Watching Chess Videos = Reading Chess Books?

@kindaspongey said in #4:
> The thing about reading is that it is very easy to frequently pause, think, and resume where you left off. If someone says that 7 Nd4 is necessary after 1 d4 e5 2 dxe5 Nc6 3 Nf3 Qe7 4 Bf4 Qb4+ 5 Bd2 Qxb2 6 Nc3 Nb4, you can make sure that you understand why before you go on.
@MatthewLikesChess said in #20:
> ... Could you explain yourself better? ...
@kindaspongey said in #14:
> ... Typically, before one can act to stop a video, the speaker has proceeded into the next topic. After resolving the issue (perceiving the reason for 7 Nd4 or whatever), one has to try to go back and find the spot where one wanted to stop in order to resume. ...

Reading a book is better. Learning from video is slow.

Reading is a much more active mental procedure than listening and watching. It engages the brain in harder processing.

From a purely practical point of view, a video chess lesson is more effective due to its immediacy ( you see the moves, visual memorization is easier, the comments are more detailed than those that can be written, there is more information); but probably the effort that reading a chess book forces you to make compensates the advantages of that other learning method.

In any case, reading is always useful in itself. As a mental exercise it has no comparison.

It's a bit like schooling, you get the video(teacher) in class but the real learning occurs when doing the homework.

@MatthewLikesChess said in #17:
> I love the effort you put for this entire message, thanks. Btw, you're right, when i study openings theory, i often look into lichess's database rather in the masters' database where i find higher accuracy moves. In the lichess's database i can find moves that players at my level play and they're the most frequent moves.

Thanks. It's well worth the time to maintain your own games database to spot trends as well. If you have a PC then LucasChess free software is a good choice although there are others. From my game analysis the most serious errors occur in the early middlegame which is why I would recommend a book on Strategy if you're at the intermediate level. Silman's 'Re-access your chess(?)' is widely highly rated and might be worth a try. It's not what I use but what I am doing bookwise - so far - isn't working out. Pretty sure videos would not be a good solution either as you really need to do lots of exercises (similar to tactics training) - the book I do use seems too tough for me as far as the exercises go. I do own a ChessKing Intermediate Strategy course which I am thinking of switching to, however I'll give my current book a few more weeks - tough going.

@AlexiHarvey said in #25:
> Thanks. It's well worth the time to maintain your own games database to spot trends as well. If you have a PC then LucasChess free software is a good choice although there are others. From my game analysis the most serious errors occur in the early middlegame which is why I would recommend a book on Strategy if you're at the intermediate level. Silman's 'Re-access your chess(?)' is widely highly rated and might be worth a try. It's not what I use but what I am doing bookwise - so far - isn't working out. Pretty sure videos would not be a good solution either as you really need to do lots of exercises (similar to tactics training) - the book I do use seems too tough for me as far as the exercises go. I do own a ChessKing Intermediate Strategy course which I am thinking of switching to, however I'll give my current book a few more weeks - tough going.

Do you suggest any books by any chance? Like i have "Improve Your Chess Calculation" and "Logical Decision Making" for strategy.

@a_Tauri said in #23:
> ... a video chess lesson is more effective due to its immediacy ( you see the moves, visual memorization is easier,
But, is it desirable to use a method of presentation that pushes one towards memorization without time for understanding? Am I better off just remembering that 4...d5 is the right move after 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc5 Nf6 4 Ng5, or is it better to understand why 4...Nxe4 is not a good idea?
@a_Tauri said in #23:
> the comments are more detailed than those that can be written, there is more information); ...
Really? My guess is that a typical Evans Gambit video is not going to have as much detail as the 28 pages on the subject in First Steps: 1 e4 e5.
www.newinchess.com/media/wysiwyg/product_pdf/7790.pdf
Even if a video does have more detail, does one necessarily want to try to take in all that detail at one time?
"... you certainly don’t need to remember every single variation and all the notes before playing the opening. Take in the first few moves and the key ideas, and then try it out in your games! ..." - GM John Emms (2018)
Maybe, for example, one would prefer to initially skip the 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Bc5 4 b4 Bxb4 5 c3 Be7 section, focus on 5...Ba4, and be able to quickly and easily find the 5...Be7 material for later examination.
"... The way I suggest you study this book is to play through the main games once, relatively quickly, and then start playing the variation in actual games. Playing an opening in real games is of vital importance - without this kind of live practice it is impossible to get a 'feel' for the kind of game it leads to. There is time enough later for involvement with the details, after playing your games it is good to look up the line. ..." - GM Nigel Davies (2005)
In 2014, GM David Smerdon wrote, "I recently took a train from Amsterdam to the quaint little Belgium town of Bruges. Looking for a book to keep me occupied for the four hour ride, I remembered ... Richard Pert’s Playing the Trompowsky ... And indeed, I was able to read the whole book, cover to cover, during the ride; ... It’s only 260 pages ... I decided to reread the book on the four hour return journey to Amsterdam."
One can look at some typical pages at:
qualitychess.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/PlayingtheTrompowsky-excerpt.pdf
Does it seem at all likely that Smerdon was really taking in all that material at the rate of ~1.1 pages per minute for 4 hours? My guess is that he was using the Davies suggested reading method. By the way, in case you are wondering, 2014 was about 6 years after the movie, In Bruges.

