Improving One’s Position Is…

If that was all this thread was about people would have stopped post after about post #1

Now look what you've done. The topic went from chess to pythagoras.

Making the complex simple:  "You can play better moves than your opponent, but you can't play a move better than your last move." - Me 

I read the discussion on checkmate. Excellent! Checkmate is nothing more than the unavoidable consequence after player A does not adhere to the four basic elements of chess as well as player B: Force, Time, Space and Pawn Structure.

Musikamole's/Heisman's argument is so logical as to be even obvious -- anyone who has a problem with it is getting hung up on semantics.  Not that the argument is made so simply, I'm not trying to say that, but once you see what it's saying it's not something you can argue against.

One of my personal conceptualizations of skill progression from beginner to around Class A (USCF 1800-1999) has to do with a few stages/plateaus of willingness to ignore what's unimportant in a position (the flip side is paying attention to what is important).  But from the point of view of the beginner going into such a stage, what's immediately noticeable to them is their willingness to ignore previously un-ignorable things.  In my own ideas, the stage of ignoring that leads to somewhere around class C has to do with getting rid of the feeling that you have to force something to happen... that it's possible to simply make moves that further your position and don't threaten anything immediate.  In a way relaxing in certain positions and being content with a building move.  Although you could classify Musikamole's post / Heisman's observation as mere chess philosophy, as Musikamole pointed out it had an impact on his play.  The realization that he, Musikamole, couldn't force errors (ie with your move the true evaluation can't be made better for yourself and therefore can't be made worse for the opponent) means winning always relies on an opponent's mistake.  This allowed Musikamole to have that sort of relaxation where moves can be made without the burden of having to do something now that certain class players always feel.

All that's to say I think it's useful advice.

Maybe it just doesn't fit in with your conceptualization of play?  Well, whatever the reason, you're entitled to your opinion.

orangehonda wrote: All that's to say I think it's useful advice.

I think your translation is useful. 

There is always a huge burden to do something now. The pressure only builds as you get better at chess.

In fact, if you subscribe to this Heisman theory, then in fact you should feel more pressure because he turns the definition of blunder into minor inaccuracy. The reason why a 2200 USCF is able to beat an 1800 USCF is because the Master is able to play these very subtle and obscure moves that don't look like they're doing much and so the Class player never considers them. Instead, he is mainly concerned at making good moves in the abstract that speed his development or control large amounts of territory. All the while, he is not blundering in the sense that he is losing material or cedeing space. But he is blundering every turn by making inferior moves that already cost him the game before he or she even realizes it. The Master, on the other hand, is pursuing a plan he know will work because it both frees his position and hits a lot of concrete pressure points in the opponent's camp. The game is usually decided in less than 10 turns.

With that kind of narrow time gap, the pressure is ON from move 1!

Got to agree with Modern Calvin on this one... if thinking that an undeveloped cramped uncastled opening set-up can only get worse (false in every practical sense) and that only one move can preserve a 'best play' evaluation and that playing toward that evaluation is your job while you wait for your opponent's blunders and inaccuracies -- if those thoughts help your results ... well knock yerself out who am I to argue with results... speaking for myself it sounds mentally crippling.

That's what I mean as "quiet" moves that are to the point and doing concrete things.  They aren't creating immediate threats (doing something "now" as in immediately). Master's are paying attention to what's important in the position while the amateur is distracted by what turns out to be superficial gains in development / space, etc as you said.

Like I said the flip said is you're actually able to pay more attention to what is important.  But from the point of view of the amateur, they're aware most immediately that they're ignoring things they weren't able to before (such as these superficial gains).  It's more noticeable than what they are seeing because a move that would have made sense a week ago suddenly because "obviously" bad and not worth considering.

By being able to ignore these superficial things (such as not jumping at as many ghosts) I describe the feeling as "relaxing" -- not letting previous superficial worries bother you as you're seeing things more clearly.  The game becomes more concrete and manageable.  Not that master games are any less tense -- but I believe these players do feel in more control while I think we can all relate to the helpless feeling that beginners have.

