On “The Secret of Chess”

Books forum, @hitthepin

More exposure to chess book lovers

I am with you two!  You should see the relentless nastiness LT has received on another thread.  Same posters dissing him over and over and over.  

Here's the Editorial Review from Amazon:

"To stand a chance you should keep the position closed. This aspect is researched and the author comes to remarkable conclusions. An amateur player can learn a lot from this example and can apply the recommendations, concepts and ideas himself in his own games."
Norbert Thomas, Expert Chess Strategies

Imo, people hate what the author says because it goes against chess orthodoxy. I have always taken the same strategy to keep positions closed, and hearing about this book and the author's work just reinforces my beliefs. But so many here will tell you that you have to play OPEN games and tactics and memorized HYPEraccelerated dragons...yawn.

I will suggest to give a try with the book. The Kindle version is not expensive, and the book will probably open your eyes for patterns that are not known, or at least most players (even GMs) are not aware on them, at least not conscientiously. We still need some other reviews from strong players to know more about the value of his book. As a weak player I am learning almost in every page new stuff. But you should be aware that this is a completely different books from what you are used (but if you give a try, you get used to the style and begin to enjoy the book). I found another IM who will in the next weeks go through the book and tell what he things on it. And IM Herman Grooten is already doing this right now. 

Hi, @hitthepin. Could you move this thread to the book section?

One of the most interesting aspects of the negative criticism he received in the thread "The Secret of Chess", "Human versus Machine"  and here is that the authors of this criticisms didn't read any of his books! 

I still do not get the point of criticising the value of a book / its originality by not reading this book.  Would you believe somebody who is telling you not to go to a certain movie, even if you know the guy didn't see the movie? Probably not. This is still not a "prove" that the movie is good, but you should get reviews from people who saw the movie, or by watching the dam movie. Or by reading the book.

By the way, the German  IM Christof Sielecki was so kind and offer to go through LT's books in the next weeks. So we can expect to get a further opinion by an expert who will read the books.

Might be easier for him to write get rich quick books....At least one person will buy them all

Lol

prusswan, I guess you din't read yet his books, right? This is okay, but I would like to tell you some things that you will usually not see mention in any thread where LT and his books are the main topic of discussion.

First, something new: I asked recently a GM who knows the book what he thinks about how to work with LT's The Secret of Chess and which information he is taken for his own game. I asked specifically how he thinks a player should use the tables which are so characteristic in Lyudmil's book (I don't know if you know which tables I am talking about).

This GM wrote (and I will not mention his name as I didn't ask his permission to do so):

"You mentioned the tables. To be honest, what I did was make pencil notes in the book that highlight the key point behind each table, and sometimes even summarised several tables into one point. I see absolutely no reason to really focus on the numbers, unless you are a programmer. For me, the more useful things about the book were not the tables, but rather identifying unusual features (like some of the pawn configurations). I also liked the heuristic that “If there is a material imbalance, then the side with the higher number of units should try to keep pieces on” - e.g. three pieces versus a queen. These things were interesting"

Just to tell you: for me this book is a revelation! I read what he says about pawns (I slowly get used to his terminology) and what my games to see how I was dealing with situations he discussed. I begin to see the game from another perspective - from different new perspectives, I must say. 

I understand that you are reluctant to purchase the book, and to be honest, I cannot give you any guaranty that you will find the book useful, specially because I don't have any idea which is your specific taste for books, with is your chess knowledge, and how much your opinion was already negatively influenced by the opinion from several other people in this and other thread.

Or perhaps you think you shouldn't buy a book with an unknown rating. Exactly, that is the reason why I am so interested in giving the author a chance, because I see three possibilities: LT is a very strong player, also against humans, or he has the same rating as 20 years ago, or ... even he doesn't know exactly how strong he is in competition against humans (okay, there are other possibilities, but for the moment this should be enough).

I like to think that LT's strength is or the first or the third one. But I really don't know.

The only thing I can tell you is that, even if I am a weak player (patzer-like) I like to read chess books, compare them, see what one author says and what he skip. And this book is by any measure unusual, with new insights, not only in one or another page, but with a lot of new insights. 

Are these insights valuable? I don't know. I am starting from the premise that they are, and further reviews will tell us more about this.

But be aware that most people here with a clear opinion about how horrible LT's. And (often)  how horrible his books HAVE to be - so to speak as a "logical conclusion" from the things the author wrote in his thread. I don't want to be rude to the people who judge LT and his books negatively - but you should better make your own judgement, or at least listen to people who are reading his books. Because this book could perhaps maybe I don't know be what the author think, and what GM Smerdon suggested: a book with completely new insights.

That is great news.  Here is a fine interview with IM Sielecki:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQLwXY4cyWc

I will be surprised if his reviews are not as glowing as GM Smerdon's was of LT's The Secret of Chess!

I am looking forward to see the review! We still have to wait some weeks though.

Thanks for the link, I will hear this and other podcast in the next days. And GWTR: nice that I am not alone trying to motivate people to have a more objective and open mind about LT's books!

Problem is how precisely.

Black is winning that, no doubt, but some lines are very deep and humans especially should be careful.

Really, I guess it is better to invite Izoria.

I heard he has just lost to Komodo this position with white(in a handicap game):

Is this true?

I just tried this with my Komodo:

Komodo does not seem to resist a lot.

I even don't know what a podcast is.

What am I supposed to do, shoot someone?

Thank you, Francis, I like positive guys a lot!

Thank you, Francis!

I am not discouraged at all.

No one can discourage me.

But I am very happy for any moral support people give me.

I am currently busy with the second volume, that should include example games, seems a lot of work too.

Well. everyone blunders, SF too, from time to time.

There might indeed be some better moves than Bc6, but the position is already lost for black.

Suggest a line to me for black, and I will refute it.

Right, we need a breath of fresh air, from time to time, too.