It's too easy to turn off your brain while watching a video.

Much harder to do with a book when you have to actually translate in your mind all the annotations.

Therefore Book > Video for improvement.
Video > Book for entertainement though.

@MatthewLikesChess said in #26:
> Do you suggest any books by any chance? Like i have "Improve Your Chess Calculation" and "Logical Decision Making" for strategy.

Afraid not. I mentioned Silman's 'Reaccess your chess' because it's consistently highly rated. The book I did purchase was another impulsive buy that is lesser known but still popular, and I can't at present recommend it - book may be fine just too tough for me.

One book I did like very much was Pandolfini 'Weapons of Chess' (very mis-named) but the reasons for this probably don't apply. The book is a series of fairly short basic strategy articles, chiefly concerned with pawn-play but with some decent all round advice for beginners. It's really a 'just-up-from-beginners' book topping out at say 1200 elo. That said, it's stuff all players have to know very well - and there was enough that I didn't know. It has no exercises and can be read easily without broad+pieces as there is little in the way of lines of analysis etc (all moves have a diagram). It's very useful because if you have a spare 3-5mins you can just dip into it where ever you are - very handy. But for an immediate player aiming to improve probably not worth the purchase price compared to more meaty books. Although if you can find a cheap second-hand copy ...

What I have found, which I believe is working, is a bit complicated and outside the topic of this thread - I used LucasChess to produce 12000+ puzzles based on ALL my game errors, I do 20 (10 white 10 black) of these a day - I am definitely spotting a few weakness that are related to poor understanding of strategy, although more in line with what I would call 'move blindness' - i.e. just not considering particular types of move at all. This took a very long time to set up - I believe the website 'Chessable' does similar for a subscription.

Anyway Silman's 'How to play chess' course has just arrived, the guidebook seems to be at 'Weapons of Chess' level - which is perhaps to be expected.

@AlexiHarvey said in #29:
> Afraid not. I mentioned Silman's 'Reaccess your chess' because it's consistently highly rated. The book I did purchase was another impulsive buy that is lesser known but still popular, and I can't at present recommend it - book may be fine just too tough for me.
>
> One book I did like very much was Pandolfini 'Weapons of Chess' (very mis-named) but the reasons for this probably don't apply. The book is a series of fairly short basic strategy articles, chiefly concerned with pawn-play but with some decent all round advice for beginners. It's really a 'just-up-from-beginners' book topping out at say 1200 elo. That said, it's stuff all players have to know very well - and there was enough that I didn't know. It has no exercises and can be read easily without broad+pieces as there is little in the way of lines of analysis etc (all moves have a diagram). It's very useful because if you have a spare 3-5mins you can just dip into it where ever you are - very handy. But for an immediate player aiming to improve probably not worth the purchase price compared to more meaty books. Although if you can find a cheap second-hand copy ...
>
> What I have found, which I believe is working, is a bit complicated and outside the topic of this thread - I used LucasChess to produce 12000+ puzzles based on ALL my game errors, I do 20 (10 white 10 black) of these a day - I am definitely spotting a few weakness that are related to poor understanding of strategy, although more in line with what I would call 'move blindness' - i.e. just not considering a particular types of move at all. This took a very long time to set up - I believe the website 'Chessable' does similar for a subscription.
>
> Anyway Silman's 'How to play chess' course has just arrived, the guidebook seems to be at 'Weapons of Chess' level - which is perhaps to be expected.

Aight, thanks.