Chess Understanding and Titled Players

I'm astonished. How do you know this? And what do you mean "in the modern sense"?

Well, of course Capa would have studied endgames... but back then it was more like analyzing your games + the few top level games you could get your hands on and then publishing your analysis for others to pick apart.  Then you'd go to your study and either make endgame compositions to publish or just compositions to study.  You'd work it out yourself.

Modern study means getting an endgame book and working through all the analysis while playing practice positions vs your GM buddy or a computer.

But of course it's well known Capa was anything but a workman when it came to study -- he said so himself that chasing girls and baseball were more interesting to him than taking chess seriously.  He's known for his supreme natural talent and lack of a work ethic, so that's how I "know" even if it is technically just an educated guess.

Yeah clearly he wouldn't have studied anywhere near as much as someone like Alekhine, but that doesn't mean that he wouldn't have worked his ass off on chess compared to most people. Maybe just 3 hours a day instead of 8... I'm almost certain a lot of his comments like that were just to astound the press or build a reputation as a genius.

 After 500+ years, there are still things NO ONE understands about Chess.

Even though it's from the OP and I already have multiple posts...
@ Musikamole

Sometimes it's fun to imagine the sort of progression like a montage in a rocky movie.  I've often gotten a new book in the mail and thought ahead to when I've read it all and understood it well, how much better I'll have become.  Then on day 40 sitting at my desk I'm thinking, this is much less glamorous, and a lot more tedious than I had imagined.  Sure I enjoy it to an extent, but it's not like I wake up the next day a whole class stronger either :)

So as other posts have already said, I don't think titled players reach any kind of epiphany of chess understanding... it's just the regular grind you and I go through, they're just further up the ladder.

Wow! I was gone for a few days and look at this great ongoing discussion!

@ tonydal - I failed to be clear when speaking about the notion of understanding chess.  My fault.

You are a titled player.   Do you have any idea how many people would love to be able to see and especially appreciate chess the way you do?  I'm like the guy who lost his reading glasses and went looking for them in the dark. My chess vision is quite dim, like a knight on the rim is dim.  

"In a way, the kind of understanding I’m talking about is actually a form of feeling...But feeling … ah, once the basic concepts are part of your DNA you hear the pieces calling to you, you listen to the pawns explaining why their structures demand a certain move, the board itself does a Vulcan Mind Meld and becomes a part of your cerebral cortex. Instead of a move or moves, you see poetry." IM Silman

tonydal - As a titled player, have you ever had a "Vulcan Mind Meld" experience with the chess board? 

Is chess now part of your DNA?

That's what I'm talking about! I've watched every episode of Star Trek and know exactly what Silman is talking about. I'm not talking about having chess solved in one's own mind. I am talking about an intimate kind of knowing, like one experiences with a spouse only after many, many years of being together.  

If I knew/understood chess like I know my wife, I'd be an International Master headed towards Grand Master.  

I wonder when he wrote that then?  Or if it was in a state of cosmic transcendentalness or something... a tie-dyed caftan huh? lol

But I'd also read Silman give the opinion that the way of an IM was "a hope and a prayer." (In an old chess life issue).  Meaning IM's still understand so little, and they're basically just crossing their fingers and hoping moves work. 

(For those that don't know, Silman is an IM so this isn't him being arrogent heh).

"In a way, the kind of understanding I’m talking about is actually a form of feeling...But feeling … ah, once the basic concepts are part of your DNA you hear the pieces calling to you, you listen to the pawns explaining why their structures demand a certain move, the board itself does a Vulcan Mind Meld and becomes a part of your cerebral cortex. Instead of a move or moves, you see poetry." -- IM Silman

"As a non-titled player I feel things at the board as well... the black pawns glinting like the hollow eyes of murdered children -- the swirling infinte chaos of move and counter move, gibbering, and cackling on the cracked 64 squares, all the pieces hissing at me in sing-song sardonic tones that I am small and alone and confused in a universe indifferent beyond comprehending and as I calculate my ridiculous moves, there, above the sneering of the pawns I hear the infernal banging banging of the gates of madness blown open and shut open and shut in the relentless mocking wind of my mediocrity."

I'm JG27PYTH

"I guarantee that if Silman (or anybody) played Kasparov, they wouldn't be feeling any too mind-melded or cosmic for long... :)" - NM tonydal

" ...all the pieces hissing at me in sing-song sardonic tones that I am small and alone and confused in a universe indifferent beyond comprehending and as I calculate my ridiculous moves..." - JG27Pyth

@ tonydal and JG27Pyth - You two guys are good and should consider collaborating on a chess book countering Silman's cosmic "Vulcan Mind Meld" philosophy. 

A question I have often wondered about.   Is it experience, and memory, from previous chess games played (by them or others); or, a deeper understanding of how the chess pieces can interact with each other in any position on the board, that seperates the patzer from the grandmaster?  Where and when does creativity, imagination, personality, aesthetics, and planning come into play?  Does the grandmaster see the pieces on the board as living entities, with their own wills, hopes, and desires; or, as just unfeeling pieces of wood, (plastic, metal, stone), that move a certain way with certain rules upon an 8 x 8 board?

Another question I would like to ask is, "Do titled players enjoy and have fun playing chess for chess's sake?"

Dee

 In other words he masters through memory and comprehension a variety of openings and all there corresponding variations. 

There is frequently advice touted that memorizing a bunch of openings will make you look silly after getting out of book. Obviously Wesley has a machine-like brain, but still his approach has gotten him extremely far. So would people say he is succesful in spite of this approach or... because of it? Or is it irrelevant because none of us are wesley so

Well clearly Wesley understands his openings extremely deeply as well.

Read above

"In other words he masters through memory and comprehension "

But the 2 paragraphs of your post seem to contradict each other. I was answering this part of it in particular:

"There is frequently advice touted that memorizing a bunch of openings will make you look silly after getting out of book. Obviously Wesley has a machine-like brain, but still his approach has gotten him extremely far. So would people say he is succesful in spite of this approach or... because of it? Or is it irrelevant because none of us are wesley so"

Because when you understand your openings if you get out of book you won't look silly at all.

anyway....

my point and question was basically about the approach of focusing on openings vs the conventional methods

orangehonda, I agree with you. I've played games where my opponent completely outplay6ed me, but for some reason (usually time pressured) committed a huge blunder. sometimes I actually resigned even tho I had a sure win. I just really appreciate good play and rather acknowledge it than take a cheap win due to an oversight. We all makes those, don't we? Thanks, orangehonda. Do u really have an orangehonda. And if so, orange u glad??

I can honestly say that I dont enjoy tournament chess as an NM as much as I did when I was B and C class, the tension/expectation is completely different for me now, much greater and thus makes the game less enjoyable. When I play chess " for fun " now its always blitz with a friend and we play non stop blitz for hours......

I'm sure that for a more inexperienced player to only focus on openings would be bad for their development, but I don't think Wesley saying he focuses only on openings is strange at all. I thought that's what most players at that level do. But he certainly wouldn't have done that for his whole career.

EDIT: Although it does sound like he hasn't spent as much time on the Endgame as he should have yes.

Instructors say you can add a couple hundred points to your rating if you just blunder check....

Phew! I was running scared there for a minute....