Chess Understanding and Titled Players

Is there something a titled player still does not understand about chess?

Perhaps after years of hard work it all becomes perfectly clear and a great epiphany emerges in the mind.

"I have taught many super-intelligent people...they can sometimes spot an attack or tactic, but they don’t really appreciate the game’s true beauty because they don’t understand the game’s soul."

"So how do we move beyond memorization and embrace understanding? That’s a hard one! That calls for years and years of dedication and work. To accomplish this, you make use of endless repetition..."

Excerpts from Memorization: The Great Chess Conspiracy by Jeremy IM Silman

In 1914, Reti had Capablanca as a partner in a consultation game in Vienna. At move 14, they came to a halt--Reti wanted to develop a rook that would attack white's queen and thus gain some time. Capa wouldn't even consider it, but instead sought a better move. Reti later admitted that Capablanca was completely right.

See this game, annotations from Chernev's "Reti's Best Endgames," excerpted on Google Books at http://bit.ly/cO2JlV

The very best players like capablanca etc? Sure, today we're discovering nuances in modern chess strategy, which is largely what makes up modern opening theory compared to before. Nobody can have absolutely perfect understanding of a game like this, it's just too deep, but their understanding for their time was of course exceptional and I do think they could just feel the soul of the game. In other words, compared to most decent players, they wouldn't be the ones to interpret the rules, they made them, and that can only come from true understanding.

BUT, if we are talking about just any titled player, I think even some masters can have serious holes in their understanding. I have played some masters who I often outplayed positionally, but their resourcefulness often payed off eventually despite this. A 2100 I played allowed himself into a passive position, and tried to play on the flanks, allowing a counter in the center. Apparently he didn't know better. And in a recent blitz game on ICC I was over 300 points lower rated than a guy, and amazingly, he got COMPLETELY outplayed positionally, completely, and then he collapsed. My problem in blitz is that I sometimes care too much about the strategical factors of a position, when in reality they often don't decide the game, and I know this is a problem, but it's what I like to do, but I have started to care less, and most importantly, blunder less.

Anyway my point is that even people with high ratings can have real flaws in their understanding; understanding can be very hard to achieve sometimes, because as silman said, most people just try to remember the general rules and play accordingly, but only those with true understanding of how the game works can make it to the very top. And because decently strong players can still be made with inferior mentalities, I don't respect any player until I see them play. There are some lower rated players I've played who's game I respect, and higher rated players I've played who I don't, even though ultimately it's the higher rated player winning more games until the lower rated player gets better. And that same low rated player I think has more potential to become better than the high one because of a better way of thinking, even if he still blunders too much for example (that can be cured in a rather straightforward way, compared to actually thinking correctly and understanding the game).

I think those that don't truly understand the game are really missing out on a lot in chess.

Outstanding post Elubas. As diamond members, we enjoy unlimited access to the excellent video instruction here at chess.com.

I'd like to be a fly on the wall someday and listen to our FM-GM staff discuss their serious lack of understanding in some area of chess.

A purely fanciful discussion might go like this:

Danny R. says, "I'm giving this series of lectures on pawn structures, but for the life of me there is something I still don't get."

Roman D. says, "What could it be? Would another cup of coffee help?"

Danny R. says, "No man, I'm already on my 5th cup. I did this series on isolated queen pawns and..."

Roman D. says, "I watched that series and it gave me an idea for my new book on opening theory."

Danny R. says, "No way! What's the idea?"

Roman D. says, "I'd like to keep it a secret for now. So, what don't you get?"

Danny R. says, "Remember that game we played together last year and you took me to ouch town?"

Roman D. says, "Oh! Did we do a post mortem?"

Danny R. says, "Nope."

Roman D. says, "I played a game once in Russia many years ago." I played terrible, but the game should be highly instructive for your little problem".

Danny R. says, "Alright. That's what I'm talkin' about. What game was it so I can check it out?"

Roman D. says, "It wasn't a tournament game, but will be featured in my new opening theory book with those ideas I got from your lecture. I'll give you a free copy of the book when it's published. Your little problem is no big deal. You will have your answer in six to nine months, or so."

Danny R.

"holes in understanding"

As a teacher I strive to teach to mastery and check for understanding constantly. Holes are what we don't want! Maybe the really good master chess players revisit the fundamentals of the game from time to time - and if they discover any holes - they plug them full of understanding.

I purchased this book by GM Artur Yusupov titled Build Up Your Chess - The Fundamentals - Volume 1. (Forward by Viswanathan Anand)

Artur was ranked No. 3 in the world from 1986 to 1992 and was Vishy Anand's second in the World Championship Finals in 1995.

"The reader will benefit from my methodical build-up in this book, even if some of the material is familiar, as it will close any possible gaps in his chess knowledge..."

