinker of the modern world.
Unfortunately, this analogy breaks down when you see how many games he has played. Best player in the world would have a higher rating after playing that number of games. Honestly, the claim that rating is irrelevant is just false in general. What is true is that rating doesn't determine everything. In certain cases the stronger claim is true, such as your example of the best player (ahem Carlsen) joining chess.com, but the reason this is not pertinent is that the best player would easily have a 2800+ rating after hundreds of games. No one is actually attacking him, just claiming that such a rating is reason to reevaluate some things about his/her chess understanding and/or perception of it.
The fact is, reaching a level of chess understanding where one can fruitfully compare the games of Karpov/Fischer/Kasparov (at least on the level the OP wants to discuss) is hard. Really hard, and just knowing chess history/chess games is not sufficient. I know a ton of chess history too, but that doesn't change the fact that I am still a 1500+ player, because I don't actually have well-developed tactical vision, and my positional/strategic understanding is almost nil. I suppose what I'm really saying is, I'm not attacking him anymore than I'm attacking myself(!)
I can see you are a reasonable person; I was referring to others who made clearly degrading comments. Your argument makes sense in theory, but, as Dwight Eisenhower cleverly stated, "All rating systems are arbitrary. The only proof of skill is on the battlefield." This underrated maxim completely undermines your claim that playing more games will show your true skill level in your rating, because, after all, these minor games mean naught when the real battle takes place.
One should be careful to argue a point from vague general principles, or purely from authority, or from "underrated maxims" that are taken purely out of context. These arguments have no substance if not properly executed. Dwight Eisenhower was awesome, and also perfectly capable of being wrong. We must use our own heads here. The claim is that it's reasonable to believe the OP's rating is only low because these are minor games, and that should he be put in a more serious context, then we would really know his true strength. The thing is, I believe this is naive, because playing actual tournament games is much tougher than playing online games. In my (admittedly limited) experience, if one only has a 1200 rating on chess.com, it's unlikely they would reach even that level in real world chess (say USCF or FIDE). Especially for the simple fact that playing on the "battle field" is much more pressure. However, let's forget about whether or not the games are minor. I would say, no matter how minor the games, there are certain mistakes anyone trying to win would not make if they are a strong player with well-developed understanding. It's like how someone who knows English relatively well might misspell a word such as occurrence with something like "occurence"; however, if someone typed akdhksdhkdhs and meant to type "corndog," I would seriously question their spelling ability, regardless of how little effort they put into typing what they meant. This is a ridiculous example, but it's only used for illustrative purposes. The main point being, if someone has a 1200 chess.com rating after hundreds of games, that reflects something about their ability to understand certain games.
It reflects nothing of your potential, which is the most important in chess. It is his potential, and not his rating, that leads me to believe that the OP will indeed achieve great things. And my chess.com rating is 1770~ while my USCF rating is 1800+, and I know many others who are the same.
I rarely beat players rated above me online but in real life I have begun to crush 2000's, most likely because of the pressure that I have in a game that I feel truly matters to me. The OP's qualities and potential will definitely manifest themselves after a few tournament games and there is very strong evidence to suggest this.
Apr 8, 2018
0
#76
I think he should focus on smositional play. Smositional understanding is the key to success in chess.
Apr 9, 2018
0
#77
sadkid2008 wrote:
chessman1504 wrote:
sadkid2008 wrote:
chessman1504 wrote:
sadkid2008 wrote:
The number of comments that attack the poster's rating is really quite shameful. First of all, rating is actually irrelevant in chess; the best player in the world could have never played on chess.com, and could create a new account and start at a modest 1200 -- but he would still be the best player in the world. From his obvious knowledge of chess history, once of the most important aspects of chess, Herceg demonstrates more chess potential than anyone else in this thread. On top of this, his theory that positional knowledge is useless shows that he is willing to bring up deep, radical ideas fearlessly, another quality of someone destined for greatness. Anyone on this thread who mocks him, I want you to know that you are playing a role analogous to that of the religious leaders who wished to silence the claims of those who believed the world was round in ancient times. I wish Herceg luck on his inevitable path as a great chess thinker of the modern world.
