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Very Hot Topic (More than 25 Replies) How to know which games/players to study ? (Read 24803 times)
bragesjo
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Re: How to know which games/players to study ?
Reply #22 - 06/24/15 at 10:26:51
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About Move by Move bookk, I liked Lakdawlas style of writting.  There are also also move by move books not wrtitten by Lakdawala.
Bronstein, Ivanchuk, Nimzovitch, Petrosian and Anand has other authors.

About author  anottatingg there own games, there are for example Taimanovs selected games. I also liked Karpov, Gelfands and Sokolovs books (do not rember exact titles). I have also a book by Larsen but therere was hardly any commentary but interesting games.

As a result of the books and some more I tend play worse in the opening than before but I play better than ever in the middelgame.
  
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Gerry1970
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Re: How to know which games/players to study ?
Reply #21 - 06/23/15 at 23:20:34
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Small point but that was bragesjo's post. My question related to what people thought of Lakdawala's writing in his move-by-move books.

Reason I am interested is 1) there are many of them and 2) they have electronic versions.

Take care,

Gerry

  
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Re: How to know which games/players to study ?
Reply #20 - 06/23/15 at 23:04:51
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Gerry1970 wrote on 06/23/15 at 18:14:46:
[quote author=203023252731282D420 link=1434815137/16#16 date=1435056326]I own all move by move book on a certian player and I can recommed everyonve of them!
You might like Bronstein, Korchnoi,  Ivanchuk and Larsen.
Others interesting are Anand ,Carlsen and Botvinnik....
A big secret:
Many subjects of those move-by-move books authored books on their own games for a club-level audience!   Shocked
Of those you mentioned, Larsen and Bronstein are two of the best annotators of all time, and can be trusted to annotate their own games.

Larsen_fan wrote on 06/22/15 at 18:20:36:
the art of sacrifice is comming in a new ed:
....German grandmaster Karsten Müller has added his own notes to Spielmann’s original text.

Rad.  I will buy sight unseen.  I trust Muller.  Danish Dynamite was lame, but updating a classic book is more akin to the job of a museum or art gallery curator whose job is to present immortal works to the unsophisticated public who may not even know if the author's intent is respected in the update.
I think Russell has done well with other classics and I trust them to do justice to Spielmann.  Great news.
  
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Larsen_fan
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Re: How to know which games/players to study ?
Reply #19 - 06/23/15 at 21:10:28
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Hi

One way of picking games to study is simply to research a little on popular books with good reviews and then go to the chessgames.com site and search in their games-Collection http://www.chessgames.com/perl/collections . One example - search for "stean simple chess" and you will get some Collections http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1000908 Many games will be commented and you can start playing through the games and wonder why the author picked these specific game. Then do your own commentary, etc. I have done this because i do small youtube vids for teaching kids, and I have picked a lot of the games this way. First researching which books are available on e.g. Morphy - reading excerpts, reviews etc and finding a games collection on A first book of Morphy, then going from there look through other game-Collections on Morphy and picking the games i want to do commentary on, analyzing the games and then doing the vids etc. This way you get to actually Work on the games.

regards,
Larsen_fan
  
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Re: How to know which games/players to study ?
Reply #18 - 06/23/15 at 19:47:08
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Larsen_fan wrote on 06/22/15 at 18:20:36:


Let's hope the book isn't ruined, as a lot of others have been when they tried to modernize them.
  
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Re: How to know which games/players to study ?
Reply #17 - 06/23/15 at 18:14:46
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bragesjo wrote on 06/23/15 at 10:45:26:
I own all move by move book on a certian player and I can recommed everyonve of them!
You might like Bronstein, Korchnoi,  Ivanchuk and Larsen.
Others interesting are Anand ,Carlsen and Botvinnik....

I have been put off by the excessive flowery language of one of the author's of those books (Lakdawala) - just seen the samples.

Does he have good chess explanations in there also for Class A players (or anyone I suppose). Guessing yes as you are buying them. Just curious before I buy.

Thanks,

Gerry
  
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bragesjo
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Re: How to know which games/players to study ?
Reply #16 - 06/23/15 at 10:45:26
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I own all move by move book on a certian player and I can recommed everyonve of them!
You might like Bronstein, Korchnoi,  Ivanchuk and Larsen.
Others interesting are Anand ,Carlsen and Botvinnik.

A small tip. Ignore the opening moves when studing old masters since theory has moved on greatly.

  
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Re: How to know which games/players to study ?
Reply #15 - 06/23/15 at 07:46:11
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What Stigma wrote above is actually quite interesting.

