On Oct 11, 7:58 am, David Richerby
wrote:
Secondly, the moving the knight close to the right direction and then
correcting at the end always works. Trying to move in the right
direction in a maze might send you completely the wrong way.

Could you give an example of this, because in many chess problems that
is precisely the problem: you think you are going the correct route
with the knight but realize you had to "lose a move" or "move back
then forward".

I suppose by correcting at the end you mean it takes maybe a move more
but it doesn't matter? Of course if it is "mate in" and you take a
move longer, it does.... I suppose if we were talking 64,000 squares
instead of 64 would the technique make more sense?

I think the reason this can't be discussed intelligently is that we
really need to see some of these wonderful examples (using the
language of chess, not words) in the book, but if they turn out to be
nonsense, we''ll just feel cheated on the price of the book...... and
evidently Alexander has no free samples to give, say from a web site??




The walking up the stairs analogy wasn't intended as a direct analogy
but just an indication that advanced techniques really aren't needed.

But, hey, it works for you... and you seem to be in no hurry to
improve on it.

I'm in no hurry to improve because I can already get the correct
answer faster than I could using the technique and at least as
accurately. The technique just isn't an improvement.

Dave.

--
David Richerby Accelerated Pointy-Haired Cat (TM):www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ it's like a cat that's completely
clueless but it's twice as fast!

SBD wrote:
David Richerby wrote:
Secondly, the moving the knight close to the right direction and
then correcting at the end always works. Trying to move in the
right direction in a maze might send you completely the wrong way.

Could you give an example of this, because in many chess problems
that is precisely the problem: you think you are going the correct
route with the knight but realize you had to "lose a move" or "move
back then forward".

Alexander's Technique only tells you the answer to the question `What
is the minimum number of moves required to get a knight from A to B on
a completely empty chess board.' My replacement technique has the
same goals. In real life (or even in a puzzle ;-) ) the opponent's
moves and the placement of the other pieces on the board interfere.


Dave.

--
David Richerby Dangerous Poetic Tool (TM): it's like
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ a hammer but it's in verse and it
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On 11 Oct 2007 13:45:46 +0100 (BST)
David Richerby wrote:

foot wrote:
David Richerby wrote:
Again, I had no problems whatsoever getting a knight from g1 to a6
in five moves and convincing myself that three is impossible.
Heading straight for a6 puts you on c3/d4/e5 after two moves and
a4/b5/c6/d7 after three. All of those squares are two moves from
a6; if you can't instantly see that they are, you really need to
work on your visualization.

If you asked me whether a4 was a minimum of three moves away, I
couldn't instantly tell you whether it was or not without using
Alexander's Technique.

I'm pretty sure you said that Alexander's Technique was taking you ten
to fifteen seconds. That's not instant.

Here is what I said:

"It only took me a few minutes to start applying the rules after I'd
read the book, and maybe another ten minutes to half an hour to
completely internalize them... and after an hour or so of practice, I
feel completely confident I'd be able to quickly (certainly under
about 15 seconds, and often as little as a second or two)"

How long the calculation takes depends on which destinations
square(s) I'm interested in. 15 seconds was the maximum it took me to
figure out the minimum number of moves to a given square. Often, it
took much less. Sometimes as little as a second.

And the 15 seconds is probably a conservative estimate. I didn't
really time myself, so I was just going by what I felt was the time it
took to calculate the answer. So even the longest calculation might
have taken significantly less time... But I didn't want to promise more
than the method could deliver, so I erred on the longer side.

Furthermore, this right after I first learned the technique and
practiced it for only about an hour. I'm sure with further practice it
will probably take me much less time.

Now, I couldn't tell you *instantly* but after making the attempt
g1-e2-b3-a4, it should be obvious that you can't get any closer than
that in three moves. That wouldn't have taken me more than a couple
of seconds.

A very error-prone method, as you just demonstrated yourself: the
knight can't even move from b3 to a4.

(I'm not claiming that I computed all of that in my head to work
out the move-count. I just mean that the squares I gave are the
places you could get to from your interpretation of `start at g1
and head straight for a6.)

Well, let's say you did head "straight for a6" from g1... and you
went to f3-d4-b5 and now where?

b5 and a6 are diagonally adjacent! b5-c7-a6. If you can't see the
two-move path between diagonally adjacent squares, I can understand
why you're reluctant to use my trial-and-error method.

