Silman and study master games...

I found today's article, written by Silman (Studying Master Games and Berkmaster's First Over-The-Board Tournament Battle), quite intriguing for the many questions I had after reading it.

I hope these questions will create some understanding about chess, which wasn't available before. Please those who hate Silman, abstain from writing here, because I really don't care about haters.

Silman says that in the beginning he would read from 200 to 500 games a day. But what he doesn't say is that maybe he did it more than one time. What if he watched the same 200-500 games a day for an entire month?

That would be an interesting experiment someone should try to do. Because it is like when some other coaches tell us to do a lot of tactics, surely in 500 games one learn about a lot of tactics.

Then there is the number of hours he would study, from the article I think it was at least 4 hours a day, not including the time spent on the 200-500 games.

Then there was a phrase by Silman which made me go into a different direction: "No top player has ever just studied tactics. No top player has ever just studied any one area of the game. You need to be skilled in all phases or you’re not going to reach the sky."

I thought: but how did the various Lasker, Rubinstein, Spielmann etc became so good in tactics, since evidently they didn't have computer training programs, and tons of games to study like us.

Still I've seen also games by Lasker in which he is really sharp like a razor, and his calculations are amazing.

For sure they didn't have the Informator or TWIC. Still their games are brilliant.

I'd like to quote another phrase by Silman, which is interesting, and it was in the comment: "
Chess is a demanding mistress, and if you give your energy to something else, she will turn her back on you in an instant."

Now maybe that means that Silman stopped study so hard, and couldn't make it to GM, but it could also mean that our knowledge about chess is an illusion. Because if we stop practicing and studying and we lose our understanding of the game, then evidently there is something wrong in the way we acquire the knowledge and store it in out brains.

Silman is the best chess author I have found

I actually knew a chess master who more or less read chess informants in an hour.

It was kinda funny like elbow exercise.

I read the article too. But I believe the order of doing the things is wrong.

First one should read "my system" or other books which gives him/her a knowledge about pawn structures, tactical patterns and so on.

Then there is the phase of watching tons of games. That would reinforce the studied material.

What about the study retention? Which is what Silman complains? That is difficult to know without a serious study. Maybe it is based on memory. If one has a good memory the material studied doesn't fade away, and that is what makes a champion.

Silman Sux.

This is funny how one IM/GM-level teacher tells one thing and another the complete opposite. GM Igor Smirnov for example tells to study one game for many hours or even days, he says that the russian GMs were doing this too and told an example where a GM studied only one book and did that for over a year.

So who is right ? Maybe both are and we have to do this and that ? At the end it propably doesn't really matter if you study 1 or 500 games a day and it depends on other things, such as active training (trying to find the moves by yourself first) vs passive reading, talent, concentration, visualisation ability and somesuch.

By that logic a stronger rated GM who disagrees with Smirnov would negate all of his teachings? Yes, Silman "only" reached IM status. However, that doesn't really mean much when it comes to TEACHING. Lots of higher rated players have never taught and wouldn't be very good at it if they did. 

Dan Heisman is "only" a NM, does that make him a lousy teacher? I hardly think so.

If you just take a look at Silmans' games which were played by the way longgg ago, back when the dinosours ruled the world, ull see that its very weak, he is a patzer who follows the strategy of "those who can't do, teach."

Thats stupid unless you understand the games as you understand your native tongue  .. we amateurs/weak players should study games slow and carefully trying to understand what's going on

 

And those that can't do OR teach write tripe on message boards about those that can. Unless you've reached IM status, Silman has done far more than you have. Perhaps you should spend more time studying and less time bad mouthing Silman.

I love Silmans writings. But you have to take what he says with a grain of salt. He really dismisses the importance of tactics in chess.

And he has rules for "when to look for a combination." Open king, undefended piece. But most of us know much of tactics is simply geometry!

For example, your opponents Rook is on b7, and queen is on f5. First thing most of us check is "Can my knight get to d6??"

I understand Silman is trying to focus on positional themes. But tactics help achieve those, too.

It's all important. I think all of us mortals will improve if we do the work of whatever author we are reading. You have to work on tactics, like you have to look at GM games. You have to know some opening theory and work on endgame positions. You have to understand that positional sacrifices can be useful sometimes, just as being ahead materially is almost always good. It takes work, sitting down with 2 chessboards, one for main line, and another for variations. Work through everything that the author you choose is trying to teach. Work is a nasty word to so many people these days that it prevents real improvement. You only have to use the boards for books, though. Be lazy and use a database to run through the GM games. That's a shortcut everyone can take in the computer world. There is benefit in any work you put in.

