The Secret of Chess, the New Edition

For those who are following the discussion on the book The Secret of Chess by Lyudmil Tsvetkov, I belong to the few people supporting his work.
To be sure, I am not working consequently with LT’s books. I am just curious about new ideas in chess, and LT has new ideas both in the middlegame and in the opening.
I believe however that once LT should consider seriously on a completely new edition of his work.m
These are the main points LT should consider in this new edition.

1. Move all tables out of the main book and place them in a document people can easily access or online or in an appendix.

2. Use narrative to explain the concepts. LT has a long experience playing against engines, he could use this experience to make the lecture more interesting. (For example, “In my first two years playing against Stockfish I lost all games. But suddenly I began to understand the engines and slowly I began to win regularly against them”). Or he can comment games played by strong players against the engine to explain where people went wrong.

3. LT stoped playing against engines 10 years ago. He should begin to play again tournaments and use these games to illustrate his concepts. Imagine how interesting would be if he would improve 4 to 6 hundred rating points after playing 10 or more tournaments. These incredible jump in his rating will make people curious about the chess secrets the author are explaining in his book. Even an improvement of “only” 300 points would be considered as exceptional by most chess players.

4. LT should send me and other players drafts of his books before publication. We would be glad to give feedback.

Why must you continue this saga and further publicize this nonsense instead of sending him a private message; as if you are trying to provoke a fight? A common response might be: I wasn’t looking for a fight I am just supporting his book and giving him suggestions. This circulates back to the fact that you can just send him a private message instead of further embedding chess.com in this useless debate on whether this book is legitimate or not, and whether LT is as credible as he says he is, whether you are trying to or not.

I understand, you like peace and love, and for this reason you are posting this here instead of sending me a private message, right? Congratulation, you are just about to win the first price for the most logic statement in chess.com.

My post is to all people interest in his book but who perhaps think there are some things to be improved.

By the way, why you are assuming I am looking for a fight? Did I insult you, your mother or even your dog? No, I didn’t. I wrote about improving a chess book and the first post here is about war, blood, and fight. If you are not able to discuss in an educated way about chess books you should go somewhere else.

By the way, from your attitude I assume you feel you are a kind of forum policeman, telling people what they are allowed to post and what not. You think you are doing a terrific job, right? But I only feel sorry for you and your negativity, really.

It's funny how what you said can apply to your own comment.. here you are looking for a fight in the forums, instead of sending him a private message

If Lyudmil wants to sell like hot cakes, he should remove all content from the book (it's pretty useless, anyway), and throw in a lot of photos from Kevin Spraggett's site.

You should try to write your own chess book, so all frustrated and aggressive people can tell you how useless it is.

But I guess you didn't really read the book, as most of Lyudmil's enemies,  and your opinion only reflects your need to defend your "territory" - you feel probably that a untitled player doesn't has the right to publish a chess book. If somebody nevertheless publish one, it is per definition rubbish. 

Yeah, we know. You just want to be the creator of a thread with over 6000 posts.

There are several untitled players which have authored splendid chess books (I have reviewed such a book in my blog).

It's no rocket science, simple things to do:

1. Use a good reference base of master games on the subject.

2. Read and evaluate several good previous books on the subject.

3. Use some modern aid (engine, electronic database) effectively.

4. Do some hard work of your own.

Tsvetkov does not know how to use an engine (the sole thing he knows is manipulating the output), has no chess culture of any kind, no great playing skills either, and his "hard work" consists of flooding every possible chess forum with utter nonsense.

You can evaluate the book better than me,  but wait ! - you didn't read the book,  did you?  Smerdon did it,  and he has some positive things to say about the  book. 

 

 

 

 

IM pfren make a discerning statement, " Lyudmil has no chess culture." Lyudmil discussing in opening or sound middlegame planning he seem to lack, its obvious he has not study chess books and really lack knowledge in all areas in chess. He beat the engines but its not in a control environment; we don't know what kind of handicap he give to his engine and the engine plays quite weak and its strength is about 1500 fide, any fide 2095 fide can beat 1500 fide at 2 minute bullet game, so the games are meaningless. 

How do you know that the engine's strength is about 1500 FIDE?  You are just assuming without any prove.

 

The free samples he has offered is more than any sane person can stand.

And - why should I care about Smerdon "kinda liking" the book?

David is a very strong player, but probably too kind to tell someone "look sir: chess is obviously not for you".

I am 60 years old, but Alzheimer has no impact on me yet- I can still maintain my FIDE rating over 2300, and sniff a clueless idiot from miles away.

The one and only nice thing about a "new edition" of this "work", is that it is impossible to be worse than the initial one...

I really don't want to compare TSoC with My System, but I know that a lit of strong GMs said this book is extremely important, and other strong GMs believe the book is horrible,  rubbish.  I don't like so much Nimzowitsch's humor,  I like more the straightforward style. In a certain sense is the Lyudmil's book the opposite of My System, with no humor,  perhaps too straightforward. But this alone doesn't make the book bad,  IMO. 

dude i bet im better at blitz than u xd

My official blitz rating is 2375, but out of few official games, and none played recently (just two rated blitz tournaments 4 years ago where I managed 11/11).

 

https://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=4200420

In one  point LT is right.  If he would play here,  a lot of people would accuse him of cheating.  I guess you would be one of them,  as the long discussion around TSoC is lacking any objectivity,  it is a wonderful example how people can "evaluate" a book that they never read.  Sad in the whole story is that you are perhaps right and the book is crap and the author a rather weak player. But how would you feel if the book would come out to be an original and useful contribution written by a strong player? Would you still be proud of attacking him constantly in the forum,  although he has the right to try to sell his work? 

Think about this. 

I go with LT

 I believe in Time Traveller's claims than LT and his book though.