But not every diagonally adjacent square is two moves away. Even you,
who are so adamant about using your trial and error method, have to
take that fact in to account.

I assure you that I'm not a gifted chess player -- I'm doing
absolutely nothing special.

No, I think the parts of your method that don't consist of trial and
error moving of the knight around are something special. Indeed, those
special rules are very similar to what's in the book (though the book
has more). And most ordinary chess players are not aware of these rules.

It seems to me that you have very poor board vision. Are you a new
player?

I'd rather stick to discussing the technique than starting to talk
about me.

But the technique involves applying eight pages of rules that have
nothing to do with chess per se.

What does it matter whether the rules "have to do with chess per se"
(a point that could be debated.. but I don't want to go there) ? As
long as it works, works quickly, and eliminates the possibility of
error and confusion?

The advantage of chess-based reasoning is that it help your
understanding of other parts of the game and reinforces your ability
to calculate in your head. Other rules can't be applied to anything
else.

Well, it's not like by using Alexander's Technique you're no longer
practicing moving your knight around (in your mind). You still have to
do that to find moves make up the shortest path (when you're interested
in that information), and when you're looking to perform or prevent
some tactic. Alexander's Technique just saves you some guessing, trial
and error movement, time, and possible confusion. Well worth it, in my
opinion.

For example, say you have a pawn on a4 that will queen in 4 moves.
You opponent has a knight on g1. Will he be able to stop your pawn?
You apply the method and virtually immediately know that it will
take that knight at least 5 moves to get to a8. So you don't even
care what path he's going to try to get there. You can confidently
march your pawn forward.

But knight endgames aren't that simple! Where's his king? Can it
stop the pawn?

Whether a king can stop a pawn is a matter of applying other endgame
techniques (such as the rule of the square). But we're talking about
knights here, not kings. Alexander's Technique never promised to solve
all your problems, but it's certainly useful for solving some.

Can he gain a tempo by checking you with his knight on the way to a8?
(An extremely important resource in knight endgames.)

Point well taken. You will have to take the position of the pieces in
to account to some extent, but nevertheless, as far as determining the
minimum number of moves a knight will take to get to a square goes,
this method will save you time, error, and confusion.

If your king's on b5/c4/d5/d7/e6/e8, it's enough for him to get his
knight to b6/c7 immediately after you promote, forking your king and
new queen. (Another important resource) Or will you be promoting
with check so he doesn't have time to do that?

Ok. So you've managed to find one case where using Alexander's
Technique alone won't be enough to win the game. But the no one ever
promised you will win with this technique, or that you won't have to
use other technique in addition to it. It's just another tool in a
good payer's toolbox.

It's actually good that you brought up the position of the kings, since
the rule of the square (one of the most basic and useful endgame
techniques) is also not useful without exception. It only works when
there are no pawns or pieces on the king's path to catching the
opponent's pawn.

And yet, applying your reasoning, that technique is useless! Better to
count the squares to the pawn every time, since it's easy to think up
exceptions to the rule where it just doesn't work. I would like to see
how far you get railing against people learning basic endgame
techniques such as the rule of the square.

I really don't see the need to use pejorative terms like "fancy" in
regards to something you have no knowledge of. It's really quite
amazing how some people will put up a tremendous amount of
resistance and hostility to learning anything new.

I'm resistant to learning a slower, more cumbersome way to do
something which I can already do and feel that any chess player beyond
a beginner should be able to do.

The trial and error method that you advocate is the slower, more
cumbersome, and more error-prone way. So I would think that you'd
welcome a better way. But, you are obviously very set in your ways.
Hopefully other chess players are more open minded.

You know, I actually like learning new things.

So do I. I'm an academic -- it's even my job to learn new things!

Hmmm

When there's something new to learn that gets me interested and
excited. I thought by mentioning that there was something new,
interesting and useful to learn I'd get positive reactions from this
group. Instead all I got was invective from people who apparently
can't be bothered to learn anything new. I think that's pretty sad.

I don't think this technique is either interesting or useful: that's
the point I've been making. It's not that I can't be bothered to
learn it; I've looked at it (through your descriptions) and found it
to be not worth the time or effort.

So you can't be bothered to learn it. Which is what I said. You just
confirmed it yourself.

