Antillian wrote on 03/14/09 at 01:27:25:


I haven't watched the interview yet, but it should be good.

Antillian wrote on 03/14/09 at 00:58:20:


The debate raises some interesting questions I think, kind of chess philosophy... You know, if you're not interested nobody's forcing you to read or post!

Btw. Aagaard's books are great, despite his views on Watson.

snits wrote on 03/13/09 at 20:36:57:


I had the same reaction as Silman when I started reading the Attacking Manual, something like "for ****s sake, leave it alone already!" I've never understood what Watson and Aagaard really disagree about either; to me it seems like mostly semantics. 

Chess history shows a development from a narrower to a wider range of position types and strategies. So, some will say "the rules aren't rules anymore" and others will say "there are just so many more and nuanced rules to take into consideration these days"! It's just two ways of saying the same thing isn't it!?

If I have to side with one of them though, it has to be Watson. I don't believe strong players spend large parts of their thinking time on "rules"; instead any rules are silently implicit in processes of pattern recognition. Aagaard, writing for strong but still improving players can usefully focus on rules, but if his readers grow up to be GMs those rules will be followed or broken largely by unconscious, automated thought processes. Explicit verbalized rules are crutches that are useful up to a certain point, but must then be delegated to the unconscious for further progress (the same goes for the "Silman Thinking Technique" and similiar systems).

Besides, Aagard's contention that the rules are valid "all other things being equal" is strained; in the real world you want to work out what's going on in one specific position (with a ticking clock), not speculate about how typical or untypical that position is. 

Example: If I can play ...Nf6-h5 to attack just the right squares or pawns to give me a dangerous attack or an endgame initiative, I couldn't care less if "knights on the rim are dim" most of the time. Aagaard wants me to think:

"I know knights don't usually belong on the rim, but this seems to be an exception where h5 is just the best square to attack the specific weaknesses my opponent has in this very unusual position". 

Instead I just want to think: 

"My knight will be great on h5 here!" and go ahead with the necessary calculations; any "rules" bussiness already taken care of by unconscious pattern recognition. 

You tell me which thought process is more efficient...

End of rant  

Quite suprised by Smyslov_Fan's comments. Ok the annotations of the second match are not much better or different than his older book from twenty years ago. For the first match though it is clearly best book available at least in english language. This match was probably the most intense sporting event of any kind. Kasparov describes it in a very egotistic but interesting manner. Don't see how a chess player chould not like this. 
         Personally not very impressed with most of the MGP series, except the Karpov/Korchnoi one. Whole tracts from older books are shamelessly copied and pasted.

I have all three of these books (I have a chess book problem, but I guess many of us do).

I liked the Kasparov book, and that's coming from someone who never found the My Great Predecessors books intriguing enough to buy.  The thing that left me ambivalent about the MGP books remains, which is the annotation style - lots of long lines, not many explanations.  I, as an 1800 player, felt that a lot of it was over my head.  I can handle long lines if they are explained well (two great examples are Mihail Marin's LEARN FROM THE LEGENDS and Colin Crouch's HOW TO DEFEND IN CHESS), but there wasn't enough context here for me.  What I did enjoy was all the backstory of the matches (although I realize that a lot of it is subjective), and the back-and-forth feinting match of the openings.  I actually found the long string of draws in the first match very interesting for this reason.

FischerTal asked what rating FORCING CHESS MOVES is aimed at... I hate it when weaker players (like me!) say that a given book will be useful for someone much stronger than them, but I'll say that it is certainly aimed at players through at least 2200.  It's not over my head at all, so let's say 1600-2200?  It is basically a big cataloged collection of positions in which various sorts of forcing moves played a role in a combination.  It is useful to look through all these positions, especially when they've been precategorized like this, but it's not really an instruction manual.

I'm midway through HOW CHESS GAMES ARE WON AND LOST, and am enjoying it, although it, also, is less of an instruction manual than you might think from the title.  I was hoping that it would be a manual telling me how to get from 1800 to 2000 (as I wish every book would be, I guess!), but it is largely a meditation on how Hansen himself has improved and how he thinks about the game.  At least half the games are his own, with the remainder largely being models that he learned from.  That said, it is well written, the games are well analyzed, and he has a lot of interesting things to say.  I'm not sure how much it will improve my game, but I'm enjoying it very much.

I received the Kasparov book as a present and wish I'd received another.  This was one of his weaker efforts despite covering every single game he played against Karpov through 1985.

I'm hoping the next volume is more interesting.

Like the pub member "Zoo" i like very much : - Play 1. b3 by Ilya Odessky. (Despite the opening, if I may say) by the way i have 2,5/3 awith 1.b3!?! and  i agree with the author 1.b3 is maybe not very good but fun to play !

I think Tzermiadianos', How to beat the French Defence was a very good effort.

True Lies in Chess by Lluis Comas Fabrego is also quite thought provoking, but I don't know when it was released. 

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