On 2004-04-24, FRANK wrote:
What is the best way to develop Chess Knowledge? Does it matter? Any
recommendations from advanced players would be appreciated.

This is just a list of recommendations, not meant to be complete. It's
late at night and I'm going to ramble a bit :-)

Openings: Basically just play what you want behind the board, just
like the middlegame. Then after the tournament look up the line in a
book or database and see what the theory is. Compare this to your
thoughts during the game.

The idea with studying openings is that you remember the things you
thought hard about in a recent tournament game best. Avoid having
knowledge from books only, without your own analysis. That *will*
cause problems, also with concentrating, the moment you leave your
theory knowledge. Besides it's a waste of time.

Middlegames: well, probably the game will be decided by tactics. But
typical positions have their own typical tactics. I have read some
books on planning (like Silman's "How to reassess your chess"), but I
get most of my knowledge from playing through games. Annotated games
are great, but also just playing fast through lots of database games
from the same opening - once you've casually skimmed a hundred games
from the same similar position, you have a good idea of what both
sides are trying to do there.

Endgames: probably my weakest area. The hardest part of the game, in
my opinion, is where you have an opponent say 300 points higher, there
is an endgame on the board (say R+N+5 pawns v R+B+5 pawns), it is
equal, perhaps slightly better. You offer a draw, but your higher
rated opponent refuses. He's going to grind you down for the next two
hours. When you're finally lost, you have no idea where you went
wrong.

In my experience, if you can do that to someone, you're a really
strong player.

Endgame study to me really means two areas, one is the basic endings
with very few pieces - R+pawn vs R, that sort of thing. You just need
to know them extremely well, automatic. There are tablebases for these
things. I search my database (Scid!) for practical games with this
endgame, go to the starting position of that endgame, see what the
tablebase says. If it says white wins, I try to win against the
tablebase with the better side. If it says draw, I try to defend with
the weaker side. Etc.

The other part is the not quite basic endgames; practical endgames
with like 15 pieces on the board - a whole bunch of pawns, some
pieces... This is what I really need to work on. I believe that the
best way is to take an endgame from one of your own games that you
thought was pretty much equal, and then analyze that single endgame to
death for a few *weeks*. Then maybe you've found some good
answers. Then go the next position. Anyway, that's my plan...

Tactics I study from exercise books, and the daily diagram in Chess
Today.

Summary: play through *entire* database games on a regular basis. That
way you see openings in action, see tactics happen, get an idea of
what each side is trying to do in certain situations - and you absorb
some of it and move to the next game.

I'm 1850-ish, probably going to 1930-ish on the next rating list,
Dutch rating.

Oh, and most important of all: play a lot of serious tough tournament
games, against players slightly better than you.

--
Remco Gerlich