Unfortunately, this analogy breaks down when you see how many games he has played. Best player in the world would have a higher rating after playing that number of games. Honestly, the claim that rating is irrelevant is just false in general. What is true is that rating doesn't determine everything. In certain cases the stronger claim is true, such as your example of the best player (ahem Carlsen) joining chess.com, but the reason this is not pertinent is that the best player would easily have a 2800+ rating after hundreds of games. No one is actually attacking him, just claiming that such a rating is reason to reevaluate some things about his/her chess understanding and/or perception of it.
The fact is, reaching a level of chess understanding where one can fruitfully compare the games of Karpov/Fischer/Kasparov (at least on the level the OP wants to discuss) is hard. Really hard, and just knowing chess history/chess games is not sufficient. I know a ton of chess history too, but that doesn't change the fact that I am still a 1500+ player, because I don't actually have well-developed tactical vision, and my positional/strategic understanding is almost nil. I suppose what I'm really saying is, I'm not attacking him anymore than I'm attacking myself(!)
I can see you are a reasonable person; I was referring to others who made clearly degrading comments. Your argument makes sense in theory, but, as Dwight Eisenhower cleverly stated, "All rating systems are arbitrary. The only proof of skill is on the battlefield." This underrated maxim completely undermines your claim that playing more games will show your true skill level in your rating, because, after all, these minor games mean naught when the real battle takes place.
One should be careful to argue a point from vague general principles, or purely from authority, or from "underrated maxims" that are taken purely out of context. These arguments have no substance if not properly executed. Dwight Eisenhower was awesome, and also perfectly capable of being wrong. We must use our own heads here. The claim is that it's reasonable to believe the OP's rating is only low because these are minor games, and that should he be put in a more serious context, then we would really know his true strength. The thing is, I believe this is naive, because playing actual tournament games is much tougher than playing online games. In my (admittedly limited) experience, if one only has a 1200 rating on chess.com, it's unlikely they would reach even that level in real world chess (say USCF or FIDE). Especially for the simple fact that playing on the "battle field" is much more pressure. However, let's forget about whether or not the games are minor. I would say, no matter how minor the games, there are certain mistakes anyone trying to win would not make if they are a strong player with well-developed understanding. It's like how someone who knows English relatively well might misspell a word such as occurrence with something like "occurence"; however, if someone typed akdhksdhkdhs and meant to type "corndog," I would seriously question their spelling ability, regardless of how little effort they put into typing what they meant. This is a ridiculous example, but it's only used for illustrative purposes. The main point being, if someone has a 1200 chess.com rating after hundreds of games, that reflects something about their ability to understand certain games.
It reflects nothing of your potential, which is the most important in chess. It is his potential, and not his rating, that leads me to believe that the OP will indeed achieve great things. And my chess.com rating is 1770~ while my USCF rating is 1800+, and I know many others who are the same.
1800- 1770 = 30.... there is a huge difference between 30 rating points and 2800-1200= 1600... and potential is not at all quantifiable....
Apr 12, 2018
0
#79
It’s impossible to be “too” much of a good thing. Like, no move can be too positionally sound. But you can have not enough of another positive quality. Sound positioning will open up opportunities for your opponent to error, and you might not have adequate tactical vision to take advantage of opportunities.
chessman1504 wrote:
sadkid2008 wrote:
chessman1504 wrote:
sadkid2008 wrote:
chessman1504 wrote:
sadkid2008 wrote:
The number of comments that attack the poster's rating is really quite shameful. First of all, rating is actually irrelevant in chess; the best player in the world could have never played on chess.com, and could create a new account and start at a modest 1200 -- but he would still be the best player in the world. From his obvious knowledge of chess history, once of the most important aspects of chess, Herceg demonstrates more chess potential than anyone else in this thread. On top of this, his theory that positional knowledge is useless shows that he is willing to bring up deep, radical ideas fearlessly, another quality of someone destined for greatness. Anyone on this thread who mocks him, I want you to know that you are playing a role analogous to that of the religious leaders who wished to silence the claims of those who believed the world was round in ancient times. I wish Herceg luck on his inevitable path as a great chess thinker of the modern world.
