Chess Improvement for old f***s

I am 65 yrs old and retired.

Besta leiðin til að halda andlegum styrk á gullöldum er að læra nýtt tungumál og nýta það. Þess vegna ætla ég að flytja til Íslands, sem hefur hæsta fjölda stórmeistara og skákmanna í heiminum miðað við íbúafjölda.

https://outpostmagazine.com/chess-lover-iceland-bill-schroeder/

Back in the late 80s, in my first year in the big city, I read the book "No Laughing Matter" by Joseph Heller (Catch 22). It documents his struggle with Guillaume- Barre Syndrome, a neuromuscular disorder. One morning he felt a little numbness in his fingertips, by the end of the day he was totally incapacitated. He described the recovery effort as the greatest time of his life. The joy of learning how to do everything all over again., and getting it done. That really stuck with me. I thought about that idea and chess, but that would not be possible, short of some serious bio-technological intervention. SO I decided simply to "re-write" my chess knowledge. Maybe I'll title it "Skák á minn hátt" (tip of the hat to The Golden Bear). Here's the first paragraph, the rest I'll put in a blog. The translation needs work. first problem was the word "files", when translated from English to Icelandic and back to English comes back as rows. Computers can't do everything I guess.

Skák er hugsuðursleikur, leikur sem byggir á hreinni færni, þar sem tvær vitsmunaverur, hvor um sig stjórna her sextán skák-"tákna" (fígúrur úr plasti eða tré, eins og litlar styttur), para saman vit sitt frá gagnstæðum endum ferkantaðs leikflatar sem kallast borð. Skákborð hefur sextíu og fjóra til skiptis ljósa og dökka reiti, raðað í rist sem samanstendur af átta dálkum og átta röðum. Leikurinn byrjar með tveimur herjum, sem kallast "Hvítur" og "Svartur", raðað upp í stöðluðum röðum eftir fyrstu tveimur röðum í hvorum enda borðsins. Hvítur spilar fyrst, síðan skiptast verurnar á að færa taflmenn sína á milli reita með það að markmiði að "skáka" óvininum, hugmynd sem mun skýrast síðar.

more to come soon.

OK, perhaps Iceland is a little over the top, but learning a new language is a big part of my plan. Let me backstep...

We have all seen the research that says chess improves this, that, and everything else. But my research says it pretty much boils down to powers of concentration. I say concentration is an aspect of physical fitness. It can be exercised and improved upon, which leads to improvement in other areas. But conventional wisdom says we begin to go into cognitive decline in our forties. But after a few decades of having our heads wrapped around chess, perhaps we are not likely to strengthen our concentration by continuing to do things the same old way.

OK, there are many "exercises" that strengthen concentration besides chess. We can talk about sudoku, crossword puzzles, and other mind games such as Mastermind, Othello, Xiangtzee (Chines Chess), etc. Also part of the plan is learning to read music with a new instrument, such as piano which I don't understand. But learning a new language and using it is at the top of the list. Maybe Russian. I know a man who has a link to a pdf database that contains every issue of Shahkmaty Bulletin, back to the beginning, in Russian of course. That would would keep me busy. But doing OCR and running it through Google Translate would not be learning the language, would it?

On the chess front, doing something new after decades in the game pretty much means learning new openings, perhaps trying a new style. For example, I have always been a 1.d4 or 1.Nf3 player and a Sicilian/QGD player. So part of the program might be to play 1...e5 for a while, then the French, the Caro, etc. That would prepare me to incorporate 1.e4 into my repertoire, you get the drift.

The plan is to have maybe three different websites to use. Playchess (chessbase.com) would be my site for "serious" real-time chess, the one by which I would measure my improvement. Most of my time learning new opengs would be on chessworld.net, the best correspondence site. They have an ECO database, with supplementary positions for each code, that you can use to create thematic challenges and tournaments from any position in the database. These are double round robin tournaments, playing both sides of the opening. I don't plan to "study the lines" all that much, except as needed. Just play the openings from the ECO tabiya.

lichess I suppose would be mostly a training ground, and where I do most of my writing.

Anyways, that's pretty much how I'm going to do it. If there are any of you that are on conventional wisdom's "over the hill list" who would like to participate in any of this, great just PM me. I have never played a FIDE rated game, but based on internet results my ELO should be over 2000. My member federation rating is 1800, but that is 20 years old and not representative.

Of course any feedback here is welcome, but I'll be sticking to the plan.

By the way, I was serious in the first post. Here's the first few paragraphs in English, I've already got many pages, could probably go on forever. That'll be in my blog.