I don't even think the technique is helping you very much, either,
since it seems that you have great difficulty using your knowledge
that there's a five-move path between two squares to actually find
such a path -- that's what I think you should be spending your time
working on.

Alexander's Technique was not designed to and never promised to find
the actual path a knight must take to get somewhere in the minimum
number of moves. I don't know what gave you the idea that I had "great
difficulty" finding such a path, but even if that were the case, that's
not a shortcoming of Alexander's Technique, but a completely separate
issue.

I'm sorry if my criticism of the technique you've been advancing came
across as criticism of you. It probably sounded like it was but it
wasn't intended as such.

Well, when you say things such as "It seems to me that you have very
poor board vision." That's not criticism of the technique. That's
criticism of my ability, which (apart from being wrong) is quite
irrelevant to whether the technique works or would be useful for most
chess players.

And, again, when you use pejorative terms like "fancy" to describe
something you don't even know, I think that says more about your own
attitude than about the technique.

On 11 Oct 2007 13:58:49 +0100 (BST)
David Richerby wrote:

foot wrote:

Why do you object to niche chess books? If they achieve what they
set out to do, what's the problem?

I object to this book because any reasonable player can already
calculate quickly and accurately the number of moves it would take a
knight to get between two squares.

Well, this is a significant point of disagreement between us.

I don't think most chess players can do that quickly or accurately.

Any weaker player would be better
served by improving their board vision until they can calculate this
using their chess skill, rather than learning the technique.

But it's still an eighty page book and it's still eight pages to
describe how to do something trivial.

I don't think it's trivial. Nor do I think most chess players would
find it trivial.

I assure you that I'm just an ordinary player. I have no especial
skill at the game.

I think you do. You've already demonstrated that you know more than
most chess players by the rules you've set out in your own technique,
such as "it takes three moves to get a knight to a
horizontally/vertically adjacent square and four moves to get to the
opposite corner of a 3x3 square". I bet if I asked a random chess
player, or even a large number of random players, they wouldn't know
this rule.

Conversely, though you yourself don't seem to mind using some rules
such as this (the ones you already know), you object to learning more
such rules. If you were consistent, you'd denounce your 3x3 rule and
all the rest of the time-saving rules you know and insist on using pure
trial and error knight moves.

And yet you embrace such rules on the one hand (apparently, when you've
come up with them yourself or got them from some other source), but
object to them when they come from this book.

Well, the trial and error parts of the method you describe is not
like "walking up the stairs", but more like trying to solve a maze
by randomly picking directions, instead of always making right hand
turns.

No, for two reasons. Firstly, I'm not advocating moving randomly.
Secondly, the moving the knight close to the right direction and then
correcting at the end always works.

"Moving in the direction of your goal" in a maze is not a very
good strategy.

Trying to move in the right direction in a maze might send you
completely the wrong way.

I guess you haven't solved many mazes, because if you had you'd know
that in an ordinary maze this strategy (always making right-hand turns)
is guaranteed to get you out, while choosing random directions to go in
or "moving in the direction of your goal" can keep you lost in the maze
forever (given a large enough maze).

But, hey, it works for you... and you seem to be in no hurry to
improve on it.

I'm in no hurry to improve because I can already get the correct
answer faster than I could using the technique and at least as
accurately. The technique just isn't an improvement.

Well, considering that you neither know nor have ever tried the
technique, I don't think you're any position to claim that your method
gets the correct answer faster. Also, I would question whether your
method gets the correct answer each time, as it seems to involve
trial and error and guessing.

But, be that as a it may, whether you learn Alexander's Technique or
stick with your own method is none of my concern. My main points are
that the technique works, and would be useful to most players.

On 11 Oct 2007 10:46:55 +0100 (BST)
David Richerby wrote:

As I've said several times now, the part of the book that teaches
the method only takes up 8 pages!

This is obviously some strange new meaning of the word `only' of which
I was previously unaware. Mine took less than half a page.

Yes. And yours isn't even half as useful. Not to mention that you
didn't have any diagrams illustrating what you were describing. I
would rather have something clearly explained in more pages than a
optimally condensed, but less than optimally clear explanation.

You are really grasping at straws. At first you were harping that
it took a whole 80 pages to explain the method. Now that I've pointed
out that it only takes 8 pages you're still not satisfied, as you can
explain your own method in only one page.

So, if a method can't be explained in one page it's not worth
learning? How many one-page chess books have you bought recently?