Because stronger players moves are much more to the point of the position, the pressure is on early, and on at every move like you said.

lol, when you put it that way it makes chess sounds miserable To preserve the best evaluation of course you'll all the time be making moves most players would describe as building or improving your position.  And in the practical sense (as you said) I think both computers and humans play moves that improve the evaluation all the time.

But yeah, putting it your way sounds depressing, I can see how this wouldn't be a useful mindset to some.

The point is that 1. d4 does not GIVE white an advantage because white already HAS that advantage before playing 1. d4.  White can ALWAYS play 1. d4 if he wants to. Therefor, actually playing the move gains NOTHING, it's just continuing with his natural pre-existing 1st-move advantage.

I think what we're all rattling swords about here is this "one move leads to prosperity, the rest lead to "absolute destruction, why haven't I said resigns yet"

I agree, this is not at all the practical case as the opening discussions have already pointed out.

I think that in practical play, we need to separate two cases. There may be more, but I want to make sure we'll all okay with these two "extremes" to begin with.

Pardon me for using the computer evaluation examples, but they do help understand what is being  discussed better (IMHO).

Case 1: The opening

White plays 1.e4. What would an Engine Eval with Black to move look like?

The best 5 lines that it comes up  usually are:

1.  +0.18 1...e5

2.  +0.24 1...Nf6 

3.  0.35 1...d5

4   0.35  1...Nc6

5. 0.36   1...e6

Who's to say the engine has the faintest clue what it's talking about?   These are what I would call "cold" positions where the determining the best move is close to impossible to single out,  given the "margin of error" we're dealing with.  We have 400+ years of documented chess history, databases, evolution of opening t heory by super GMs and lots of educated opinions vs. a lone engine's algorithm.

Case 2: A rich non-quiescent position with tactical possibilities:

Here, the best 5 lines that come up may look like:

1.  +0.60 21...Nxf6

2.  +1.21...Bxf6

3.  +1.61...exf6

4   +2.65  21...0-0-0

5. +3.26   21...Qh4+

Given that this is tactical in nature, a good engine with enough time "can" be trusted a whole lot more => So if we were to assume that the evaluation scores are accurate, then it looks like Black is not doing good even with best play (Nxf6).

Now with the reduced margin of error (given that I can go into a room filled with Grandmasters who may not dispute black's BEST MOVE according to the engine), it is clear that any move inferior to the best move puts black in an even more dire predicament, given the nature of the position (as evidenced by the drop in eval scores with sub-par moves)

I believe the "useful advice" holds true more for case 2) and case 1) is FAR BELOW an EVALUATION NOISE FLOOR for us to deem any practical value. Sure,  good opening principles and the wise words of GMs/Theory may allow us to narrow down the list of 'potential best moves' but playing ANY of them does not DETERIORATE the position beyond a margin that actually matters practically.

Edit:  Let's repeat => Evaluation is a measure of "who is better and by how much".  Whether it comes from a computer or a super GM,  the reliability of such is more likely in certain types of positions. In these positions, it is easier to say that there's "one" move that maintains the evaluation vs. inferior ones that bring it down by a margin above the noise floor that everyone's arguing about.

In the opening, and many other "cold" positions it's true that objectively there will be more than 1 best move.  e.g. with 32 EGTB we could see how two moves both lead to a win or draw.

Because chess is so complex, we have to use educated guesses i.e. evaluations.  All evaluations are subjective as there are only 3 true evaluations, win, draw, and loss... which isn't very useful to a player.  So I would agree that there is a lot of useful advice if we put things in practical terms such as identifying hot and cold positions.

If this is true, then it refutes the theory of equilibrium to argue that White has concrete and lasting advantages built into his position by be able to move first. If a move exists, with best play, that will always lead White to at least a small advantage, then Black has no answer that can bring the game to a pure equilibrium.

