@NimzoFloridian said in #19:
> Personally, I think modern chess concepts (words) like "initiative, space, development, material" have real value in the see and evaluate skills. Often when I am weighing one move over another, I will consider what these moves do for me, and how important that specific concept currently is in the position. Also, when identifying candidates, I might ask questions like "What can I do to keep the initiative?" or "What are good candidates for continuing my development?" or even better: "Do I have any moves that accomplish or initiate several ideas at once."
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> For example when playing the white side of a Yugoslav Attack in the Dragon, often material is less important than the other three. So in my move choices I will be less inclined to preserve my h-pawn if losing it advances one or more of the other three significantly. Mind you, concrete variations are still important, but when I am making a "good decision" I tend to allow these modern chess concepts to help direct where I will spend the most time evaluating.
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> Still, I like where you are going with this. Your main point is not that modern chess concepts are wrong per se, but that they may not be a good basis for improvement. Learning them, while useful, may have poor returns on improvement, if you haven't refined your mental processes for move selection. I agree! But they are still ultimately useful, IMO.
Thank you for your thoughtful and constructive feedback! Indeed it may be the case that certain concepts from modern chess are beneficial when it comes to seeing and evaluating. I actually believe this to be true specifically with seeing (and I'll discuss this more when I talk about the idea of 'vision tools' later). However I'm more sceptical of the helpfulness of such concepts when evaluating - that's what I'll be discussing in the next part.
> Personally, I think modern chess concepts (words) like "initiative, space, development, material" have real value in the see and evaluate skills. Often when I am weighing one move over another, I will consider what these moves do for me, and how important that specific concept currently is in the position. Also, when identifying candidates, I might ask questions like "What can I do to keep the initiative?" or "What are good candidates for continuing my development?" or even better: "Do I have any moves that accomplish or initiate several ideas at once."
>
> For example when playing the white side of a Yugoslav Attack in the Dragon, often material is less important than the other three. So in my move choices I will be less inclined to preserve my h-pawn if losing it advances one or more of the other three significantly. Mind you, concrete variations are still important, but when I am making a "good decision" I tend to allow these modern chess concepts to help direct where I will spend the most time evaluating.
>
> Still, I like where you are going with this. Your main point is not that modern chess concepts are wrong per se, but that they may not be a good basis for improvement. Learning them, while useful, may have poor returns on improvement, if you haven't refined your mental processes for move selection. I agree! But they are still ultimately useful, IMO.
Thank you for your thoughtful and constructive feedback! Indeed it may be the case that certain concepts from modern chess are beneficial when it comes to seeing and evaluating. I actually believe this to be true specifically with seeing (and I'll discuss this more when I talk about the idea of 'vision tools' later). However I'm more sceptical of the helpfulness of such concepts when evaluating - that's what I'll be discussing in the next part.