I have tried this by reading a great book by Colin Crouch: "How to defend in chess".

He is examining exclusively games of Lasker (active defender) and Petrosian (prophylactic etc.), 2 players I always found difficult to understand. In the end I found that I had a lot in common with Lasker (on the other hand Petrosian still remains a mystery to me!). Not a primer in defence, neither a games collection book, but still an interesting read!

My recommendation is to keep this in your wish list for a bit later on (say ~150-160 BCF).
  
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Re: How to know which games/players to study ?
Reply #14 - 06/22/15 at 21:09:33
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kylemeister wrote on 06/21/15 at 18:33:24:
Re Korchnoi and the Dragon, it is perhaps unfortunate that no doubt his most famous game with it was when Karpov crushed him (with a big-deal new move at the time, 16. Nde2)


Haha, cant believe i forgot Korchnoi played the dragon! I think this was one of the games in the intro to Ward's book on the Dragon!

Stigma wrote on 06/21/15 at 21:28:18:
1. Study lots of games by a past or current top player you like and feel some similarity to. Mark any move that seems surprising to you, try to understand them, check them with a computer or coach, and finally write your own explanations of them. Maybe even set up a repetition system.

2. Study lots of games by a past or current top player whose play you don't understand at all, dislike or feel no affinity to whatsoever! Apply the same method as above.

Stigma wrote on 06/21/15 at 21:28:18:
You could find all or most of the games in the book in a database to compare with if you get lost in description.

Or even get the book in German or Swedish, which have always used Algebraic. I'm not joking: The price of the book is a lot less than the value of the time you will spend studying it anyway. You would have to learn the German/Nordic piece letters (K/D/T/L/S). The same goes for many other classics, which are often available in all the "big 3" chess languages. 
                   


Thanks Stigma, I might try this. Capablanca and Karpov are usually players that dont appeal to my bloodlust but i have seen recommended in previous threads just as much for their cleaner build up to attacks  as for the more positional play.

Also, I know it might be really obvious to some people, but I hadnt thought of using my computer to play through the games while reading the commentary in the book...that will definitely help me with going through older books.

I would love to be able to read through them in other languages, but i have terrible language skills unfortunately.  Embarrassed

Larsen_fan wrote on 06/22/15 at 18:20:36:
the art of sacrifice is comming in a new ed:http://www.amazon.com/Art-Sacrifice-Chess-Rudolf-Spielmann/dp/1936490781/ref=sr_...
The 21st Century Edition of Spielmann’s Classic Work Austrian Grandmaster Rudolf Spielmann’s The Art of Sacrifice in Chess first appeared in the mid-1930s. It was immediately recognized as a classic, a masterpiece that examined the nature of chess sacrifices. In this modernized, 21st century edition, all of Spielmann’s original work has been preserved. The antiquated English Descriptive Notation has been replaced with modern Figurine Algebraic, and German grandmaster Karsten Müller has added his own notes to Spielmann’s original text.


Funny, i had seen that yesterday too! I think its an omen  Wink
  
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Re: How to know which games/players to study ?
Reply #13 - 06/22/15 at 18:20:36
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the art of sacrifice is comming in a new ed:http://www.amazon.com/Art-Sacrifice-Chess-Rudolf-Spielmann/dp/1936490781/ref=sr_...
The 21st Century Edition of Spielmann’s Classic Work Austrian Grandmaster Rudolf Spielmann’s The Art of Sacrifice in Chess first appeared in the mid-1930s. It was immediately recognized as a classic, a masterpiece that examined the nature of chess sacrifices. In this modernized, 21st century edition, all of Spielmann’s original work has been preserved. The antiquated English Descriptive Notation has been replaced with modern Figurine Algebraic, and German grandmaster Karsten Müller has added his own notes to Spielmann’s original text.

  
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Re: How to know which games/players to study ?
Reply #12 - 06/21/15 at 21:28:18
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How about this study strategy:

1. Study lots of games by a past or current top player you like and feel some similarity to. Mark any move that seems surprising to you, try to understand them, check them with a computer or coach, and finally write your own explanations of them. Maybe even set up a repetition system.

2. Study lots of games by a past or current top player whose play you don't understand at all, dislike or feel no affinity to whatsoever! Apply the same method as above.

3. Play some tournaments and honestly evaluate whether and where you took better decisions than before (this will not correlate perfectly with results or rating performance in small samples).

4. Repeat 1-3 with different players until you understand everything and the GM title is in the bag  Smiley

RoleyPoley wrote on 06/21/15 at 17:59:23:

Urgh, descriptive notation...i have to admit that i have some difficulty going through older books because of this. However, since most of the classics are still only available in that format, i should overcome my aversion to this form of writing.

