On Oct 12, 7:50 am, David Richerby
wrote:

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

It has been a rather odd debate from his side. He reminds me of the
colleagues I had who would send proposals and such your way for review
and print, in big letters, CONSTRUCTIVE criticism requested. It meant
they wanted no criticism at all! In fact, trying to help them was the
biggest mistake you could make - it got so that later in my academic
career I just sent such things back with some triviality like "Good
idea!" attached - it was not even worth reading. If you wanted them to
think you really read it you just thought up some other nice comment
to include in the middle as well as noting 2-3 spelling errors.....

He called for discussion, but then felt compelled simply to attack
anything you noted, instead of thinking, "hey, maybe the method does
suck after all!" or trying to boost its value with salient examples
(beyond the most simplistic tripe).

And of course, being chained to a method rather than understanding why
the method works - and thus, moving beyond it - keeps his discourse
(and probably playing ability) very limited.

At this point I would simply consider him a shill for the book. Things
like "hard work that went into the book" and "giving it away" are
laughable- at best it is a parlor trick on the level of "Hey! I found
a quarter behind your ear!" - and thus, not even worth the discussion
he claimed to want. If the method can be given away that easily, it is
not worth paying for.

foot wrote:
David Richerby wrote:
foot 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.

In what way? It does exactly the same thing.

Not to mention that you didn't have any diagrams illustrating what
you were describing.

What diagrams would you suggest to enhance the explanation?

I would rather have something clearly explained in more pages than a
optimally condensed, but less than optimally clear explanation.

So would I. But what part of my explanation was causing difficulties
for you? Perhaps I can explain that part better.

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.

If I did claim that it took all eighty pages after you'd already said
that only eight pages gave the method, I apologise for the inaccuracy
and any confusion that may have caused. As I recall, I merely
complained that I didn't see the need for an eighty-page book on the
topic and, really, it doesn't matter what the other seventy-two pages
contain.

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?

If a method can't be explained in one page but an alternative method
of doing exactly the same thing can be explained in one page, I know
which one I'll go for.


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.

No, it's a trivial way to do something nearly trivial. How many such
rules does Alexander's Technique actually have? You've not actually
said, as I recall, other than that it takes eight pages to list them.


Dave.

--
David Richerby Miniature Widget (TM): it's like a
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ thingy but you can hold in it your
hand!

On Oct 12, 8:09 am, David Richerby
wrote:

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

A good point. Too many chess books are already "written down" for a
mass audience of idiots. Every so often some unknown pops up with such
a book - "Chess Puzzles for the Causal Player!" and other such rot,
trying to claim you'll be able to beat the local 500 Elo with a
minimum of work. Find an old Reinfeld pdf on the web for free, and
you'll learn more in an hour by going over classic games and puzzles
than you would from 40 hours of study of tripe like that.

These books for "average" or "casual" players are often written by
folks who have no business trying to teach you chess.

On 12 Oct 2007 13:50:07 +0100 (BST)
David Richerby wrote:

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.

In certain circumstances, yes. And then it's up to the player to
figure out if those circumstances apply to the position on the board.
But if, say, your king is not anywhere near the path of your opponent's
knight, he's not going to be able to give check to your king on the way
to the queening pawn.

In fact, in my own endgames where knights have tried to stop pawns from
queening, it's pretty rare that these knights manage to get to the
pawns "faster" by giving check along the way. Of course, your mileage
may vary... and, as I said, don't expect the method to do all the work
for you in every conceivable situation. But, overall, when knights are
involved in a series of moves it's useful.

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'.

You are vaunting about your technique... constantly. So to call it
"much vaunted" is simply to state a fact. Whereas I don't even know
where you got the idea that Alexander's Technique was "fancy" in any
way. What does it even mean for a technique to be "fancy"? Sounds
like it serves no function except to be a pejorative.

