Chess experts are like other experts -- they are valuable resources and they get things right until they get them wrong.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who that it’s namin’
For the loser now will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’

--Bob Dylan

ALEKHINE'S DEFENCE

Nothing is more indicative of the iconoclastic conceptions of the 'hypermodern school' than the bizarre defence introduced by Alekhine ...  Although opposing to all tenets of the classical school, Black allows his King's Knight to be driven about the board in the early stages of the game, in the expectation of provoking a weakness in White's centre pawns.

--Modern Chess Openings, 1925

***

This defence to 1 P-K4, which in our 1925 edition was characterized as "bizarre," has met with the fate which often awaits openings which at first seem bizarre, and has now come to be regarded as normal.

--Modern Chess Openings, 1939

***

Alekhine's hasn't risen to equal billing with the Sicilian and 1...e5 defenses, but no one thinks it's bizarre. It has its specialists and its literature.

Fischer even played the Alekhine's twice in his World Championship match with Spassky.

Good stuff!! Thanks!

Yes!

It's important to remember they're just human. They have their own biases and misunderstandings.

Of course most of the time it's very safe to defer to their judgement, but you never know when they might be essentially guessing!

It's important to remember they're just human. They have their own biases and misunderstandings.

Well, the problem with experts isn't that they get things wrong so much as the attitude: "I'm the expert; you shut up."

They often will not admit they have biases and misunderstandings.

I was shocked when I returned to chess a few years ago to discover that in 2000 Kramnik had refashioned the Berlin Defense into such a fearsome drawing weapon, it helped him become World Champion and sent massive shock waves through the elite levels of chess.

With Kramnik's stroke the Ruy Lopez was no longer the mighty flagship of king pawn grandmaster play. Black could draw the Ruy seemingly at will and bypass all the magnificent, teeming complexities of the Closed Ruy variations.

When I learned chess, you were shunted away from the Berlin. "Nothing to see here, folks, just a tedious, passive Black response which hardly anyone, except Denker, plays anymore."

Now we have a flight from the Ruy to to the Scotch, GP, Evans, 4K and even 1.d4. Which  isn't to say the good ole Closed Ruy lines aren't played but it is a different world and not one any 1999 chess expert foresaw.

Indeed while some of these things hold true to some experts.

I do think there are some experts who can admit there biases and misunderstanding.

One example which comes to my mind was the way Garry Kasparov talked about Ex-World Champion Emanual Lasker.

Garry kasparov said many chess players get settled in there own beliefs and game play.

They do not try to change or try to evolve.

Emanual Lasker was one of the rare few who never got settled in his way's.

Emanual Lasker reigned for 20+ years as a World Champion and played chess into his 80's.

It does not surpise me at all that this man was a true innovator in chess.

You can see quotes I believe by Emanual Lasker who didn't fully agree with Aron Nimzo's hypermodern way.

However, Emanual Lasker chess games tell another story.

He might of not agreed with Aron Nimzo.

However, he had some of the finest hyper-modern chess games ever seen.

You can only sit back and think some where down deep inside of him he accepted that he may be wrong and Aron Nimzo may have been right.

XP: Yes, there are experts who will admit to biases and misunderstandings. That's why I qualified my claim with "often will not admit."

I'm confused, is this supposed to be some kind of revelation? Any plea to authority is a logical fallacy, and chess is an essentially logical game.

Yes I know you used the word often.

My intention was not to try and prove you wrong.

It was to simply share an example.

I thought it would make for a wonderful story to hear about experts who have been wrong and yet was able to over come and still be very successful.

I will admit.

I am a little surpised

Chess Experts Getting It Wrong

^^^

I am a little surpised that you haven't added the Sicilian Defence into the thread yet lol.

Yeah chess experts believed the Sicilian defence was an inferior opening.

Talk about getting that wrong lol!

Some time ago a crazy dream came to me.
I dreamt I was walkin’ in World War III.
I went to the doctor the very next day
To see what kinda words he could say.
He said ,"it was a bad dream."

-also Dylan

The coolest observation today!
Nice kitty.

or Positively 4th Street.

So an Expert is called someone whos rating is >2000 uscf, right? In FIDE his rating will be ~1930-2020.. FIDE gives master title to 2200+ and call them Candidate Masters. 

In other words Expert is someone whos understanding of chess is astonishing to average chess player whos rating is 1250.. So Expert is actually higher rated amateur and i believe someone here said everyone under 2300 is chess amateur. I also think those players lack a lot of knowledge and understanding for variety of chess positions. But they have a lot of experience becouse at their level they play here and there vs masters/grandmasters.  They might know few openings or endings in greath depth , but completely not knowing what to do in certain positions/endings.

GM Ben Finegold in one of his lectures for King and pawns endings, he said i gave this puzzle to 2100 rated uscf expert (it was King and 2 pawns vs lone King) and the expert thought for 3 minutes and he said it is draw. (simular position was present to woman title players who also drew in same manner) but position was totally winning for white and they all failed.

Is this the Albert Camus thread?

I was a foolish child. But now...I'm just a foolish grownup.

Like most of us, due to television and the internet, we have watched the best of the best play anything from baseball to pianists.  There will always be a Paul Potts (Youtube) somewhere in the wings waiting to be discovered who don't think much of themselves but someone convinced them to give it a shot.  In the table tennis world, in which I've had a far amount of experience, there is natural talent and natural talent trained and honed into almost machine like consistancy.  Almost all top level / expert talent have to get to the 10,000 hours of practice to complete their talent/experience/performance and graduate into a master level.  I'm an amateur having great fun and if I give any better player a run for their money/sanity, I'm delighted.  Getting better primarily through the school of hard knocks.  Definately have lost games, thanks to honest comments of my opponents, because I don't see all my opportunities.  This greatly enjoyable game is not my greatest concern, and it shouldn't be yours, even if you make a living at it.  Chess has universal appeal and as far as I can tell is timeless (any culture at any time would imbrace it).  It can impart some great lessons about life - patience and timing being at least two that I am growing in.  Like everything worthy, it will continue to develop and I hope I learning faster than it's developing.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

So an Expert is called someone whos rating is >2000 uscf, right? In FIDE his rating will be ~1930-2020.. FIDE gives master title to 2200+ and call them Candidate Masters.

Actually I have the more conventional definition of expert in mind, such as authority or pundit and certainly those who speak as though their opinions deserve special attention. Not quite the same as 2000+ player.

Experts are important and at their best do deserve special attention. However, experts are human which means they make mistakes and are prone to abuse their authority.

So I consider it salutary to review the history of chess experts getting it wrong and interesting to see those episodes as instances in the advancement of chess knowledge.

I tend to agree with Huey.

Ever seen a relatively new player annotate one of their games? It's like they took all the phrases they've heard and randomly applied them to moves. 1.f3 "good move, controlling the center" for example.

I tend to think of the teaching-learning dynamic in a Socratic way, at least so far as it all happens in the student's head. The teacher can only point them in a general direction.

You may explain the center expertly, and the student may feel good about things after hearing you, but it's just a lot of lip service until the student can actually see it for themselves. I know for me I played chess for years before many of the basics became tangible.

There is a saying in science. "Knowledge advances by every death" with the meaning as the old "experts" die new ideas get accepted, studied and advanced, an example being plate theory, very famous geological "experts" did not believe this theory as it seemed to contradict their own long-held views, I think in our day and age, with computers analysing masses of data (from many fields) proofs and avenues of evidence outway stubborness and pride, btw many of the "old theories" had grains of truth that was "true" at the time, so not really wrong, more incomplete.