Here are few links that have influenced my thinking

1. An essay by GM Jonathan Rowson. He has a way with words for sure, but I don't see that he has any better way forward than the rest of us. btw. Rowson's website is very interesting. Rowson bills himself as Philosopher, Chess Grandmaster, Writer, in that order.

https://aeon.co/essays/playing-chess-is-an-essential-life-lesson-in-concentration
https://www.jonathanrowson.me/

An article filed with the National Library of Medicine, aka The National Center for Biotechnology information.
The title: The Effects of Chess Instruction on Pupils' Cognitive and Academic Skills: State of the Art and Theoretical Challenges

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5322219/

And one more ...

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282555981_The_Effect_of_Playing_Chess_on_the_Concentration_of_ADHD_Students_in_the_2nd_Cycle

Chaper 1

Chess is a thinker's game, a game of pure skill, in which two sentient beings, each commanding an army of sixteen pieces (figures made of plastic or wood, like little statues) match wits from opposite ends of a square playing surface known as a board. A chessboard has sixty-four alternating light and dark color squares, arranged in a grid consisting of eight files (vertical columns) and eight ranks (horizontal rows). The game begins with the two armies, known as White and Black, lined up in standard formation along the first two ranks at each end of the board. White opens the game, then the players take turns moving their pieces from square to square with the objective of checkmate of the enemy, a concept that will become clear in due course.

Diagram 1 is a two-dimensional representation of a chessboard with the pieces in their starting positions. Notice the light square in each player's right hand corner. Turn the board 90 degrees and you will violate the "queen on its own color" rule. Notice the letters 'a-h' across the bottom and the numbers '1-8' up the left. The letters appear below vertical files, thus from left to right we have the a-file, the b-file, ..., the h-file. For Black, this sequence goes from right to left. Similarly, the numbers appear at the side of horizontal ranks, thus from White's end to Black's we have the 1st rank, the 2nd rank, ..., the 8th rank. Now, since a square is the intersection of a file and a rank, we denote each square on the chessboard with a two character code, the first character being the letter of the corresponding file, the second being the number of the rank. For example, the square in White's near-left/Black's far right corner is the intersection of the a-file and the 1st rank, and so is denoted a1. This co-ordinate system of the chessboard (tip of the hat to Rene Descartes) forms half of what is known as algebraic notation, a short-hand method of recording the moves of a chessgame in universal use around the world. The other half is a set of piece codes, consisting usually of the first letter capitalized of the name of each piece. All of these details are arranged in the table below, which can be used to identify the pieces according to their starting positions.

<insert table>

In algebraic notation, the pawn does not need a piece code, it's moves are described using square notation only.

Since the kings start the game on the e-file and the queens the d-file, we name the e, f, g and h files collectively the kingside and the d,c,b and a-files the queenside. This allows us to designate the wings of the chessboard using terms that mean the same to both White and Black, which is not the case with left and right.

The shifting of a piece from one square to another is called a "move". If there is an enemy piece on the destination square it is "captured" (permanently removed from the board) before being replaced. Now, if a piece is moved to a square from which it can capture an enemy piece on its next move, it is said to attack the enemy piece. If the enemy piece is the king, the enemy is said to be "in check". Now, the rules dictate that the enemy must then get "out of check" at all costs, perhaps by moving the king or by capturing the attacking piece. If no defence can be found, the enemy is said to be "checkmated".

OK, we can see from the table that there are six types of pieces, each with different powers (ways of moving). To help us compare the powers of the pieces, there has evolved a system of point-values, in which each piece is assigned a number that reflects its strength relative to that of the other pieces. The higher the number the more powerful the piece, other things being equal.

<insert table>

From this table we can make assessments such as "a queen is almost twice as powerful as a rook but slightly less powerful than two rooks" or "a bishop and a knight is about as valuable as a rook and a pawn". We can also add up all of the point values for each side to determine if a player has a "material advantage" (a numerically, on paper if you will) army.

Before we put the point-value system to use, we first expand upon this concept of "attack" and "capture". If a piece is "under attack", the owner can either allow the piece to be captured, move the piece that is under attack, or initiate a counterattack elsewhere, that would give the owner compensation if his/her piece is to be captured. It is the first option we are interested in at this point. There are two possibilities. The defending player might simply overlook that his/her piece is under attack and allow it to be captured without compensation. This is known in the business as "hanging a piece", which of course means a favorable shift in the "material balance" for the first player. If the player sees that that the piece is under attack, he/she can ensure that the piece is "protected", which means having a second piece in a position that can capture the capturing piece in turn. This is known as an "exchange of pieces", and is where the point-value system comes into play. If the first piece is of greater value than the second piece, the exchange will favor the second player, by an amount equal to the difference between the values of the two pieces. Similarly, if the second piece is of greater value than the first, the exchange favors the first player. By far the most common is that the two pieces are of equal value, in which case there is no change in the material balance.