Unfortunately, this analogy breaks down when you see how many games he has played. Best player in the world would have a higher rating after playing that number of games. Honestly, the claim that rating is irrelevant is just false in general. What is true is that rating doesn't determine everything. In certain cases the stronger claim is true, such as your example of the best player (ahem Carlsen) joining chess.com, but the reason this is not pertinent is that the best player would easily have a 2800+ rating after hundreds of games. No one is actually attacking him, just claiming that such a rating is reason to reevaluate some things about his/her chess understanding and/or perception of it.
The fact is, reaching a level of chess understanding where one can fruitfully compare the games of Karpov/Fischer/Kasparov (at least on the level the OP wants to discuss) is hard. Really hard, and just knowing chess history/chess games is not sufficient. I know a ton of chess history too, but that doesn't change the fact that I am still a 1500+ player, because I don't actually have well-developed tactical vision, and my positional/strategic understanding is almost nil. I suppose what I'm really saying is, I'm not attacking him anymore than I'm attacking myself(!)
I can see you are a reasonable person; I was referring to others who made clearly degrading comments. Your argument makes sense in theory, but, as Dwight Eisenhower cleverly stated, "All rating systems are arbitrary. The only proof of skill is on the battlefield." This underrated maxim completely undermines your claim that playing more games will show your true skill level in your rating, because, after all, these minor games mean naught when the real battle takes place.
One should be careful to argue a point from vague general principles, or purely from authority, or from "underrated maxims" that are taken purely out of context. These arguments have no substance if not properly executed. Dwight Eisenhower was awesome, and also perfectly capable of being wrong. We must use our own heads here. The claim is that it's reasonable to believe the OP's rating is only low because these are minor games, and that should he be put in a more serious context, then we would really know his true strength. The thing is, I believe this is naive, because playing actual tournament games is much tougher than playing online games. In my (admittedly limited) experience, if one only has a 1200 rating on chess.com, it's unlikely they would reach even that level in real world chess (say USCF or FIDE). Especially for the simple fact that playing on the "battle field" is much more pressure. However, let's forget about whether or not the games are minor. I would say, no matter how minor the games, there are certain mistakes anyone trying to win would not make if they are a strong player with well-developed understanding. It's like how someone who knows English relatively well might misspell a word such as occurrence with something like "occurence"; however, if someone typed akdhksdhkdhs and meant to type "corndog," I would seriously question their spelling ability, regardless of how little effort they put into typing what they meant. This is a ridiculous example, but it's only used for illustrative purposes. The main point being, if someone has a 1200 chess.com rating after hundreds of games, that reflects something about their ability to understand certain games.
It reflects nothing of your potential, which is the most important in chess. It is his potential, and not his rating, that leads me to believe that the OP will indeed achieve great things. And my chess.com rating is 1770~ while my USCF rating is 1800+, and I know many others who are the same.
1800- 1770 = 30.... there is a huge difference between 30 rating points and 2800-1200= 1600... and potential is not at all quantifiable....
Exactly. Potential is not quantifiable. So where are you getting 2800 from and calling it unrealistic?
Garry Kasparov was a tactical mastermind. Quite possibly the 12th greatest player to ever live. And of course, a World Champion. One of the greatest champions of our sport.
However, his understanding of positional chess leaves little to be desired. He was a pure tactician.
Anatoly Karpov, the greatest player to ever live, on the other hand was purely positional.
The latter is who I modeled my game after. In my early days, this style of play brought be great success. I should mention that my blitz rating at one time was a barely believable 1293.
Lately however, my rating has taken a steep decline. And I started to think, maybe I have become too positional.
Should I be more focused on tactics rather than spending endless hours on study of Chess games of masters old?
Tactics/Combinations are an integral part of chess training and should be practice regularly. Looking at games of the old masters can help develop your positional understanding.
Smositional understanding on the other hand can't be learnt. You either have it or not.