Those sound good, thanks. I'll try to find some library copies.
Realistically, though, I expect to be very disappointed. *No* book has ever told me how to do the one thing I most want to do, and what most others want to do, too: improve tactical lookahead. Nobody is approaching that skill in a scientific, analytical manner, for my taste. The same with pattern recognition: for a book to be really good and practical for pattern recognition it would have to have at *least* dozens, better hundreds, maybe even thousands of patterns with more text telling how those patterns relate than text filling up the book with explanations of individual games. No author is approaching that topic correctly, either, for my taste. Some author needs to start thinking like a programmer if they want to make progress in such chess instructional material.
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(p. 51, 1977 ed.)
The road to mastery for man and machine
The process of choosing a move seems to involve perception as a primary
component, and in particular, the recognition of thousands of stored pat-
terns. It may seem surprising, but chess is not so much a game of deep
thinkers as one of skilled perceivers. Perception apparently holds the key to
understanding why the master barely glances at a position before seizing
on the correct move, where the novice spends hours staring at a position
and never generates the winning move.
Perception operates in two main areas: generating plausible moves
and statically evaluating terminal positions. Not only will a plausible
move be perceived more quickly by the master, but his long experience
with many patterns on the board (50,000 or more) translates into the
advantage of being able to evaluate the resulting positions more readily.
The process of searching through the tree of possibilities, i.e., dynamic
search, is surprisingly similar for both master and class player. They both
search to a similar depth; they both examine about as many moves. The
reason they end up with different moves is that one goes down blind
alleys whereas the other examines the critical variations.
How does the master build up this repertoire of patterns and chess-
specific knowledge? Simon and Chase [84] suggest that it is a matter of
practice. You cannot become a concert pianist by practicing one hour a
day. Similarly you do not become a master chess player by thinking about
chess one hour a day. Simon and Chase observed that it apparently takes
a player nearly a decade of intense preoccupation with playing chess to
become a Grandmaster--even child prodigies like Capablanca, Reshevsky,
Fischer, and others were not exceptions.
Practice does not mean staring at and memorizing 50,000 patterns. It
means learning to recognize types of positions and the plans or playing
methods which go with them. The reason why the information necessary to
become a master does not appear readily in chess books is that it is
(p. 52)
primarily nonverbal; many patterns are difficult to describe in common
language terms. Apparently, advice should take the form of: when you see
this (pattern description), consider trying this plan. (Some current chess
books are attempting to use this approach.) Also, the heuristics which
appear in chess books are just not precise enough to cover the many
concrete situations which occur over the board. Only the slow process of
storing and classifying thousands of patterns seems to work.
As de Groot put it, for the master player "there is nothing new under
the sun" ([31], p. 305]). Each position summons up typical playing
methods or plans. Perception leads to playing method, which leads to search
for the effects of specific moves.
This analysis may offer a rather discouraging picture to chess player and
programmer alike. Unless somehow we can systematize and classify
thousands of patterns and their appropriate playing methods, there is
going to be no shortcut to mastery of chess. Kotov [60] has outlined what
he feels are the fundamentals for becoming a Grandmaster. They can be
summarized in five points:
1. Know opening theory
2. Know the principles behind typical middle games positions (methods
and moves)
3. Be able to assess a position accurately
4. Be able to hit the right plan demanded by a given position
5. Calculate variations accurately and quickly
Almost all of these principles can be subsumed under three general
principles: recognize patterns, know their value, and know their corre-
sponding playing methods.
Frey, Peter W, ed. 1977. Chess Skill in Man and Machine. New York: Springer-Verlag.
These two books caught my eye, and I thought I would share them. I have them on my to-read list...just not sure how high on the list they should go.
Improve Your Chess Pattern Recognition: Key Moves and Motifs in the Middlegame Paperback – November 7, 2014 by International Master Arthur van de Oudeweetering
and
The Inner Game of Chess: How to Calculate and Win Paperback – December 7, 2014 by Andrew Soltis