Can you really become a class A player by studying tactics?

It's because at the end of the day, you're counting squares. You're testing moves. There's no elegance to it, just testing all possible moves. That's no sort of game at all. 

In my view the actual calculating in chess is sort of like the manual labour of the game. Just something that has to be done while you try to gain a proper strategic plan of what to do. Of course everyone likes a nice logical combination that's the fruition of a good position.  

It's sorta like taking a class in calculus and bragging how you didn't do half the course, but you mastered the easy problems really well through extreme repetition and ended up with a D or C-. Sure they may have done better than some people, but what's the point?   

Thanks. I pretend that I'm not the only one who reads what I write and that its 800 page views per day are not all internet robots. It's nice to get feedback that tells me that my pretend world may bear some relation to the real one.

For everyone who wants to study tactics: http://www.chess.com/blog/Till_98/huge-tactics-training

Ziryab: Yes, I read and like your blog! At least when I remember I can look it up through your profile:

http://chessskill.blogspot.com/

Anyway, folks, Ziryab is a testament to slow and steady improvement. As I recall, he has advanced ~100 points per year until he is just shy of 2000.

Openings are all you need to study to get to master level.

Hi,

          Definitely, that's precisely how I did it some 32 or so years ago when I was middle-aged and in my heyday.  Now, is that the only thing I studied.  Of course NOT. I got to a peak rating around 1983-4 of 1937 I believe with 95% of my study on endgames, chess puzzles, TACTICS, and miniature games (under 20 moves in Short Games books), especially in my favorite openings. But then again I'd also read Hans Kmoch's Pawn Power in Chess and a book called Point-Count Chess which was all about positional considerations.  I'd raised my rating from 1309 to 1516 or so but couldn't seem to improve.  Than I noticed that just about every master and stronger player I talked to said they'd read Reinfeld and Chernev's Winning Chess (How to See Three Moves Ahead) which introduced them and me to 16 different tactical themes I believe . . . and that book and endgame study is what all the truly good players I talked to back then said "helped me improve the most and the fastest."  Of course, I then went roughly 25 years with only rare chess play . . . and that's definitely the thing that hurt me the most, so I DO NOT recommend that.  Good luck.

          Bob

Speaking of La Maza he's probably underrated as a player since to win a section (especially such a big open) you'd be against some underrated people.  There's probably some 16 year old kid he took out who was rated 1950 but whose playing strength is above 2100 for example. 

If La Maza believed for a second he was underrated, he would have every incentive financial and otherwise to reach another peak. 

A1Rajjpuut, they are talking about people who claim to never do ANY work on positional chess, on openings, and not know anything about an open file or outpost or pawn structure or king safety, good bishop, weak squares etc. They mean people who will play d4 d5 nf3 nf6 bf4 bf5 bd3 and so on. 

I'm pretty sure though that the la Maza guys who've gotten passed 1000 at some point learned a thing or two about centre development, isolated pawns, king safety etc. at some point along the way also. 

I don't agree with his study method but he did win the U2000 section at the world open. He likely has a natural talent for positional and endgame play so likely just needed to work on his only relative weakness.  It's like an athlete who is naturally big boned and doesn't need to lift weights to be strong, so they spend time mostly jumping rope and dot drills to enhance agility. 

TGOB: However, it's a different story if MDLM was getting a leg up from a concealed computer.

MDLM explains how he chooses moves:
* Understand what my opponent is threatening.
* If opponent has serious threat, respond.
* If no threat, calculate a tactical sequence.
* If no tactical sequence, implement a very simple plan.

MDLM explains how he makes a plan:
* Improve the mobility of pieces.
* Prevent opponent from castlilng.
* Trade-off pawns.
* Keep the queens on the board.

http://www.masschess.org/Chess_Horizons/Articles/2001-04_Sample_400_Points_Part_2.pdf

By his own account MDLM does not work from natural positional and endgame talents. He just roams around the board, responding to threats, making combinations, or improving his position in utterly rudimentary ways. And that's what his three games look like.

Oddly enough his description of his play sounds a lot like a computer algorithm...

Speaking of La Maza he's probably underrated as a player since to win a section (especially such a big open) you'd be against some underrated people.