"I believe that many talented chess players could develop much further, if they had support at the correct time and if they had not left gaps in their learning."

---

Someone here recommended this book, so I bought it. It appears to cover all of the bases, but is perhaps better suited for the intermediate player . I'll stick with Dan Heisman and his Novice Nook for now. I can understand him!

I agree with Elubas' post... all of it

Especially the part where he says " I have started to . . . most importantly blunder less"  because I think that's how some (even if it is a minority, who knows) titled players are titled players at all.  They may have big holes in their understanding, but because 99% of their moves are of a certain level, they can maintain a relatively high rating.  That's how Elubas may have outplayed a master over many moves, but eventually lost the game, the master happened to have a higher level of consistency as far as blunders are concerned.

That's how I see it anyway.  I also liked the part about respecting play.  I've also played players who are rated higher, but their moves don't flow logically either with the position, with their previous moves, or both.  I've played lower rated players who take each move seriously and whose moves, even if not best, you can at least see the logic behind them.  These are the games I enjoy, where the moves make sense and players lose because of a misevaluation, not because of a tactical oversight.  Of course logical play can lead to sharp positions with lots of tactics, and I don't mind those games, but I'm most satisfied when the winner wins because of logical and correct play.  If I've been outplayed but later win from a tactical oversight, I don't consider that a victory and still consider my opponent the stronger player.  In fact I've had to be reminded of certain instances I've gotten plus scores or otherwise had good results because all I may remember is being outplayed heh.

I have heard in books that 2000-2200 players don't necessarily have to make brilliant moves or make excellent plans, it's all about them rarely making hideous moves, that could singlehandedly change the position, to consistently play good, reasonable moves, but not necessarily best. And now that I have actually played many of these people, I completely agree. I had lost to an expert after outplaying him for 40+ moves, but blundered by allowing him to trap my king when mate in 2 couldn't be stopped, just by relaxing that one tiny moment when I went into an endgame center pawn up. Luckily I outplayed him in similar fashion later and actually won, but the thing is in both games, it felt like I was the better player and he was reduced to playing for desperate tricks, which admittedly often worked!. It's almost like it's not enough to not blunder 98% of the time. Just raising that 98% to 99.9% could represent a huge improvement.

That fact about chess is a little iritating, but all you can do is try to play more consistent and with as few mistakes as possible, and that extra understanding will actually give you results.

@orangehonda: Totally with you on the part about games ending because of logical play instead of just obvious blunders. I really like a well played game from start to finish, with few mistakes on either side, only winning because of imaginitive play and well thought out plans, with tactics only coming when the time is right.

Actually looking at that capa game, 14...Re8 indeed looks quite natural. The only reason I might not play it is because it "forces" white's queen to go to d3, when it might be prefered to make white so annoyed at the pin that he does it without ...Re8 (but it's hard to complain having a useful move like ...Re8 in, and I could easily imagine myself being drawn to it). I guess he just really wanted to get in 14...Bd4 to make sure he "gives up" his bishop for the knight to get the knight outpost on e4! I'm really not sure which move is better, because you can certainly argue the c5 bishop should be quite a decent piece for an attack, but the fact that capa didn't even consider a move like ...Re8 is very interesting, kind of cool . I mean, the knight on e4 does seem to be a superior attacking piece, if it can stay there, and capa may have thought trying to play moves like ...Ne4, allowing Nxe4, may have been too drawish while ...Bd4 keeps the pressure on for a long time.

It's really such a pleasure playing through some of his games. He really knows what he's doing

Yeah, a clean game from both players is the most enjoyable.

The way you talk about playing experts is similar to the way I feel about my play (although not as high a level).  I think my understanding is higher than my rate of error, and I think going to tournaments more often will toughen me up a bit / give me chances to apply what I know in a serious setting after which I'll be pretty happy with my level.  I'd be pleased with a 2100 expert rating, those players still seem pretty sharp to me -- if those players are feeling toothless to you, you may be closer to a master title than you might think!

Haha, that's encouraging orangehonda, but I honestly have no idea what my playing strength really is. In any case, it takes a long time for it to change when you've played over 100 tournament games and can only go to a small monthly tournament. I've found in the past where I thought I was a certain level (say 1600 for instance), I get to that level in actual rating several months (or maybe a year!) after estimating my playing strength to be that, but by that time I think my strength is totally different lol.

I think De LaMaza proved you can win a lot of games and get a pretty high rating without knowing a damn thing about chess.  The thing is, there is a pretty hard ceiling for tactics only players - around the expert/NM range (where DLM peaked out).  Plus, and this is a big plus, winning games purely on board vision and tactics alone is, to me, akin to mastering checkers.  Winning all my games by waiting for mediochre opponents to hang a piece would get pretty boring after a while. 

