I'm playing 4 way random on a 16x16 board.
My new chess coach is crazy!
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TheChessAnalyst wrote:
shell_knight wrote:
kleelof wrote:
ChessAnalyst, in your profile you wrote 'taking on the most complex and challenging game known'. Chess is not the most complex and challenging game known. I believe that honor goes to Go or Shogi, I forget which one right now.
Isn't there some ancient 100x100 board game with 30 some starting pieces for each side? Surely that's even more complex.
I beleive you are referring to Alea Evangelli (sorry if my spelling is off) I think that was a 25 x25 board = 625 squares. not sure though.
That one looks neat, I hadn't seen it before.
I looked a little just now and can't find the one I was thinking of though. It may not have been quite 100x100, but there were so many different starting pieces, just to learn them all would take a long time, probably a few days.
Part of the beauty of chess is that the board, pieces and their moves are not complicated. I have played lots of games more complicated than chess, and none of them were any good.
OP, do you think your coach may just have an odd sense of humour? I hear standing on one leg can sharpen up your Queen's Gambit no end.
Marriage can be a pretty complicated game.
Sep 8, 2014
0
#28
formyoffdays wrote:
OP, do you think your coach may just have an odd sense of humour? I hear standing on one leg can sharpen up your Queen's Gambit no end.
(Only on IQP structures.)
RonaldJosephCote wrote:
Marriage can be a pretty complicated game.
ROFL - true that
Your coach seems to be nuts. Teaching you how to mate with king and queen and making you relearn how the peices moves is retarded.
shell_knight wrote:
Holy Crap!!! I had to book mark that, I will have to read that when I have a little more time to devote - that is shear insanity!
Sep 8, 2014
0
#33
He's probably a good coach, but there are a lot of good coaches in the world. I guess it all depends on what kind of coach you can get if you dump him. If you dump him and get a real bad coach, you will be wishing you had kept this guy.
Addicted-to-Chess97 wrote:
Your coach seems to be nuts. Teaching you how to mate with king and queen and making you relearn how the peices moves is retarded.
Ok, but, that was sort of just the OP's interpretation. What the coach is actually doing is training visualization by taking something the student can do easily (like mate with king and queen) and having them do it without looking at the board.
The exercise is good... if he's insulting him all the time "I thought you said you knew how to play this game" then that's bad.
TheChessAnalyst wrote:
EscherehcsE wrote:
What I really want to know is, does he plan on keeping all of your books?
No - and to be fair he did not just take them. He said "My System" was over my head and replaced it with a book from his liberary - "Pandofini's End Game Course."
And he too my book on the English Opening and replaced it with a colection of Grand Master Games: Some annotated by other big names - Paul Morphy for instance and some annotatied by him - then there are about 500 games from Grand Masters with no annotations:
He says play through the annotated game first (once per day) read the notes, and play the variations with out moving the peices, envision the board, then move the peices and see how close your vision is to realality.
Next play the 50 games under each annotated game at regular speed, don't think to much just move the peices to the correct square - it should only take about one minute per game.
I can have "My System" back when I reach 1600 (lol I am only high 1200's low 1300's here, that could be years)
The Mammoth Book of Chess or whatever it's called?
How can My System be above anyone's head?! It contains essential knowledge regarding development, the center, the seventh and eighth ranks, overprotection to free pieces, creating other weaknesses then returning to the other one in an endgame (used white's d4 pawn as an example in the French Defense), pivot squares, prophylaxis, how to restrain isolated pawn pairs, moving the candidate passed pawn first, how doubled pawns are weak (one reason given was if you have doubled c-pawns then a b-pawn cannot support a c-pawn when advancing), etc.
As for the English Opening it's important to know how to prepare against it (I have Shipov's Hedgehog volume 1 for it when I don't feel like playing 1...e5) though a Grandmaster game collection sounds more rounded and useful overall.
learningthemoves wrote:
formyoffdays wrote:
OP, do you think your coach may just have an odd sense of humour? I hear standing on one leg can sharpen up your Queen's Gambit no end.
(Only on IQP structures.)
Yes of course, but that really goes without saying.
varelse1 wrote:
Your coach sounds like another chump suckered in by De la Maza's BS
You should read Silman's review of the De la Maza book! I even peaked into it before and thought he was nuts. "You don't need to know about weak squares when opponents drop pieces" but you won't get the chance against fairly good players since you need a good positional understanding to get such positions. He also said endgame training is a waste. Sure tactics study is important but one needs to understand chess positionally to properly evaluate based off strengths and weaknesses, and have some technique so as to not throw away won or drawn positions.
I was just chatting online with another one of his students and he said:
"In the beginning he is a little hard to take, but he is just trying to make sure you will stick it out. His program is kind of tough, and he would rather wimp out early than investing months into you for you to quite later.
Remeber he only charges a beer, so it's not like he is making any money he is just passing on his knowledge - he is a National Master here in the PI all though he hasn't played competitivly since the 80's.
He is big on visualization - helps in study and calculation.
He is big on end games, a player who knows end games will save many points over the years. So end game training will never stop, and it only gets harder.
He is big on tactics - primarly with a mind to get to the end game. And at about 1500 he gets into strategy and planning quite heavy - but all his material mostly comes from Russia - he is not a fan of western chess and even less of a fan of Bobby Fisher (but I think that it is personal not his chess skill)
You wont get much on openings - other than principles. He thinks openings are a waste of time below 1800 - time that could be better spent. You will understand the basic principles and plans with various openings though. And be prepared to play 1.E4 and 1... E5 - those are his recommendations.
He has several students that reach class A, he says he can get most anyone to class A (no promise on how long it depends on your apptitude and how hard you work). If you want to go past Class A - then he can recommend some coaches but he says he cann't deliver the goods past class A consistantly enough to coach that level.
In short - relax, he knows what he is doing and he will lighten up when he knows you are serious."
Sep 8, 2014
0
#39
@OP, well, the more you elaborate, the less crazy he sounds. 
However, I'm not sure I agree with stressing the importance of square color visualization...But then, what do I know, I'm just a patzer.
But I do think personality and compatibility is an important factor.
ChessAnalyst, in your profile you wrote 'taking on the most complex and challenging game known'. Chess is not the most complex and challenging game known. I believe that honor goes to Go or Shogi, I forget which one right now.
Isn't there some ancient 100x100 board game with 30 some starting pieces for each side? Surely that's even more complex.
I beleive you are referring to Alea Evangelli (sorry if my spelling is off) I think that was a 25 x25 board = 625 squares. not sure though.