Chess learning styles

Chess is seen as many things. " A game", " An art" and " A science". People who play it end to lean their learning style towards one of these 3 things. Some people take chess as a game. They play it for fun, they do not train or study, and will try play in normally an attacking style. They do not however have great opening preparation or deep positional understanding. Unfortunate as it is people who play chess solely as a game will never make it to a high level and will normally end up in the club player category.

The second type of chess player is one who takes it as an art. These players also play for the love of it but they are also prepared to put great amounts of effort into chess in order to be able to achieve this level of artistic beauty on the chess board. Certain artists make it to very high levels and can be strong GMs. They're moves are usually decided by their intuition, creativity and knowledge of prior patterns.

The third type of player is the scientific one though normally this view is taken from a coach and can be inputted onto his students. It is a very attractive view of chess to think that we can give certain imbalances a value and that we can use some formula to calculate the best move. It could be said that this approach is the one taken by brute force engines who evaluate all positions using imbalance values. Many different coaches have tried to find such a formula. Aagard, Dorfman and Nimzowitch to name a few. Examining their evaluation of positions can be highly instructive and it is essential to ones chess to understand how to act in a certain type of position. None the less it is impossible to expect to make it to the very top using only these algorythms as it is essential to understand there are many exceptions to every rule. Players with these rules tend to believe that certain positions are purely bad. They feel that allowing a maroczy bind is wrong, that f pawns should never be moved, that the d5 square in the sveshnikov is too important. None the less there is plenty argument for these statements being purely incorrect and therefore we cannot claim that at least as of yet a winning formula can be used and trying to use one exclusivly is pointless.

Therefore we come to the question of what is the best learning type of a chess player. The answer is in my opinion pretty obvious and it is strange that nobody has properly shown it before. Chess is a sport and it should be treated like any other sport.  We should combine all learning types to create the ultimate learning process. We should study all proposed algorythms and do our own analysis of these types of positions. We should train as if we are playing with the utmost motivation and dedication. We should try to win every game and keep fighting for every minute of the game. We should prepare deeply and study our opponents closely. Chess is no different than any other sport and we should not train for it any differently. People with this view of chess are no doubt the greatest of all time. Bobby Fischer, Garry kasparov and Magnus Carlsen.