Silman's imbalances

To anyone who has read Silman's Amateur's Mind, How to Reassess Your Chess, or whatever:

Have you found that when you focus on imbalances while playing chess, you make tactical blunders?

I, for example, just played two live games where I decided to really focus on imbalances. In both games, I kept overlooking my opponent's tactics, and I even hung a knight at one point! I lost both games due to silly tactical blunders, which just isn't normal for me. (I am by no means an expert, but I am generally pretty sharp at tactics, and my Chess Tempo rating is ~1915.)

Am I doing something wrong here? I like the idea of imbalances, but every time I try using them I just fail tactically.

I was having the same problem, so decided to go "back to basics" and make sure I was checking for all possible checks, captures and direct threats before I make every move. My game was tightened up straight away and it's a method which only takes a few secs per move and doesn't get in the way of your usual thought process.

Yeah, I think I'm sometimes forgetting to look for threats now that I'm focussing on imbalances. I'm gonna try doing these threat-assements after looking at the imbalances.

Thanks,
Tom

I always thought they were something to be aware of, but not necessarily focused on. You might be dropping pieces because it's a lot of new information to be thinking about all at once, but as you get used to thinking positionally and tactically it will get easier.

Sometimes people have a bad patch as they try to implement new thinking into their games. It's only natural.

Sooner or later you get back to that tight game narrative when you are taking care of business tactically etc. while integrating the "new vision."

To awoid blunders, use the kandidate move method.

If you are short on time, do at least a blundercheck on your move before you do it.

You should use the "Silman" method, for finding the candidatemoves, then chose the right one with calculations.

Want to focus more on strategy?  Try thinking of strategy on your opponents clock (while you are waiting for your opponent to move), and tactics on your own clock.  Longer games help as well.

 You answered your own question.  Youre "focusing" to much on just one apsect of the game, and ignoring others.  So obviously youre going to make mistakes, and miss things.  Chess like driving needs total attention on the "big picture?  You focus on the hottie in the car next to you and you hit the old lady in the cross walk.  Dont focus on just one aspect of the game, unless you are trying to work out a nice tactic, or sacrifice.  But even then you must be looking at other things in case there are holes in your original plan.

You have to get better at tactics for your plans to work, it's as simple as that. What you're mentioning used to happen to me all the time and it still does just much less often. You always want a plan, but remember tactics is a big part of carrying out the plan. For example do you notice that pretty much every master game where one wins there is a tactic to win material? This most likely comes from positional pressure and no doubt the defender could defend the square as many times as it was attacked. But his compromised pieces can often be taken advantage of with some tactic but if you aren't seeing the tactics you would never cash in on any attack you might have, on a weak pawn, or the king. Perhaps you dn't recognize the strategical features of the position so easily and so have to ignore everything else and concentrate to see them, but as you understand chess more you'll be able to notice imbalances much easier and still be able to see tactics!

Actually using Silman's thinking teachnique is too slow for most time controls. Maybe you could do it with 2 hours, but I personally never use it, unless maybe in a cc game but in otb chess a streamlined version of it, which works out well as long as you know what's going on in the position.

A good way to avoid the situation you describe is to try and figure out your opponent's plan. You don't have to know it 20 moves down the road but just in general what are they trying to accomplish? Once you figure that out then it is much easier to find their tactical shots and counter them.

Of course, all of this is easy to type but much harder during the game. But the nice thing about correspondence chess is you should have plenty of time to think about your moves AND your opponent's moves.

For the reasons previously mentioned I disagree with this. 

Ha!  Asked the highest rated player in my chess club about this (a national master)

"In chess you can concentrate on the game, this is good.  But you can't spend your time focusing on just one thing, or you will blunder.  In chess focus means blunder."

Edit: This has been misinterprited.  He means you can't focus on one thing while playing (E.G. only thinking of one move to work out, only thinking of tactics while ignoring strategy and vise versa), he didn't mean you can't focus on one thing while learning.

And my Fide Master rated coach disagrees. Why is losing a few games a bad thing when learning?

I don't believe your FIDE master coach says it is a good idea to completely focus on strategy during a game, while ignoring tactics.

No of course don't literally zone out everything else, but just put one aspect that I've just learned and is fresh in my mind as my focus in a few internet games.

If you read the "how to reassess your (stupid) chess" You'll find that Silman tell's you to look for typical tactical motivs in your games, so you know when to do the "boring" tactical calculations...

 Back to basics, spot on.  I actually learned this in a Karate class and applied it to everything else in my life.  Chess is no exception.  Keep the basics polished everything else flows.

Hi folks,

Just an update, as this thread has been bumped.

I've concluded that Silman's "don't look at individual moves until you've figured out the imbalances" just doesn't work for me. In fact, I can't see how it works for anyone.

For me, figuring out the imbalances often involves looking at individual moves. And, besides, tactics are vital: you've got to notice the tactical opportunities for both sides before you start trying to figure out how to occupy an outpost, for example.

Maybe I've misinterpreted Silman's advice. In any case, what I'm doing now (looking at individual moves and imbalances together, at the same time) is working for me!

Regards,
Tom

Well, I guess, players who have read Silman's book properly will never comment  on imbalance theory critically. Imbalance theory does not ignore direct attacks. At the end of the opening line, the beginning of the middle game you got to go ahead with imbalances. Imbalance theory help one to plan. Jeremy Silman is great chess writer. I never understood the word 'plan' in chess before I read his book call' Reassess you chess' I wish him all luck to become "GM soon" Hare krishna//

Hi Tom,

I think Silman's point is that if you don't know that the main features of the position are (what he calls imbalances) then you can't focus the direction of your calculations.

If you don't know what your weak/strong points are, or your opponent's, then you also won't be able to make any sort of judgement over whether you're better or worse, which should shape how you play.

So if you've been calculating moves and you've evaluated their consequences, how can you compare these to the current position (whether your evaluation of the line is better/worse/the same than the current position) if you haven't correctly summed up the current state of play?

If you have a good grasp of the 'imbalances' for each side, then you will be able to focus your calculations on either targeting your opponent's weak spots or taking care to cover your own.

But playing a move just because it's ok tactically is pointless, as you won't actually be achieving anything; you won't have a proper plan.

You might think in play - "I want to play my knight away from g3 to the nice spot on d5" - well, firstly that shows that you have assessed that d5 is a strongpoint for you, and that possibly your knight isn't wellplaced on g3 - these are 'imbalances'. Now your calculations will tell you whether you actually will be able to achieve this or whether it fails tactically. But it's a goal in the position, and if it doesn't work you can either try to facilitate a position where it does or move on to something else. But it's all subject to the state of the position.