This is really getting ridiculous. You're obviously never going to be
satisfied no matter what I say.

Stick to your method. Enjoy it. No one's forcing you to learn
anything.

But hopefully other players will understand how useful the method
taught in the book can be, and will find it worth their while.

Alexander's technique sounds to me like a very hard way to do
something nearly trivial.

Is your own rule of "Moving to the opposite corner of a 3x3 square
always takes four moves" a "very hard way to do something nearly
trivial"? Because Alexander's Technique consists of rules no harder
than that.

On 11 Oct 2007 11:35:50 +0100 (BST)
David Richerby wrote:

SBD wrote:
David Richerby wrote:
Alexander's technique sounds to me like a very hard way to do
something nearly trivial.

Perhaps, but following the conversation, I began to wonder if it
might have value for things like composing long seriesmovers with
one or more knights. And there is an American author who recommends
modified seriesmovers (Albertston, Chess Mazes) for developing
tactical vision.

It might be useful for that, yes. The only other suggestion was for
knight endgames but

That wasn't the only other suggestion. This method is also useful in
middlegames, where (for example) you need to move your knight from,
say, the queenside to the kingside. If you use the technique to figure
out that you need 5 moves to get the knight to its destination square,
but you only have 4 moves in which to do it, you could abandon the
attempt and concentrate on finding another solution.

It also has the potential to be useful where two knights are racing to
reach the same square... or, pretty much any time counting more than a
couple of knight moves becomes important.

there, the whole point is that the enemy king can move.

The king may be able to move, but that doesn't mean he's going to be
able to stop the knight. Same with any other piece on the board.

Of course, the method taught in the book won't tell you if the any other
piece is going to affect a knight, but it will tell you what the
minimum number of moves getting to a particular square will take. And
I still think that can be quite useful... especially when the
alternative is an error prone and time consuming trial and error method.

On 11 Oct 2007 15:21:47 +0100 (BST)
David Richerby wrote:

SBD wrote:
David Richerby wrote:
Secondly, the moving the knight close to the right direction and
then correcting at the end always works. Trying to move in the
right direction in a maze might send you completely the wrong way.

Could you give an example of this, because in many chess problems
that is precisely the problem: you think you are going the correct
route with the knight but realize you had to "lose a move" or "move
back then forward".

Alexander's Technique only tells you the answer to the question `What
is the minimum number of moves required to get a knight from A to B on
a completely empty chess board.' My replacement technique has the
same goals. In real life (or even in a puzzle ;-) ) the opponent's
moves and the placement of the other pieces on the board interfere.

Whether or not other pieces interfere, the knight in question is never
going to take less than the minimum number of moves, given by
Alexander's Technique, to reach a square. Thus, the method can still
be useful in situations where there are other pieces on the board.

Of course, the method won't magically do everything for you. So it's up
to the other tools has in their toolbox to figure out whether the
knight in question will, in fact, reach the destination square in the
minimum number of moves, what moves the shortest path consists of,
etc...

But just because the method won't do everything, or can't be used in
every conceivable situation, doesn't mean it's useless in real games
(even when other pieces are involved). As I stated in my earlier
example, just because there are other pieces on the board doesn't mean
that they'll be able to (or will) interfere with the knight going to
its destination square. And even if they could, that might be quite
irrelevant if you've already figured out that even the minimum number
of moves are too many moves to achieve what the knight needs to do
(say, stop a pawn from queening).

Besides, even if Alexander's Technique was useless, your own much
vaunted alternative method would be just as useless, since it does no
more (and, I'd argue, quite a bit less) than Alexander's Technique does.

On Thu, 11 Oct 2007 13:33:15 -0000 SBD wrote:

I think the reason this can't be discussed intelligently is that we
really need to see some of these wonderful examples (using the
language of chess, not words) in the book, but if they turn out to be
nonsense, we''ll just feel cheated on the price of the book...... and
evidently Alexander has no free samples to give, say from a web site??

Well, the examples in the book are just examples of how the method is
applied (ie. a starting and destination square are shown, and then the
method is followed, step by step, until the answer is arrived at).

They're not examples designed to illustrate the kinds of **positions**
where wanting to find out the minimum number of moves a knight would
take to get from one square to another would be useful. In other
words, no other pieces or pawns are shown to be on the board. And
you're not told (or are expected to infer) why moving to that square
might be desirable. That's all up to the player to figure out by other
means.