The best way to learn is to follow " brilliant play"  chess games by Master players, When you get the first 6 moves SET.... then you need to use your wits for rest of the game. The mentor games in ...chess.com... dont work properly u give up after a few attempts  going back...forward..answer... Cant learn much there. There are sites on internet which can bring up any player you want to study. I like BLITZ because professional players can be so boring to watch...cautious..slower...they dont progress their pieces UPWARDS and outwards on th eboard until the later part of game. Dont stress your game gets worse.  

I am not a strong enough chess player to really push for adherence to my point of view.  However, i have reached a pretty high degree in martial arts 

I will say that the schools of thought of studying one thing very deeply 

is very very valuable however it is useless to a person with a short attention span.  or one who needs mental stimulation for their creativity.  in a martial arts called hsingi there are only a few exercises which you do daily and get to deeper levels of understandings with these exercises.  conversely an art called pakua has a myriad of changes and exercises.  

there are some teachers mine in particular which advocates choosing three things and doing those three things until you have reached great depth  (like studying one book for a year)  or watching the same few gm games over and over.  

others feel that the exposure to the myriad changes will bring you to the understading that 20,000 things lead back to one. 

as far as strategy vs tactics.  we know some players lean more to one than the other. 

i feel that the study of tactics has improved my game and continued study will improve it more.  

that doesent mean that the study of positions and strategy will not also improve my game.  I honestly believe that the beholder of the information will dictate how much he/she will profit. 

going back to the martial arts. 

i have tried my teacher method of going deeply into three things

its very very very effective but so boring i begin to hate practice

ending up walking away from it for a long time 

]

so i ask you is it really efffectivve for me?

everyone has their own individual paths and brain patterns.

I believe you should try all that the teachers say is good. and the things that work the best for you is what you should do

then revisit all the methods at another time.

maybe it will be the same things that help or maybe something else will 

emerge as the effective things/

Systems are always superior because they include all the ingredients to help you attain mastery. 

Please list the books you have written.

On that note.  I am a professional musician.  I play gospel music and back when I was coming up there were literally no books on gospel music. 

no videos just a handful of teachers .

the teachers who were the best players were not the best teachers 

I had teachers that were phenomenal players but they were lousy teachers. either because their brains were so big. they couldnt construct a focused lesson.  you got too much information like being handed an eight ounce cup and having someone dump a galllon of water in the cup 

really quickly 

my best teachers were local guys who just loved sharing information and cared about the student and made a study of learning. 

teaching is a craft in itself. 

and sure it may be true that those that do not make it to the big time 

end up going into teaching. but those that truly care about teaching 

can be phenomenal leaders.  I give you Ben Feingold all I know is that he is a GM  but I do know he is a phenomenal teacher. and all those little kids in his lecture show how good he is.  by their answers to his questions.

GM Axel Bachmann: "The truth about my training method is that looking over a game for just a couple of minutes can actually be a wonderful investment, if done correctly. The key is searching for repeating patterns; this takes some practice but is feasible. In my career I have seen close to 100,000 chess games, including most of the grandmaster-level games played over the past decade. The cumulative experience from spending  a  minute  or two on  each  of these  games  has  allowed  me  to  gain  an  excellent positional understanding. Staring at a position for a few seconds is often enough for me to see who is better, which plans will work, which pieces should be traded, etc. 

Acquiring such a level of experience and positional knowledge requires many years. Going through thousands and thousands of games takes a very long time, even if you only spend a couple of minutes on each.  Most importantly,  being able to actually see th e patt erns does not come easily to everyone. 

Addressing these two diffi culties  is exactly the purpose of this book."

http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/2/235/chess_structures_-_a_grandmaster_guide_by_mauricio_flores_rios/ (see the PDF excerpt)

I think it is really hard for many strong players to help amateurs like me.  I still remember talking to an FM many decades ago and asked how I improved from about USCF 1500 and he just said he can't help me.  He started at 12 or 13 and was 1700 at his first rated tournament a year or two later.  They just have no idea why the basics were so easy for them.

For myself, pattern recognition helps my game.  But mostly I read instructional books to increase my appreciation of great games even if they don't help me a lot competitively.

I know what worked for me was going over games in a coupple of minutes (Subconsciously picking up patterns, ideas, etc.) A quick once over, and then going back and going over the game deeply made a world of difference, than just going over a game for hours the first time.