The Amateur's Mind

TAM is fairly new, but I believe Silman suggests reading TAM before HTRYC, if planning to read both.

I think I finally found a way to say what I mean... it's an efficiency problem.  As long as the tactics you're looking at are forced in the position then they are necessary to calculate, and I would agree it's time/energy well spend when doing so.

But there aren't many forcing tactics through a game in terms of every single move.  I think a lot of amateurs look at a whole bunch of "hope tactics" during a game and they end up making a lot of moves that don't do anything.  They even end up setting up their pieces hoping their opponent will fall for something.

I understand even many class players realize not to make a move based on a hope tactic, but even so it's time wasted calculating it.  When non-forcing tactics are involved, that have to do with what squares your pieces are going to, it's best to look hard at what's going on before you start to calculate.  For example if you realize your advantage and practical plan is in mobilizing your king-side pawn majority, then before you start to calculate you can skip over a bunch of non-relevant tactics having to do with your opponent who has started to maneuver against your weak b pawn.  In fact, you can start looking for positional tactics to remove his nasty knight that's holding up your kingside pawns from rolling down the board. 

They're meaningful moves that involve tactics and your opponent will have to respond to them, but to find them you have to assess the position first and look for tactics second, does that kind of make sense?

Orangahonda, I think it's quite the opposite with a lot of amateurs, by which I assume you mean players that are closer to the beginner level then say, expert level. What I think their weakness is not that they rely too much on tactics, but that they don't rely on tactics at all. Many beginners who read a little about chess strategy would just hate to double their pawns, would like to castle early, hold on to the bishop pair, whatever. What they miss is that they constantly hang pieces or pawns in the process.

I completely agree with everything an_arbitrary_name has said here. I think Silman's understanding of chess is heavily biased towards positional concepts rather than accurate calculation, because that's how he sells books, but doesn't reflect reality.

In his defense, I think how to reassess your chess workbook helped me a lot to understand what chess strategy is all about, and I think his endgame manual is the best out there, but how he advises us to think when it's us to move is ridiculously impractical. Here's an example:

"[step] 3)    Don’t Calculate! Instead, dream up various fantasy positions, I.e., the positions you would most like to achieve.

4)    Once you find a fantasy position that makes you happy, you must figure out if you can reach it. If you find that your choice was not possible to implement, you must create another dream position that is easier to achieve."

I'm pretty sure if anyone takes this stuff seriously and tries to apply it before every single move, they wouldn't be able to win a game of chess.

I'm not sure how tactical thinking can be separated from positional thinking, I think the term "accurate calculation" covers them both, and I'm inclined towards believing that what it takes to be a good positional player is not necessarily having a greater positional understanding, but rather being able to make your ideas work, for which, "individual moves" and accurate calculation of candidate moves are always crucial. 

Arbitrary, you're taking silman's words so literal, and then for the one reason that you don't think it's a good thinking technique, you ignore all of the good content, plus the explanations of why the amateurs couldn't find the right move? Look, Silman is just telling you how, in a critical position, to make a plan. And you don't make a plan by just looking for combinations, especially in a quiet position. He's not saying to do this every move, he's not saying don't look for tactics, he's merely concentrating on the tough task of planning and understanding positional play for weaker players (and I was one of those people who needed that, in fact who doesn't at some point?). You're getting the wrong impression that that means ignore tactics even when they're clearly in the position. You don't have to use his exact thinking technique, you can tweak it, that doesn't mean the books are useless. Depending on how severe the threat is, tactics may come first, but it's vital to know what to do when there isn't one for either side, and it might be deeper than just an attacking gesture.

Why don't you just take the books for what they are? They're designed to help with strategy and the amateur's mind shows how they wrongly executed it, which you should learn from. You absolutely need to get your tactical skills from another source, it doesn't cover your whole game sufficiently.

He tells you to calculate once you have a plan, what executes it the best (it could be a tactical or a positional move, and you have to see if it works, or gives up a tactical or positional concession against a strong counter move). If there are tactics you absolutely have to turn to, then do so. Silman's advice was not perfect, (hey I don't use his thinking technique either, but in some positions you really do need to make fantasy positions) but it doesn't change the fact that it boosted my strength significantly.

Elubas, I agree with you on that an elimination of some of his suggestions would still leave us with very good chess material to work on, but I believe, if you need not to take what an author wrote "literally" where he was being precise about it, it means at least that part of the book is not written very successfully.

By the way, I think he was saying to do this before every move, at least for the "silman thinking technique" in his how to reassess your chess workbook.

What if you could combine the plans? Start a knight journey and defend the threat at the same time, even if the knight move looks passive. Otherwise you might prevent it with a more useless move?

WHen you ask yourself "how do I prevent it?" it can still be based on strategy. What's the best way I can combine defense and executing my plan? If there isn't such a way, then the passive defense is obvious. I wouldn't go through the whole technique though, that's for sure, so I can see how you can get the wrong impression. Just enjoy the instructive examples of strategy. I only make fantasy positions sometimes, and it has to be condensed if you're not playing a 2 hour game (keep in mind at his level that's a common time control).

You know if you were reading closely he did say in how to reasses that there is a shortcut, looking at the imbalances and seeing how to make use of them. That's USUALLY (unless in a position where it's not obvious what the plan is) what I in fact do.

Unfortunately that may be true. I didn't even get it for the technique, I got them for the instruction which was invaluable for a good start.

No, I don't think so. He mentioned early on that once you had a plan your next moves would come quickly as long as tactically they were ok.You don't need to keep looking at the imbalances unless the position totally changes.