On Fri, 12 Oct 2007 13:15:21 -0000
SBD wrote:

On Oct 12, 7:50 am, David Richerby
wrote:

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

It has been a rather odd debate from his side. He reminds me of the
colleagues I had who would send proposals and such your way for review
and print, in big letters, CONSTRUCTIVE criticism requested. It meant
they wanted no criticism at all! In fact, trying to help them was the
biggest mistake you could make - it got so that later in my academic
career I just sent such things back with some triviality like "Good
idea!" attached - it was not even worth reading. If you wanted them to
think you really read it you just thought up some other nice comment
to include in the middle as well as noting 2-3 spelling errors.....

Cute anecdote.

He called for discussion, but then felt compelled simply to attack
anything you noted, instead of thinking, "hey, maybe the method does
suck after all!" or trying to boost its value with salient examples
(beyond the most simplistic tripe).

At this point I would simply consider him a shill for the book. Things
like "hard work that went into the book" and "giving it away" are
laughable- at best it is a parlor trick on the level of "Hey! I found
a quarter behind your ear!" - and thus, not even worth the discussion
he claimed to want.

It's very constructive criticism on your part to call the method taught
in the book a "parlor trick". We're all very grateful for your
insight. You know, when I hear constructive criticism of that caliber,
my heart swells with pride at the wonder that is USENET.

If the method can be given away that easily, it is
not worth paying for.

Right. It's impossible for simple, useful methods to be worth
anything. They all have to be complex, unwieldy, and hard to teach.
Only then do you know you're getting your money's worth.

And of course, being chained to a method rather than understanding why
the method works - and thus, moving beyond it - keeps his discourse
(and probably playing ability) very limited.

"Understanding why the method works"? Just how has anyone here offered
any insight in to that at all? You don't even know the method, much
less know why it works. In fact, half the book is an explanation of
why it work... so I really don't know what you're getting at here.

And as for "moving beyond" the method, that's a joke, coming from
people who insist on sticking with trial and error jumping around that
they've used since childhood. Where's your willingness to "move beyond"
that method?

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

You are vaunting about your technique... constantly. So to call it
"much vaunted" is simply to state a fact.

I've promoted it no more than you've promoted Alexander's. I've
presented it as a simple way of doing something that isn't difficult;
you've presented Alexander's technique as some great discovery that
will be of practical benefit to most chess players. It sounds to me
that your use of the phrase `much vaunted' serves no function except
to be a hypocritical perjorative.


Dave.

--
David Richerby Crystal Dangerous T-Shirt (TM):
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ it's like a fashion statement but it
could explode at any minute and it's
completely transparent!

foot wrote:
David Richerby wrote:
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)"

OK. Fifteen seconds is a long time, even as a worst case. I didn't
time my technique, either, but I can confidently say that I was
plotting paths in only two or three seconds, with confidence that I'd
done it right. Ten seconds is a long 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.

Typo, sorry. `b3' should be `c3'. Do you really think I believed
that it's legal to move a knight from e2 to b3 to a4?


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.

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.

Nice attempt to distract from your inability to plot a path between
the two squares. Rather than admit you'd made a mistake, you attack
me for a mistake I didn't make, thus compounding your error.

Any two diagonally adjacent squares are two moves apart, unless one or
the other is a corner, in which case they're four moves apart (as I
said upthread). Since neither b5 nor a6 is a corner, I didn't bother
to state the side condition, which is irrelevant to this case.


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.

I see. You're very happy to make bold assertions about what `most
chess players' do or do not know but you're not willing to state your
qualification for making such assertions.


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.

Yes but it's extremely easy to verify whether the king can reach the
queening square in time. In contrast, there don't even appear to be
any conditions which will tell you whether the answer given by
Alexander (for the totally unobstructed case) is achievable given,
say, that there is an enemy pawn on some particular square. The only
way you can check is to actually find a route.


And yet, applying your reasoning, [the rule of the square] 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.

Put your straw man down, please. I accept the rule of squares because
it is simple, easy to verify and demonstrably easier than plotting the
trajectories of the pieces. I reject Alexander's technique because
there are many rules, and it is hard to verify that the `theoretical'
answer is achievable without actually plotting trajectories. Using
Alexander's technique means that one has to both use the technique and
find a path; just finding a path means you only have to find a path.


