"Has anyone written a book or software program that makes this sort of claim - that upon completion, the player will know all the necessary patterns to play at a Class, Expert, or Master level?"
Sure, many have. Are they believable? I very much doubt it. 
"Has anyone written a book or software program that makes this sort of claim - that upon completion, the player will know all the necessary patterns to play at a Class, Expert, or Master level?"
Sure, many have. Are they believable? I very much doubt it.
Well, you would think that by now, (we are living in the 21st century!), all of this pattern recognition stuff - information age stuff - would be highly organized and qauntified, put in a nice neat box, all wrapped up with a ribbon on top, and placed under the tree, for goodness sakes! I didn't find it under my tree when I woke up, and I still don't see flying cars. I read Popular Science as a kid. Where is my flying car, and my super duper, perfect tactics training program?!
I suspect that "pattern recognition" is a lot easier to say than it is to do...
I suspect that "pattern recognition" is a lot easier to say than it is to do...
It's not hard. It just takes time. Lots of time to build a huge library of chess patterns in one's head, regardless of the method used, I would imagine.
I didn't learn thousands of jazz patterns for guitar in one year. It took a very long time. Thousands of hours of practice.
My jazz guitar professor once said, "There are no short cuts."
I would be very wary of a musician or chess player who relies on pattern memory.In the short term patterns are logical springboards but the obvious downside is that such an approach stunts true creativity and genuine improvisation.Study Bobby Fisher for chess and Oscar Peterson and Beethoven for jazz and classical respectively.
c
Patterns for Jazz by Jerry Coker was the most popular book back in the 70's -80's for musicians who wanted to do jazz improvisation, to be able to play a jazz solo in a combo, or in a big band setting. The book has over 400 patterns (a good start) from which the jazz musician can pull from when taking a solo.
Chess players pull from patterns during play, with some moves requiring no thought, otherwise every move would require some degree of thought and calculation. The larger the number of chess patterns stored, the stronger the player. Said another way, a person can never become a strong chess player without knowing a certain number of chess patterns. I forget the number of patterns a master needs to know, but heard of an estimate. It's in the thousands, but not millions.
Lev Alburt's book contains the 300 most important positions and ideas (his claim).
"The 300 positions in this book are very much 'zipped files'. Engaged with the special programs of your own problem-solving skills, each position will expand and make connections that provide volumes of chess-playing knowledge."
I think that Lev is saying something like this, once you have seen one back rank mating pattern, it will translate into seeing many back rank mating problems, without needing to solve 100 variations on this one problem before being able to solve all 100 of them. So, maybe if we memorize all 300 key positions in his book, it translates into 3000+ patterns that we will see in under 5 seconds during a game.
Has anyone written a book or software program that makes this sort of claim - that upon completion, the player will know all the necessary patterns to play at a Class, Expert, or Master level? CT-ART (software) comes to mind as something that members use to build pattern recognition.
"This book is written specifically for the non-master who wants to become a strong tournament player in the shortest period of time possible". - Chess Training Pocket Book by Lev Alburt
That is quite a claim. I wonder what he means by a strong tournament player? Class B+? Class A+?
I'll keep working on tactics and checkmates using the books I have, plus Tactics Trainer and Chess Tempo. It still feels like a hit and miss exercise, so I purchased the Gold membership at Chess Tempo for Spaced Repetition, to see if I can make my practice sessions less hit and miss.
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Spaced repetition is a memory learning method that allows you to maximise recall, while minimising learning time. Spaced repetition works by maximising the time you spend on problems you have not yet mastered,while spending the minimal amount of time required to keep problems you know well in your memory. Spaced repetition learning can be applied to any new custom problem set you create.