Hmm... maybe I've forgotten what it was like as an absolute beginner, this sounds right... but aren't Silman's book written for at least a C class player?  A 1500 USCF rating isn't a beginner that drops pieces to cheap shots... but they do often have a problems with making tons of arbitrary moves, this is the player I imagine the book being written to.

I may have a somewhat tough definition of amateur/professional.  I think of anyone under 2200 as technically an amateur.  Obviously many experts out there are able to find good plans and even execute them well.  When I used it in my previous post though I mean a player somewhere around 1400 or 1500 .

But if you're following Silman's thinking technique, when exactly are you going to realise that you're being threatened with mate?  Which stage in the process is that?

If the first thing you looked at was your opponent's mate threat (as any decent chess player probably would), you have gone against Silman's advice:

"DON'T look at individual moves!  In fact, never calculate until you understand the basic components (imbalances) of the position."

Silman even says not to use it every move later in the book -- he gives the example if you spend 30 minutes off your clock finding the correct plan and sequence of moves, then you can play your next (lets say 7) moves with only a minimal tactical check, this works out about 3.5 minutes per move which is good. 

Even he realizes after you use the technique it's not as necessary the very next move... other than that though I think the technique is very useful and I definitely evaluate things before I calculate even on half move.

I checked relevant parts of how to reassess your chess and the workbook, and I couldn't find any mention of using the technique for every move, so I guess you are right.

But doesn't this kind of open a hole in the system? When are we supposed to use this technique then, and how are we going to decide it's the right moment?

OK I have missed that. In that case, I find it rather incomplete though, if a thinking method doesn't work every case, and doesn't tell you when it works and when it doesn't, then how is an "amateur" supposed to use it?

He gives his thinking technique as a way to come up with a plan, but he also says to be aware of combinations, in fact he gives you three rules to know when a combination is present he says only after you notice at least one of these things can you stop to look for a combination:

1) Open or weakened King.  Also includes Stalemated King
2) Undefended pieces
3) Inadequately defended pieces

So I guess because you no longer need to come up with a plan (your king is weak/open) he doesn't suggest you use his thinking technique at all...

I don't see it explicitly stated, but I'm guessing whenever you don't have a plan of action (and there are no combinations) it's time to use the thinking technique to come up with a plan.  He says a lot of times even experts give him blank looks when he asks what their plan was, or have some nonsensical idea based on how they were feeling e.g. they wanted to attack.

I do get the impression that he suggests using his thinking technique (or at least looking at imbalances before individual moves) on every move.  For example, consider the following quote from How to Reassess Your Chess, 3rd edition, page 39:

"We can see then, that in both positional and tactical situations you must use my thinking technique (or at least carefully weigh the imbalances) to find the proper plan or move.  You only bother calculating once the correct plan is clear and once you settle upon a move that helps your plan come to fruition."

In my opinion, these books should carry a disclaimer like the following:

"When given a chess position, it is important to become familiar with the tactical situation on the board (time permitting).  Only then can we can usefully look at the imbalances and attempt to develop a plan.  [etc.]"

I think you should send Silman an e-mail about this. Maybe he will update it for you in his coming 4th edition of HTRYC.

I hear it's re-written from scratch.

I have been waiting for its release for a long time.  I pray that when I go to my local bookstore and open its crisp pages for the first time, I will see an "actually, you really do need to consider tactics, usually before you consider imbalances" disclaimer like I wrote above.

I am not very hopeful though.  :)

Unless there is a forcing tactic I still agree with silman.  A mate in 3 is a mate in 3 even against best defense.  If there is a help-mate in 3 well I hope you're not using time sweating that. 

The reason I still agree with Silman in the case of non-forcing tactics is because often amateurs manage to keep the material even, but get terrible positions anyway because they were only worried about point count.  Very often a tactical series will force a strategic concession, if there are two ways to resolve the tactic and keep material even what will you do?  Hopefully you know what pieces are working best for your position before you calculate which to give up and which to keep.  Also there are often great tactical resources I consider because I know what each side's general plan is. 

The most obvious form of this is a sacrifice, when you know what aspects of the position are more important and are able to resolve a tactical position in a strategic way.  In fact last night at my chess club I mis-calculated and found myself either losing the exchange or he was going to win a pawn back and material would be even again, I surprised my opponent when I quickly gave up the exchange because I saw in the resulting position his remaining pieces would be ineffective at dealing with my protected passer.  I did this with fantasy positions and planing without having to calculate a specific line... indeed 15-20 moves later, further than I could ever hope to calculate, he resigned.  It was useful to go into that tactical situation knowing what my sides strengths were.

In my "mate in three" example, I meant an unforced mate in three.  So you can stop the mate, but the question is:  Have you even noticed it?  (And, again, at which point in the Silman thinking process would it be noticed?)

I know what you mean with the "tactics forcing a strategic concession" thing.  Still I think one should sum up the tactical situation before looking at imbalances.

I honestly don't know how anyone can play according to Silman's words.  I presume that you aren't actually following what Silman says -- just something like it.  Because you would surely have a 1000 rating if you followed Silman's advice exactly.  :)

And I agree with you that it's odd he doesn't put his rules for recognizing a combination immediately before his imbalances, as in the same list, and then explicitly state "only use this planning and imbalances when there is not a forcing tactic" or something like that...

I think that, if you realized that your King's position is weak, and that your opponent's pieced are gathered menacingly on the Kingside, this would help to notice the the threat of mate in 3. You don't come to notice it by calculating all possible variations and arriving at mate in 3 in one of them. I mean, strategic understanding helps to notice tactics.