TGOB: The other odd thing is that when MDLM won the U2000 section of the World Open, his rating was not leveling off but had lifted off at a very steep angle.

http://main.uschess.org/datapage/ratings_graph.php?memid=12775875

When he quit, MDLM was not on a plateau but was in the midst of another big rating breakthrough.

The cynical explanation, though, is that he had been using a computer all along but had been intentionally losing some games to maintain the appearance of steady, reasonable improvement. Then in his final tournament he let the computer play full strength, won his $10,000 and bowed out of chess forever to avoid skeptical scrutiny.

Didn't MDLM claim to have read How to Reassess Your Chess?  So he knew about positional, strategic play, but he didn't know how to not have his plans be refuted tactically.  Once he covered that weakness, he was able to employ his other chess knowledge in his games.

Again, I'm fairly certain that you can become 1400-1500 doing 90% tactical study.  1800+ seems very unlikely.

You can look at the improvement of the Knights Errant from 10 years ago for some data points.  All the players who started with very low (U1200) ratings, were able to gain 300-400 points.   The bottom of the list is littered with folks who were 1600+ when they began.

http://temposchlucker.blogspot.com/2005/05/ratingprogress-of-knights-errant.html

Based on comments from Bright Knight's blog (I didn't verify myself), MDLM was 2/11 vs 2000+ competition.

A less cynical explanation was that he was slightly underrated for an U2000 tournament and had a very good tournament, as would be true for any winner of a 9 round tournament.  As we've mentioned earlier in this thread, a single performance rating doesn't make you that rating.

Anyone who nearly sweeps the field in a 9 round tournament will appear to be on the midst of a big rating spike as well.

Considering how popular he became, you'd think if any of his opponents at the World Open had any suspicions, they'd have come forward by now with game scores as proof.

SK5: Yes, I've looked over the MDLM at other sites including temposchlucker. I have no doubt people can reach 1400-1500 using tactical study ... or without it for that matter.

However from what I've read no one has duplicated MDLM's run from 1400 to 2041 in two years using only tactical study.

Although he had read Silman, he says outright, "I implement very simple plans (as opposed to Silman, Kotov, and Pachman-like plans) that improve the probability that there will be a tactical shot."

I don't know for certain that MDLM cheated. It just strikes me as the simplest explanation a la Occam's Razor.

The rating jump isn't as unusual as you may think. I have a friend who went from ~900 to 2500 USCF in just a few years. Two years is plenty of time to improve. 

But, even Michael de la Maza didn't do it on tactics alone, as he himself admits. Nobody has ever made the rating jump following de la Maza's method, including de la Maza himself!

Simple plans and striving for open games where you could apply calculation seems like it suited Morphy, Anderssen and others well.   How many class A/B players do you think are really implementing Pachman-like plans anyway?

He obviously read their material, and even if he wasn't sitting at the board thinking "ok what would Silman do here?" doesn't mean that the ideas didn't contribute to his candidate move selection.

"However from what I've read no one has duplicated MDLM's run from 1400 to 2041 in two years using only tactical study. "

As has been demonstrated in this thread, even MDLM didn't run up to 2041 using only tactical study.  It's just what he chose to ascribe his success to.

Just because you think cheating is the simplest explanation doesn't make it so.  He played in a large chess club in Boston that counts many master players in the ranks.  He played over 100 games in the course of a year and no one was suspicious?  No one raised a hint of doubt after he became a chess celebrity?  Cheating isn't the simplest explanation, it's just the one that requires the least amount of effort to think of.

He was unemployed and studied and played hard for 12 months.  He sat around really strong players and got tips from them.  He listened to how they analyzed games.   He was a very smart guy to begin with and very motivated.  Why is "cheating" the simplest explanation and not hard work?

I have a student who was rated ~900 in 2012 and is currently rated +2000 USCF. The rating gain is remarkable, but not impossible.

I'd think so.

And he cheated, amirite?

That is just insulting to him. He paid for weekly lessons and got better due to some really hard work on his part. This guy has a fantastic memory. Occasionally, I'd give him a position from a classic game, and he'd tell me which game it was from! He put in the hours and hard work necessary to get good at the game.

There just aren't any short-cuts to chess excellence.