Quote:

I love the Yusupov books, but you're right, the ratings given are way too high. I'm 1800 USCF and I find vol. 1 (ostensibly for getting to 1500) a nice review with even some new material and vol. 2 (for getting to 1800) a real challenge.

yankdog wrote on 05/12/10 at 17:04:00:

And then there's this thread over here: http://www.chesspub.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1273644403

yankdog wrote on 05/06/10 at 17:11:31:


I rediscovered an older book last week which tackles this problem: Improve Your Chess Now by Jonathan Tisdall (ca. 1996).
Tisdall gives concrete algorithms / processes for calculation and the finding of candidate moves in attack and defense in complicated situations. He tries to explain what to calculate in which order and when you should compile a list of candidate moves. 
Furthermore he explains the different calculation goals in attack (-> break through; get advantage) and defense (hold) and makes a case why Kotov's famous algorithm doesn't work in practice. Dvorestky's ideas are also found quite in line with his own recommendations.

There are many other recipes, but IMHO Tisdall's works pretty well in the situational context, plus it often cuts down the amount of calculation necessary because Tisdall recommends to work on a critical path instead of a full tree of variations.

I have a different problem with focus issues.

During the game, I see very very far. I'm actually proud of my calculation skill. But then once the game becomes clear and i'm winning... I relax and I quit focusing. I can't seem to won the won game. And i'm not talking about slightly winning features either. I mean up a full rook or a queen vs knight. Something elementary that I think most 1200s would win. I feel embarrassed and frustrated with chess for weeks. To play very very well and throw it all away on a ?????????? level move right before the finish line. I know the saying is "the hardest thing to win is the won game" but I have somehow managed to take that to extremes. I think it might be a psychological problem or something.... but any advice or books worth reading would be appreciated.

Yankdog, it sounds to me like you need practice really "digging in" to a position.  I recommend doing this with games of yours that you have recently played and have NOT yet looked at on the computer or with a strong player.

Just get a piece of paper and a pencil--nothing else--and start going through the game, thoroughly analyzing everything.  Try to sense where critical turning points in the game are, those places where you had to make difficult decisions like which pieces to exchange, what pawn structure you should have, what plan to take, any tactical operations, etc.  Then just dig in and analyze EVERYTHING you can, writing it all down as you go.   

If the position is very complicated, analyze as far ahead as you can without moving the pieces, then move the pieces to the end of your line  and keep going until you reach some clarity.  Do not be satisfied with writing "22.Nxd6 Bh3 23. Rfc1 Qd8! unclear" or anything like that.

This is the best advice I can give, it will help your tactical skills, your analytical/calculation ability, and help improve concentration.  Depending on the games, this should easily take you at least 4 hours per game.

I did this and basically nothing else and went from USCF 2000 to USCF 2200.  I analyzed about 10 games of my own, and each took 6-10 hours or so (I got faster towards the end).  The best thing about doing this is that you really gain a good understanding of your strengths and weaknesses.   

And be honest about why you played the moves you did.  You'll find yourself embarassed at how badly you play, but don't get discouraged and you'll probably improve drastically.  Every strong player I've ever met (IM and up) agree that analyzing your own games is the key to getting better, but few people actually do it.  They just turn on the computer, let Fritz do the work, and sit back and watch.

Good luck.

jitb wrote on 05/07/10 at 13:45:05:


Maybe but that can be a lot of money at the moment.

The Grandmaster's Mind is marvellous, maybe my favorite chess book of all time. Prophylaxis before everything else!

But it's very high level, since all the OTB players interviewed are GMs (or in one case a GM's trainer). So probably less useful to a class B player than Heisman or Aagaard.

Right, I gotta get hold of that new Heisman book!

Agaard's Inside the Chess Mind does something similar, with players from beginner to GM solving 10 positions that the reader can attempt first. There are interesting conclusions about whether GMs calculate more, the importance of intuition and pattern recognition, and the most common types of calculation error at the different levels.