I think Speilmann, sounds an excellent choice, thank you. 

You could find all or most of the games in the book in a database to compare with if you get lost in description.

Or even get the book in German or Swedish, which have always used Algebraic. I'm not joking: The price of the book is a lot less than the value of the time you will spend studying it anyway. You would have to learn the German/Nordic piece letters (K/D/T/L/S). The same goes for many other classics, which are often available in all the "big 3" chess languages.
  
Improvement begins at the edge of your comfort zone. -Jonathan Rowson
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Re: How to know which games/players to study ?
Reply #11 - 06/21/15 at 18:33:24
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Re Korchnoi and the Dragon, it is perhaps unfortunate that no doubt his most famous game with it was when Karpov crushed him (with a big-deal new move at the time, 16. Nde2).
  
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Re: How to know which games/players to study ?
Reply #10 - 06/21/15 at 18:01:34
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MartinC wrote on 06/21/15 at 07:32:54:
Motivation really is key. The point of all of this is, you see, mostly to make sure you spend good time genuinely thinking about chess. Precisely what it is you're looking at is much less crucial than your engagement in the process.
(Obviously if you're really motivated to study a priori then you can try to optimise what you're looking at. Not many are I'd think.).

So whatever seems fun Smiley



Thanks Martin...i'm thinking starting with someone like Spielmann maybe the way to go then.. Smiley
  
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Re: How to know which games/players to study ?
Reply #9 - 06/21/15 at 17:59:23
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Thanks guys for the input.

hicetnunc wrote on 06/20/15 at 22:59:43:
Tal ? (BenOni style), Kortchnoï ? (uncompromising play, and Dragon player at some stage too) 
                   

Like most (if not all!!) Benoni fans, Tal is one of my hero's. I read through a book or two back when i was at Uni and was thinking of having a look at one of more recent books that has come out. I'd never considered Korchnoi before because i didnt think i shared any openings or traits with him. Which of course isnt a good reason not to study him...

katar wrote on 06/20/15 at 23:15:44:
Spielmann's Art of Sacrifice would be my top suggestion - particularly if you are fascinated by material imbalances.  Spielmann annotated 37 of his own games so you can realistically get through it cover to cover.  You have to be ok with descriptive notation.

I also read Alekhine's collection of best games and Capablanca's Best Endings by Chernev -- both fantastic.  Vukovic wrote in Art of Attack (1960s) that no chess master had added anything new on his subject that was not already fully developed by Capa and Alekhine.  (!!!!)

There are a million others, but I would start with Alekhine and Capablanca.  Spielmann is just too fun to pass up.
From there you have many fun options, Keres or Bronstein or Botvinnik or Smyslov or Tal -- you can't go wrong. 
                   


Urgh, descriptive notation...i have to admit that i have some difficulty going through older books because of this. However, since most of the classics are still only available in that format, i should overcome my aversion to this form of writing.

I think Speilmann, sounds an excellent choice, thank you. 

I read through Bronstein's Wizard's apprentice back at Uni and should go through it again but with more attention
. 
TN wrote on 06/21/15 at 06:34:46:
I'd repeat what the others say about studying the classics, with two extra points: start with the games from the Romantic era (Greco, Anderssen, Morphy, Chigorin) and work on incorporating their dynamism into your play. Obviously you don't have to go crazy and sacrifice material in every one of your games, but if you play to take the initiative from early in the game you'll find similar tactical opportunities thrown up in your games.

I don't know how thoroughly you analyse your games but checking the opening after each game you play (including blitz games) would be a good way to incorporate opening study without feeling like you're wasting time.

Finally, a good way to find the experts in the openings you play is to use the 'Opening Report' feature on ChessBase. Just try it in a position with some thousands of games and you'll see what I mean. 
                   


I admit i dont study my own games in great depth, but i do often have a look if how i played it follows the proper strategy for it.

I played a lot of gambits as white when i started putting my repertoire together so love having the initiative and am quite happy to sacrifice material...perhaps a little too happy Cheesy

I'll have a look at the opening report function, sounds useful.

Thanks again everyone for your kind advice.

RP
  
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Re: How to know which games/players to study ?
Reply #8 - 06/21/15 at 07:32:54
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Motivation really is key. The point of all of this is, you see, mostly to make sure you spend good time genuinely thinking about chess. Precisely what it is you're looking at is much less crucial than your engagement in the process.
(Obviously if you're really motivated to study a priori then you can try to optimise what you're looking at. Not many are I'd think.).

So whatever seems fun Smiley
  
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