Don't get me wrong, we could ALL be a lot better at tactics (the comments above about dropping won games and letting beaten masters slip off of the ropes is purely a tactical issue).  I just really would rather be a solid and well rounded player that understands chess as a long term commitment, rather than a tactical wood chopping flash in the pan.

I know archaic, it's so much more satisfying when you can actually make a plan and instead of hope for good tactics, make them come to you, but as you said, you can get very far with strong tactics. It'd be interesting to see just how good a Kasparov would be when you take his tactics (certainly miles better than the NMs I play), and make him really bad at everything else.

My recent theory on that has to do with players who evaluate positions.  Not just as better/worse or winning/lost but are able to highlight the components that point to such an evaluation.  And because of this can then make logical plans due to what's going on in the position.  I actually think that's a lot of what makes up the prodigies who are able to make IM in a handful of years compared to your average player -- from the beginning their brains are set up to first try and form an evaluation before calculating even 1 move.   Logically if you're able to do this, then any variation you subsequently look at is going to be of a certain standard.  Whereas my play as a beginner for comparison just had a tape stuck on repeat regardless of the position along the lines of: keep pieces active, keep pieces defended, keep pawns healthy. 

I think this is also one reason GM games in general or games from players like Capablanca contain many moves that look so obvious or natural and yet during our own games we can't play that way.  If we were able to so accurately know what's going on in the position before we even begin to calculate, all our moves would make a lot of sense too.

Anyway I hadn't thought about it, but De La Mesa fits perfectly into this as a player with strong tactics who never consciously uses evaluations.  (His sample analysis literally went something like 1.e4 c5 [no tactics, develop a piece] 2.Nf3 d6 [no tactics put a pawn in the center] 3.d4 etc).  For someone with such a non-understanding, <2199 does seem like a reasonable ceiling.

And yes, chess De La Mesa style would be incredibly boring and unsatisfying.  I would have quit if I were him too.  Maybe a more telling scenario however would be to remove Karpov's ability to calculate, how strong would he be?  I think it was tonydal on these forums that said such a Karpov would easily bet him.

Now, if I was starting out as a 9 y/o instead of a 39 y/o, I would absolutely build tactics first (a la the 'seven circles') in order to build a solid blunderproof base.  De La Maza is absolutely right in saying that all of the positional knowledge in the world won't help somebody that keeps hanging pieces.  100% tactics/0% position Kasparov would crush 0% tactics/100% positional Kasparov in a game. 

Who was it that said that a 'typical' master has stored about 10k basic positions, and a typical GM has learned at least 100k?  They also said that the upper elite GMs may have a tactical position library near 1 million positions.  There it is again . . . tactics and position hand in hand. ;)

No way GMs memorize tactical positions :p that's just silly.  You have some basic patterns then let their calculation take care of the rest.

Ok so maybe they do know a lot of tactical positions (at least more than me) but when people refer to the 10k vs 100k they're talking about positional positions.  eg coming into a middle game in a certain setup what are the plans, what has been tried in the past, what's working today, and very importantly why other moves don't work and how they're refuted.  Then if instead we have the same position but a pawn on b3 instead it changes everything into blah blah blah idea as seen though [memorized games 103-112 quoted with site and year].  If instead a black opts for a different opening system we have etc etc on and on until you have 100k positions lol.

But it's true De La Mesa certainly does have the right idea when it comes to trying to improve your tactics.  An indeed this will lead to a rapid increase in rating for class players.  But for myself, even just going on chesstempo lately to solve tactics, I've noticed some lines are easy to calculate if only because some tempting but bad moves are easy to dismiss on positional grounds.  Many times in the comments I see people ask something like, why not on move 3 such and such, and I'm thinking, you don't even need to calculate to know that wont work...

Anyway you're right they go hand in hand, and sure DLM did have the right idea about tactics even if he was a two dimensional player himself.

i can't remember which one, but i read it in a trusted publication. 

a GM was being interviewed, and had just beat an FM pretty badly.  the interviewer asked the GM what separated himself from 2300s.  he said that 2300s simply don't understand the game.

now that's power!  :)

Even though he may have never studied them, I think it's obvious his natural talent in some way has made up for it.  Ok, he may not be able to play endgames as well as his 2600 peers, but you don't get to that level if you only know the most basic endgame ideas.  I imagine it's along the lines of how Capa never studied endgames (in the modern sense) yet he could see through them.

Why would you want to create a second Topalov?

I am in no way detracting from young Mr. So's accomplishments, but I think this is as good an example as one could find of rating inflation and the flood of paper GM's.  2675 puts Wesley So pretty close to where John Nunn and Rudolf Spielman were during their peak years.  The divide between the upper echelon GMs and the rest of the GMs may only be a hundred points on paper, but it is light years in ability.

I'm not sure if it's true, but I've heard that some of his opponents mentioned that he actually knew a lot about opening theory, so studied more than just tactics.