So, while I'm sure it would be nice to see the examples of the method
in action given in the book, that would give away the method itself,
and would make buying the book (to a certain extent) superfluous...
which is something that I feel would be unfair to the author,
considering all the hard work he obviously put in to figuring out and
publishing the method in the first place.

foot wrote:
David Richerby wrote:
Alexander's Technique only tells you the answer to the question
`What is the minimum number of moves required to get a knight from
A to B on a completely empty chess board.' [...]

Whether or not other pieces interfere, the knight in question is
never going to take less than the minimum number of moves, given by
Alexander's Technique, to reach a square. Thus, the method can
still be useful in situations where there are other pieces on the
board.

While the knight can, of course, never get to the target square in
less than the minimum number of moves (say five), if the knight can
cause sufficient threats on the way (or give check), it might still be
able to get there before the opponent makes five moves towards his
goal (such as promoting a given pawn).

I wouldn't press the point strongly but, in a way, the knight can
cross the board in `less than' the minimum number of moves.


Besides, even if Alexander's Technique was useless, your own much
vaunted alternative method would be just as useless, since it does
no more (and, I'd argue, quite a bit less) than Alexander's
Technique does.

I note that it's offside for me to call AT `fancy' but just fine for
you to call my technique `much vaunted'.


Dave.

--
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www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ roasted nut but it can't exist!

foot wrote:
David Richerby wrote:
I assure you that I'm just an ordinary player. I have no especial
skill at the game.

I think you do. You've already demonstrated that you know more than
most chess players by the rules you've set out in your own
technique,

Correction: I have already demonstrated that I know more than you
believe most chess players know.


Conversely, though you yourself don't seem to mind using some rules
such as this (the ones you already know), you object to learning
more such rules. If you were consistent, you'd denounce your 3x3
rule and all the rest of the time-saving rules you know and insist
on using pure trial and error knight moves.

That doesn't follow at all. I have proposed a small set of
special-case rules plus a (chess-based) technique for getting to a
place where those rules can be applied. You are advocating a much
larger set of rules. My position is that a large number of those
rules are redundant because their effects can be obtained from simple
chess calculation.


And yet you embrace such rules on the one hand (apparently, when
you've come up with them yourself or got them from some other
source), but object to them when they come from this book.

My objection to the technique is emphatically not that I didn't invent
it or find out about it before you did.


Well, the trial and error parts of the method you describe is
[...] more like trying to solve a maze by randomly picking
directions, instead of always making right hand turns.

No, for two reasons. Firstly, I'm not advocating moving randomly.
Secondly, the moving the knight close to the right direction and then
correcting at the end always works.

"Moving in the direction of your goal" in a maze is not a very
good strategy.

That's exactly what I wrote in my next sentence:

Trying to move in the right direction in a maze might send you
completely the wrong way.

I guess you haven't solved many mazes, because if you had you'd know
that in an ordinary maze this strategy (always making right-hand turns)
is guaranteed to get you out, while choosing random directions to go in
or "moving in the direction of your goal" can keep you lost in the maze
forever (given a large enough maze).

That's exactly what I meant by `might send you completely the wrong
way'! I was trying to move towards the goal in a maze is a bad
strategy. (By the way, always turning in the same direction only
works if the maze is connected, which most traditional hedge mazes
are.)

But knights don't move in a maze. They move on a chess board, in a
very regular way and, specifically, in a way that means that heading
towards the goal until you get close to it will always work.

But, hey, it works for you... and you seem to be in no hurry to
improve on it.

I'm in no hurry to improve because I can already get the correct
answer faster than I could using the technique and at least as
accurately. The technique just isn't an improvement.

Well, considering that you neither know nor have ever tried the
technique, I don't think you're any position to claim that your
method gets the correct answer faster.

OK, perhaps my method isn't strictly faster but I doubt that it would
be any slower. Besides, my method is fast enough that it is far from
being the weakest point of my chess playing. I'd benefit much more
from spending an afternoon working on my tactics or studying a couple
of master games than I would from learning this method.


Also, I would question whether your method gets the correct answer
each time, as it seems to involve trial and error and guessing.

It's not let me down yet... I've already explained that it's
practically impossible to guess wrong but you just jump up and down on
this word `guess' as if it necessarily implies inaccuracy.


Dave.

--
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