kylemeister wrote on 12/10/09 at 20:04:42:


Exactly.  Well-annotated, simple, easily-understood games.  

This may not be directly on point, but there are some who believe that you should learn chess in chronological order.  Start with the simple games of the Morphy-Anderssen era, progress to the more sophisticated games of the Modern Era, then move on to Hypermodern Chess, the Dynamic Chess of the 1950s through the 1970s, and only then take on the more sophisticated stuff we have today where rules are often flouted.  I don't know if one needs to be quite so dogmatic about learning chess and there's certainly clear-cut examples from modern play that can substitute for the classics.  But I do think that there's some logic behind this "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" approach.  And I note that its an approach that Euwe recommended, and one that you would naturally follow if you worked your way through something like the Golden Treasury of Chess or My Great Predecessors.  And I can't help but think of a friend who says that he can understand chess up to Fischer, but that everything afterwards just becomes too difficult and confusing.


     

GabrielGale wrote on 12/10/09 at 05:07:08:


Well, what about what I would take to be the traditional approach, i.e. mainly studying annotated games from books?  (When I was at the sort of level we're talking about here, the earlier-mentioned book by Chernev was one of the ones I used.)  It's not that I think that such a player can't learn from games involving GMs, it's that I shudder at the thought of, say, a 1400 player clicking through Kramnik-Anand games from Chessbase. 

@gabrielgale:

Imo your basically wrong about the role of a trainer. His task is supporting the self-learning process.

The first task in the process of training is defining a common goal between trainer and trainee. It really helps to see the process of training from the starting point as a contract. So the first question is: What does the trainee want to do? The second question is: What is in the repertoire of the trainer to support this?

Excluding tactics is as good as excluding anything else. Iirc (please don't slaughter me if some detail is wrong, but the idea is correct) wrote Nimzowitsch in Mein System that someone studying the isolated pawn structure will learn a lot more: tactics, the opening leading to those structures, endgames, hanging pawn center, ...

You rely on the self-controlled learning process of the trainee. So it is a good attitude to trust him. He will ask questions giving room for a productive process on both sides. It happens every day. 

Dan Heisman started his chesscafe series Novice Nook with two columns pointing (above else) to the fun of learning and the thought process. Thinking is the main tool of chess players. So working on this tool could be the prior task? 

trw wrote on 12/08/09 at 17:09:11:


@trw, I think kylemeister was referring to my post.

OK, I think lets make some things clear:
1) To improve, whether a junior or and adult, there has to be self-motivation, self-discipline, and self-learning;
2) Self-learning includes those things such as tactics, patterns recognition (which may or may not be the same or similar thing), endgame theory (from basic to whatever level is appropriate).
3) These things can and should be done by the junior on his/her own time.
4) We are now speaking of how best to use the one hour of coaching.
5) Even the Great Oz says that a bit of theory is required for playing at 1400 level.
6) From experience, majority of juniors falters once they have played their 10-moves or so of opening theory. They only have the general rules of opening to guide them, eg, development, centre control, king safety and even then, one could say that those are exhausted by the 10th move. They are then reliant on tactical nous. That is where tactics and pattern recognition comes in;
7) That is where my suggestion of playing through GM games of the openings of one's "repertoire" comes in. Playing through these games without really analysing in depth exposes the junior to themes in middlegame.  This is idea is not mine and I claim no credit but has been written up on the Forum many times. If the objection is that a 1400 junior would not be able understand GM games, then the question goes a begging: when does one start? when does one start learning to "plan" in a chess game? Besides it is not controversial that juniors learn best by mimicry. So playing through games hoping some of the themes will stick in the memory.
8) This is adapted from Aagaard's Excelling at Chess where he speaks of learning an opening by collecting games, looking at the endgames resulting from the games, then move backwards to looking at the middlegame, then only one learn the opening as such unless of course I have misunderstood him.

In addition, this is only part of the  whole training regime.

Notwithstanding the above, I believe the main question is this: How best to use the one hour a week between an experienced coach and the improving (say 1400-1600) junior?

My humble suggestion is that all those usual advice on improvement, such as tactics, tactics, and tactics, and engames, and pattern recognition can be and should be doen by the junior himself/herself.

That leaves the question what to do in the hour? My suggestion is to utilise the coach's playing experience and strength on topics such as planning, calculation, analysis. 

Vukovic was just an example and whether it is suitable for a 1400, that is another question. If yes, too advanced, then perhaps, Plaskett, Starting Out: Attacking Play?

I did say that the topics can be repeated in a ascending spiral which takes into account the juniors' gradual improvement and playing sophistication.

katar wrote on 12/08/09 at 22:45:56:

This is true, but there is also an opposite danger of too much of the training time being taken up by looking at one's own mediocre play. This should only be the diagnosis/evaluation part of training, and presupposes that the trainer or the student will then find and seriously study good material in the areas that need work.

I believe firmly that getting lots of good patterns into one's (unconscious) long-term memory is the best way to improve. You are only potentially as good as the best chess you look at on a regular basis!

trw wrote on 12/08/09 at 17:09:11:


Oh, I suppose I disagree.  The whole thing is, what will help this player win his games?  Teaching a few key openings variations on the order of 10 moves deep or so can be useful to players of a certain strength.  That's not what most people would call theory, I admit, but it is the start of theory.

Playing the Open Sicilian while never castling queenside or moving your f-pawn ...that would be some trick indeed.

I think that having a 1400 player "play over grandmaster games in his opening repertoire collected from a database" sounds pretty odd.  Same for the idea (which seems to be approximately the opposite extreme) that "one shouldn't have a serious opening repertoire until one is 2200 and looking at IM." 

trw wrote on 12/08/09 at 06:56:19:


Well this looks a bit odd. You assume that a coach that works on opening study is wasting your time. 

But stigma clearly states 

"On the other hand, as a coach if you think the student plays totally the wrong openings he needs to get better, you can't just keep quiet about it."

Why take up coaching if your are not willing to listen? I would imagine that one of the main reasons to take coaching lessons is because the coach will spot your weaknesses and give advise on what to improve. 

If you are not willing to at least take that advise in account then perhaps you are the one that is baised toward certain openings.