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.

I disagree on all three points, as I've explained in detail on several
occasions.


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.

So, you'd rather stick to discussing the technique rather than
discussing you but you're perfectly happy to discuss me. My reasons
for not learning the technique have nothing to do with laziness.


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

The following things gave me the impression that you have great
difficulty finding the path a knight must take between two squares.

1) With a knight on b5 trying to get to a6, a mere two moves away, you
asked, `now where?'
2) You said you didn't find it obvious that there is no two-move
knight path from g6 to a4.
3) You said it wasn't obvious to you that there's no path from g1 to
a6 in only three moves.
4) You spent a while challenging me to find paths of varying lengths
between squares; there would be no point challenging me to do
something you thought was easy.

but even if that were the case, that's not a shortcoming of
Alexander's Technique, but a completely separate issue.

Yes it is a shortcoming. Because in order to use the technique in a
game, you must be able to find the path; if you can't find the path,
what use is it to know that it's there?


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.

No, it's not criticism of the technique. It does, however, establish
that you are unqualified to judge the merits of the technique and
unqualified to condemn my technique as error-prone.


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.

It is evaluation of your ability, not criticism of it. I even gave
suggestions of how to improve.


Dave.

--
David Richerby Strange Slimy Composer (TM): it's like
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ a pupil of Beethoven but it's covered
in goo and totally weird!

On Oct 12, 9:04 am, foot wrote:


It's very constructive criticism on your part to call the method taught
in the book a "parlor trick". We're all very grateful for your
insight. You know, when I hear constructive criticism of that caliber,
my heart swells with pride at the wonder that is USENET.

Can you show it is any more than that? Or will we again enter the
circular argument of "giving it away"? If you cannot even show one
example of its supposed superiority, why should we bother? All you
keep doing is insisting that this method is "better" and you don't
even know what it is better than - except that, supposedly, without
it, all is "trial and error."


If the method can be given away that easily, it is
not worth paying for.

Right. It's impossible for simple, useful methods to be worth
anything. They all have to be complex, unwieldy, and hard to teach.
Only then do you know you're getting your money's worth.


I prefer not to spend anything at all on a dubious method for doing
something that is already simple to do. You continue to claim that we
wallow in some pool of complexity; that assumption is flawed.

On 12 Oct 2007 14:09:22 +0100 (BST)
David Richerby wrote:

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.

Do you really think most chess players know the method you describe?
Or really anything more than to just use trial and error to move their
knight around (in their head) when looking to find the minimum
number of moves it takes to get to a given square? I don't. I really
doubt they even know your 3x3 rule, or that it always takes an even
number of moves to get to a same-colored square.

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.

So first you were objecting to the fact that Alexander's Technique used
rules at all instead of trial and error mucking about with the knight,
until I pointed out that your own method also used rules. And now you
object to there being too many of these rules?

This is quite similar to what you did earlier when you objected to
having to read 80 whole pages to learn the method, but when I pointed
out that you'd only need to read 8 pages, that suddenly wasn't good
enough for you either.

You're obviously never going to be satisfied, and are determined to
reject the method no matter what its real merits are.

But, back to your new objection about Alexander's Technique consisting
of "a much larger set of rules". You don't even know the method, or how
many rules it has, so how can you make pronouncements about there
being a "much larger set" of them?

And even if Alexander's Technique has more rules than your method, does
that necessarily mean the method is not worth learning? Chess is not
a simple game. How many hundreds of rules do chess players eagerly
learn in order to play the game well at all? Could the learning of
rules, when they make your task easier, faster, and more reliable be
worth it? I think so, when the alternative is a slow, unreliable trial
and error method that might lead to confusion over the board.

My position is that a large number of those rules are redundant
because their effects can be obtained from simple chess calculation.