Viktor Korchnoi is as good a role model as any, a man who remained a competitive grandmaster into his 70s. The following AI on the man trikes me as being a key to his success.

The quote "I don't study; I create" is attributed to the famous chess player Viktor Korchnoi, highlighting his unique approach to chess as a creative, rather than purely academic, pursuit.

The Quote's Origin: This powerful statement comes from Viktor Korchnoi, a highly influential and skilled chess grandmaster.
Meaning: The phrase suggests that instead of passively studying existing games or theories, Korchnoi believed in actively generating new ideas and strategies on the board, embodying a creative spirit in his play.

Context: Korchnoi was known for his fierce, bold, and exciting playing style, which often led to unpredictable and thrilling games, fitting his philosophy of creation rather than mere study.

#4
Korchnoi, Smyslov, and Lasker can be role models.
Here is a game that made Korchnoi Swiss Champion at age 81.
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1682800
Here is a game of Smyslov in the Russian Championship when he was 74
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1127138
Here is a game where the 68 year-old Lasker defeated the then reigning World Champion
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1008303

Yes, those guys got it done in old age. But Korchnoi in particular, because his creative approach gives credence to my theme of trying new openings and styles.

moving on...

Sure, the evidence is out there. Extremely rare for a grandmaster to achieve significant gains once they hit middle age. But those are people who came much closer to their POTENTIAL than the average player like you and me. Even if the 40+ GM wasn’t in decline, there would not be a lot of room for growth. But there are ways for the average player to get it done, or die trying. A few people have tackled this, most notably Jeremy Silman. There is another book “Re-wire your chess brain” that I haven’t looked at. My idea is a little different, but it seems obvious, so I expect others do it also. Instead of looking for “imbalances”, I first decide where the pawn breaks are likely to be. The Sicilian is a different ball of wax. Not so much about pawn breaks. What I have found is that after getting experience with a lot of Sicilian middlegames, in the 2...e6 lines, through thematic correspondence chess, is that I can usually rely on my positional judgement to get me to where the real action is. So I don’t plan to memorize any lines. It isn’t logical. If I have to memorize a line to get me to a good middlegame, then more than likely I don't properly understand the early middlegame position I have reached. Perhaps better to have a sub-optimal position that you understand than an optimal one that you don’t. Anatoly Karpov in particular was a proponent of not going too deep with his opening preparation, considering it to be not worth the effort.

The only instructional chess book in my plan is “Chess Structures: A Grandmaster Guide, by Mauricio Flores Rios. It’s a very nice survey of pawn structures, you have chapters like The Isolani, Open Sicilian Structures, French Structures etc. This will be my guide. Other books focus on method and visualization. I decide to pass on Dvoretsky, too much work and not enough time to do it properly.

That’s about it, really. First step is to bring my Playchess ratings up to speed, so as to be able to measure my progress (or lack thereof) “....as time goes by”. Maybe I start the blog in January, after I quit smoking. That will be the most challenging part of the whole deal. Interesting that Korchnoi was always a heavy smoker. I have nothing to say about that.

Other role models are
Larry Kaufman, Algimantas Butnorius, Vladimir Okhotnik, Jānis Klovāns, Oleg Chernikov, Juzefs Petkēvičs, Yuri Shabanov, and Jens Kristiansen, who earned a direct grandmaster title by winning the FIDE World Senior Individual Championships.

Well, that's the million dollar question: "How to Improve?" Everyone that you ask will give you a different answer. People are too fixated with the end result and not with the journey. There is a classic question in chess forums "I'm XX years old. Can I get to GM?".

I mean, why are you worried if you can get to GM? Just learn to enjoy the game, enjoy the journey, go down this road and see how far can you go. Laugh on your stupid blunders, brag about your brilliant winning combinations that you found. Chess is a fascinating game, and there is too much ego involved. Chess in the popular culture is a hobby for geniuses, rocket scientists and so on. That is far from the truth. Chess is just what it is, a game! Yes, a bit of art and culture, but ultimately it is a simple board game and people play games to have a good time.

I remember a tip Nakamura gave in a video for newcomers "Enjoy the game, just don't take it too seriously". That's a great advice!

Nahhhh JUst watch this game

@rationalisedinteger said in #9:

Nahhhh JUst watch this game lichess.org/7d3VokKK

lol best game