If the theory of equilibrium is refuted, then the idea that games can only be won or lost based on the opponent's inaccuracies and blunders could prove to be false if a "solution" for chess ever appears.

Been saying that for some time now:

The only way out of this I see is to take an extremely pessimistic, glass-half-empty perspective and say that the only thing one can do is pick the best out of all the possible bad moves that hurt your position so that you worsen your position at a slower rate than that of your opponent. Basically, there is no way to improve the position, so you just have to do everything possible to make it slightly less worse, and hope that your opponent is making mistakes at a faster rate.

No one should ever speak of playing a good move, because there are no good moves. Every single move, even a mate in one, is a mistake because it made your position worse than it was before (because it removed positive potential that was already there), even though you won the game.

I think this is a very strange and depressing way of strategizing in a chess game.

Me: 1. d4

Inner-me: "$*#^@, I just screwed up my position. I shouldn't have played that because now I'm totally losing now against my opponent's superior position. I hope he makes an equally bad move as me, the best player in the world."

But the margain of error DOES matter. Even gaining a .08 edge each move is crippling at the highest levels, where it usually only takes a half-pawn advantage to convert a position into a win. Even winning a game by .16 may not be enough to force a win, but it does give you a substantial buffer zone to avoid a losing score of -.5 so that even in the case of a draw, this position would be preferable because you have significantly less losing chances.

According to this Heisman theory, the situation brought about in Case #2 is a direct result of these "inferior" moves that your opponent has made so far that allowed you to be able to win. Again, this presupposes Dynamic Equilibrium because he argues that the position cannot arrive naturally in best play vs. best play, so the only way such a scenario could occur is because your opponent has been making moves that have been giving away fractions of a pawn to bring him to a position where he is now losing by -1.26 or whatever the case may be.

In Case #1, the point is in a practical sense, the Super GMs and top engines can sense that White's first move likely does confer an innate advantage that unbalances the position (certainly in does in praxis, and it likely does in theory as well). The starting position is even, but if White is able to play a move that Black is not able to counter with a move that brings the score to 0, then either 1. White DID play a move that bettered his position or 2. Equilibrium is false, which calls Heisman's theory into question. A perfect game of chess might still indeed be drawn, but it is likely that the positions cannot be equal.

Steiner

I feel the same way as you do. If you read the entire post carefully, you see that in the sound byte you quoted, I was merely articulating the opposing position that argues no move can really be thought of as good because 1. The move didn't make your position any better because it already has the latent potential within it all along . . . riiiight; and 2. Even if you do find a "brilliant" move, who cares, because the move cannot thought of as brilliant in the abstract because the move itself did not lead to your winning of the game, as winning is either the result of A. The culmination of all of your opponent's inaccuracies up to this point; or B. His dopey blunder after your "brilliant" move.

The game obviously shouldn't be thought of as a Kasparov "masterpiece". It should be seen for what it truly is, a Topalov disaster =/

Kasparov's move was not awesome and spectacular. He was just doing what the position called for so it didn't become even worse. Topalov could, in theory if he hadn't made previous mistakes, held the position with best play. Therefore, it was Topalov's play that was UN-awesome and UN-spectacular; this is the correct way to annotate the game =/

I guess it can be argued that every !! (double-exclam) move in history is actually editorial ... the reality of it is actually an opponent's ?? move right before.

Gotta love zero-sum games. :D

So true... which is why i think the following game deserves a rare double-bang resign...

22. Resigns!! 

1. Heisman is not saying that chess moves can not be considered good. He is simply stating that the move you make can't be better than the move you made before. According to Heisman, you can make a series of even brilliant moves  , however, all of those moves were not better than the move made before.

Everyone who finds Hesiman depressing, you can now pat yourself on the back for all the brilliant moves you made in your chess career, because Heisman himself believes in brilliant moves.

2. To play what the position calls for is just one of the many demonstrations of Kasparov's brilliance!