The classic rule of the square endgame method is also "redundant" in
that the results you get from applying it can be obtained from simple
chess calculation. Yet it's considered a basic endgame technique which
I doubt you'd have much luck getting players to abandon.

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.

So you claim. But that seems to be the only explanation consistent
with the facts.

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.

Ooops. Since I had mentioned the strategy of always making right hand
turn, I misread what you said as "trying to [always] move right in
a maze might send you completely the wrong way". My mistake. We
actually seem to be in agreement here.

But knights don't move in a maze.

Actually, it is quite analogous to a maze, where (imagining) moving the
knight by trial and error can get you "lost", or at least send you
temporarily down the wrong path. The whole point of Alexander's
Technique is to try to improve upon this inefficient and error prone
method of counting knight moves.

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.

Well, as I said, whether you learn this method or not is none of my
concern. It's no skin off my back either way. However, I do hope that
other people will decide whether a method like this can be useful for
themselves.

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.

It implies the possibility of inaccuracy... a much great possibility of
inaccuracy than Alexander's Technique, anyway.

--Sergey

On Fri, 12 Oct 2007 16:51:14 -0000 SBD wrote:

On Oct 12, 9:04 am, foot wrote:


It's very constructive criticism on your part to call the method
taught in the book a "parlor trick". We're all very grateful for
your insight. You know, when I hear constructive criticism of that
caliber, my heart swells with pride at the wonder that is USENET.

Can you show it is any more than that? Or will we again enter the
circular argument of "giving it away"?

It's not a circular argument that revealing the method gives it away.
That's what giving the method away means: revealing it. This is a
simple statement of fact. The argument is that I don't want to reveal
the method because I feel it would be unfair to the author, who
deserves to be rewarded for his work.

If you wish for the method to be revealed without reading the book, I
suggest you talk to the author, not to me... because I'm not doing it.

If you cannot even show one example of its supposed superiority,
why should we bother?

I gave you the reasons why and I gave you examples of situations where
it would be useful. Now, as to **proving** that the method actually
does work without error and as quickly as I claimed requires actually
using the method, and using the method requires learning the method.
And you can't learn the method unless either A - I reveal the method
(which I'm not going to do), or B - you get the book yourself (which
you evidently aren't going to do).

All you keep doing is insisting that this method is "better" and
you don't even know what it is better than - except that,
supposedly, without it, all is "trial and error."

What?

Have you actually followed this conversation? I was talking about the
"ordinary" method of counting knight moves (which is just to try making
some moves until you get to your destination square), and the method Mr
Richerby outlined (which involves some of the same, along with a few of
his own rules). That's what Alexander's Technique is better than.

If the method can be given away that easily, it is
not worth paying for.

Right. It's impossible for simple, useful methods to be worth
anything. They all have to be complex, unwieldy, and hard to teach.
Only then do you know you're getting your money's worth.

I prefer not to spend anything at all on a dubious method for doing
something that is already simple to do.

Simple. Error prone. And slow.

While Alexander's Technique is also simple, but not nearly as error
prone, and it's faster.

You continue to claim that we wallow in some pool of complexity;
that assumption is flawed.

Well, you might not... perhaps the shortest path that a knight could
take to a given square is as obvious as a one-move knight move to you
(in which case you've got some extraordinary ability far superior
to your average chess player). But, if not, and you use the "ordinary"
trial and error method of counting knight moves then you are wallowing
in needless complexity because the technique taught in this book is
more simpler, faster, and more reliable.

And I'm starting to get really sick of repeating myself here and of all
this endless bickering.

When I reviewed the book I didn't intend to start a 100 message flame
war. I think I've said all I can say here without continuing to repeat
myself, and I also think we understand each other at this point, and
aren't going to convince each other either way. So further discussion
of this is pretty useless.

So I'm going to reply to all the outstanding messages in this thread at
this moment and call it a day. You guys can continue arguing with each
other, or agreeing with each other, or whatever... I'm bored of it,
and, frankly, have much better things to do than repeat myself on this
issue.