Yusupov and the Older Lower Rated Player

I finished up chapter 7 today on discovered attacks. I found the diagrams rather easier than normal. With the graded exercises I ended up with 12 of 15, which is a rating of good.

Now that I have been doing these for a while, I think I can state with some certainty that  Yusupov is appropriate for a player of my level.

What that level actually is, would be hard to say.

Chapter 8 was more positional in nature and concerns the centralization of pieces. I did well enough to pass.

In one problem, Ex. 8-8 I went e4, which gets no points. I was rather mystified by this since I thought it was pretty good. I ended up putting it on two different engines (Stockfish 9 and Komodo 12.1.1). Both ranked e4 highly, and at times depending on the ply deep, had it ranked first. Furthermore, it ranked higher than the solution that got 3 points. Moves given for 2 points by Yusupov actually prepare e4! I hadn't thought it needed preparation, and the engines show I'm correct.

My experience was the same: I passed chapter 8, but played 1. e4 on the first move of Ex. 8 and got it wrong.

Interesting. I wonder if he has received any feedback on this position. At very least, I think he should explain why this move is wrong according to him.

I have to go back to the book to see what he says. When I read your post, I went back to my notebook to see my result for that problem but didn't go into it any further. Glad to hear that the engines confirmed our analysis.

I am now on chapter 9 of the second book. The series does have its frustrations from time to time, but overall it's great.

I must have been in a fanciful mood: my continuation was 1. e4 fxe4 2. Rxd8 Rxd8 3. Nf6+ Kh6 4. Nxe4. I evaluated that position as favorable for White due to the passed f pawn, the insecurity of the Black K, and the g5 outpost for the N.

This problem illustrated one of my weaknesses: I tend to stop analyzing variations too soon. If I'm going to sac the exchange, I should be able to calculate to a clear advantage, not to a position where I just "feel" like I'm better. Yusupov has helped me see that weakness several times, and that has helped my OTB play a lot.

Thanks for commenting on this, @JamesColeman. Your analysis is always helpful and appreciated.

GMs have access to engines too.

Notice none of them follow the engine move all the time.

Maybe you should ask why. Maybe you should save time and just ignore the engine entirely...

Learning chess is about understanding the ideas. If you want to play like an engine, you'd better learn to calculate a million moves per second. 

Preggo: I realize GMs have access to engines too. My point is, if there is a move that the engine thinks is strong, and this one is, then it would make sense for the learning of the student to give the reason they do not want to play that move. The engine evaluates this move as considerably better than the continuation in the book. That doesn't mean it IS better, and it certainly doesn't mean it is more playable for a human. But the reason for the preference would help my learning and that IS the point of the book.

James: Thanks for looking at it. If I recall I was trying to double support my knight. If the fxe4, I was not planning to play f5. It does give a nice passed pawn for white, and the black pawn on e4 cannot survive. (I think). I don't recall exactly what lines I was looking at, but I do remember, that my line was not entirely sound. Whether I would have found better moves as the play unfolded I don't know - probably not. I'm a fairly weak player.

I finished up chapter 9 on mate in two moves. For the most part I have found Yusupov enjoyable if occasionally somewhat on the time consuming and frustrating side. I have to say I absolutely hated this chapter. I do understand why he has it. The idea is to force you to look at a broad range of moves instead of going deep. His point is that deep doesn't help if you overlook something important in your opponents response.

The reason I hated this chapter is:

1) It is made of up of composed problems. This means that the normal patterns and such you see in games often simply don't apply. So you are kind of at sea without a boat.

2) It is often very difficult to discern the internal logic of the problem without trying a large number of wrong ideas first.

Even Yusupov says that if you don't find the solution at first, try every possible move. That leads to a lot of tedium and shear drudgery.

I did end up getting a good rating on the chapter. And I sure hope this did something for my game. But by the end, I was VERY ready to move on. If I was early on in doing the book, I very well might have tossed his instruction out the window.

As it is, I have seen the value and results of doing this study on my game, so I was willing to (at times barely) press through it.

I'm with you on that, @madratter7. That was not a fun chapter, though I think you accurately discerned the point of it: in calculating variations, look for a broad range of moves, even if they are out of the ordinary.

You might find it encouraging that I haven't come across another chapter like it and I'm on chapter 9 of book 2.

By the way, I'm on hiatus from Yusupov while working through Khmelnitsky's Chess Exam and Training Guide. I also have a tournament next weekend, so preparation before and analysis of my games after will take the next couple of weeks.

 Good luck in your tournament next weekend!

Thank you. It should be a learning experience, as I'm playing in the open section. Lots of masters and experts. An oddity: one of the entrants is Robert J. Fischer. Not the deceased famous one, of course, but a Virginia based NM. 

That is good to hear Mike. Best wishes with the tournament!

Thanks. I'll let everyone know how it goes. Confidence level is high, thanks largely to Yusupov. He is helping to correct a couple of major errors in my thought process.

I've noticed him in the past. That is kind of wild. I wonder if his parents were something of the Polgar type.

I love your passion, Sir. I learn chess to play with my grandpa. He is 91 and will be gone soon so I want to spend more time with him doing things that we both love. I suggest that you should check for chessgames collections of the motif you are learning. For instance, here is a good collection of Anastasia mate

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1022492

AnhVanT: Make sure to make that time with your Grandfather. Time you spend with those you love is time well spent.

My journey continues. I finished up Chapter 10, which is on End Games #2. It is goes into more detail on King and Pawn Endgames. You would think that these end games could not be easier. But they can actually get notoriously difficult, even for the highest rated players at times. It covers topics like Distant Opposition. Some of the times opposition is what matters most. In others, that will lead you down the wrong path.

I found the chapter challenging but interesting. I especially liked the 4 * puzzle. That was the hardest one I have seen yet. I got 2 of the 4 stars, The lines I calculated were correct, but I missed a critical line (didn't see it was critical and so didn't notate it).

I ended up scoring 16 out of 26 points. You needed 12 points to pass. 18 points would have been a good.

Next up, chapter 11 is on pins.

One of the great insights I've gotten from Yusupov was the beginning of that chapter, where he says that opposition is simply a special case of corresponding squares. That clarified so much about endgames.

By the way, I also got 2 points from the 4 star problem. Apparently, neither of us is close to GM strength, but maybe we're both improving.

I definitely feel this, along with the other things I'm doing is improving my game. What that will mean in terms of OTB rating, I don't know yet. But between this and ChessTempo, my ability to calculate has definitely improved a great deal. And some of the positional ideas have made an impact as well. Sometimes it is the simple concepts like centralization that can make a big difference. It isn't that I didn't know some of these ideas before. But I more actively think about them and incorporate them now.

Here is a game I played the other day where I tried to play keeping some of what I have learned from Yusupov and from Silman in mind.

That is exactly why Yusupov is so good. He doesn't explain a concept and then test to see if you remember it. He states the concept, gives you some examples, and then gives you problems where you have to figure out how to apply the concept. The mental activity required for completing those end of chapter exercises burns the concept into your thought process. There's no way to complete Yusupov with superficial thinking, and that has to translate to improvement in practical play.