Chess Improvement

I put this article from Chess Cafe in this section because I think it relates best to this category. I very often in my chess games get positions that are won , but I can’t win them . I recently came across an old article about something called Fritz Technique Trainer and Fritz Technique Trainer 2. This seemed like the ideal solution to the problem so I bought the first one and will try to use it to see if it helps my chess.  This article by reviews 3 ChessBase CD’s, all about chess improvement. I like the computer approach ,  for one thing you don’t have to worry about setting up the position on the board.
For the original article with all the graphics, etc.,   click here
Book Reviews
One Hit, One Run, One Error
Derek Grimmell
Squares Strategy 1: Tactics by Alexander Bangiev, (CD) 2004 ChessBase, $29.95
Fritz Technique Trainer 2, by Henrik Schlosser, (CD) 2004 ChessBase, $24.95
Basic Positional Ideas, by Jacob Aagaard, (DVD) 2004 ChessBase, $34.95
Every now and then an author comes along with what might be called a “grand unified
theory” of chess. Such theories purport to distill the wisdom of a master into a few basic
principles that can be studied in a weekend and applied in a week. Just learn the handy
thinking plan (the idea goes), follow it rigorously, and you can add hundreds of points to
your rating, becoming the terror of your local club or tournament circuit. A recent example
is Iosif Dorfman’s The Method in Chess, which contains four basic questions that are
supposed to serve as a sort of Rosetta Stone to complex middlegames. Ask yourself these
four basic questions, and the basic answers you get will steer you towards the right move
every time.
Of course, these things are all snake oil. If such approaches worked, we would all know
them by now, and chess would be as dull as tic-tac-toe. Yet such theories remain seductive.
After all, great players must follow some thinking method. Surely there must be some way
to codify what they know, so that the rest of us could think the same way. Surely, to get to
the point, there’s a way to become a strong player without all the painful, tedious study,
right?
No, Virginia, there’s no Santa Claus. There are no short cuts to chess greatness. Certainly,
Botvinnik and Alekhine and Tal followed some thinking method, and just as certainly, if
we could learn to think the same way they did, we would play as well. But the only way to
acquire their thinking method is through the same arduous training process that they
followed. If there were a shortcut to mastery, someone would have published it years ago.
This week we focus on three ChessBase software products, each of
which relates to this process of training your thinking method. The
first, and to my eyes the weakest of the three, is Alexander Bangiev’s
Squares Strategy 1: Tactics. Now it’s clear that no one sets out to
produce bad chess materials. (No, wait. One guy sets out to produce
bad chess materials, but he’s not Bangiev.) And sometimes a book or
CD or DVD that does little for one person can do a lot for another. For
example, Aagaard and Dvoretsky (especially Dvoretsky) write for
serious students of the game. Someone with limited time for study, or
whose ambition ends with club play, may get little but frustration from
their books. Yet serious students may gain a great deal from either author. So a review
should always try to figure out the target audience for a particular product, then write a
review that steers the right people toward the product and everyone else away from it.
Reviewers are less like emperors, giving the thumbs-up and the thumbs-down at the
Coliseum, and more like matchmakers, trying to fix up each book or CD or DVD with a
file:///C|/cafe/Reviews/books.htm (1 of 9) [02/26/2005 9:36:36 AM]
Book Reviews
compatible date.
Having said all that, I can’t for the life of me figure out who would want to date this disc. I
know it did me no good at all, and I spent many hours trying, over the span of about a
month, before I finally gave up. The idea is probably a good one: develop an analytic
method that you, the player, will follow in every non-trivial position, without fail, as a way
of disciplining your own decision-making. This is good advice, and I’m trying to follow it
in my own way.
The problem is that the thinking method on this disc seems to me to be obscure,
incomplete, and misleading, all at the same time. The disc contains two databases, one to
teach the Bangiev thinking method, the other to give the student practice in applying it.
The teaching database presents 200 positions filled with colored squares and colored
arrows and text explanations with advanced things like colons and such. After going
through more than 50 of these positions and spending 10 to 30 minutes on each, I am still
unsure how all of this stuff leads me to a candidate move. Sometimes I’m not even sure
why the arrows and squares and colons are here rather than there, although some of the
ideas are becoming less opaque than they were. In short, substantial effort on my part has
led to limited understanding of how the Bangiev thinking method works in practice. I
suppose I could put this down to native stupidity, but somehow that explanation does not
compel me. It seems more likely that the teaching method is simply inadequate to the ideas
presented.
And with regard to the ideas, so far the best I can piece together is that Squares Strategy 1
is a sort of revision and extension of Nimzowitsch’s ideas about the center and
overprotection, applying these ideas to the world of tactics. Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s
the impression I’m getting. The trouble, as John Watson pointed out, is that overprotection
has been the least influential of Nimzowitsch’s ideas, because it turns out to be the least
useful in practical play. If my impression is correct, then Bangiev’s thinking method tries
to base a complete decision-support system on one of Nimzowitsch’s least successful
ideas. Tarrasch built the same kind of decision-support system in his day, but on a much
broader foundation, and the result is a much sounder approach to the game.
So much for obscure and incomplete. Now for misleading. The subtitle of the disc is
Tactics, and I get the impression that Bangiev is trying to present a short-cut thinking
method for finding the killer move in sharp positions. If so, this whole disc could be just
plain bad advice. There’s already a method for finding killer moves. It’s called pattern
recognition, and you develop it by working thousands of tactical problems. I no longer
believe there is any other way to find tactical blows reliably. If this CD is trying to teach a
thinking method that gives short shrift to pattern recognition, then it’s trying to convince
students to spend a lot of hours on a dubious presentation of a questionable theory, when
they could just as easily devote those hours to a training method that’s known to work.
Let’s take a concrete example so you can see what I mean. This is training position #200:
file:///C|/cafe/Reviews/books.htm (2 of 9) [02/26/2005 9:36:36 AM]
Book Reviews
If you pull up this position in the ChessBase interface, you see colored arrows like
chevrons leading forward from the squares e4 and e6, and different colored chevrons
leading towards e5. Examine this position, and you might, maybe, come up with the key
move for this exercise, which is 1. Rc6. The idea is that 1…bxc6 meets with 2. dxc6+ Qf7
3. Bc4 d5 4. Nxd5 Kh8 5. Nb6 Qc7 6. Nxc8 Qxc8 7. b5 which Bangiev evaluates as a
significant advantage for White.
But I have several problems with this exercise. First, in the ending position it’s not clear
that White is really better; could be, but maybe not. After 7…Nc7, for example, White has
some obvious attacking ideas, but by the same token Black has opportunities to return the
extra piece for two of White’s Queenside pawns, re-establishing material equality and
leaving the position more or less even. For example, the obvious line 8. a5 Qb8 9. b6 Na8
10. c7 Nxc7 11. bxc7 Qxc7 looks equal to me, while 8. Bf7 is menacing only if Black
exchanges Bishops; 8…Qd8 9. Bxg6 hxg6 would make me a bit nervous as Black, but
neither side is getting crushed just yet. And remember: we’re 8 moves in to this exercise
already.
Even more telling, it’s not clear to me that the key move, 1. Rc6, is the best first move! If
Black soberly avoids complications and plays 1…Nc7, White has little better to do than
retreat the Rook again, its only accomplishment being the re-centralization of the Black
Knight. The problem is that this key move really doesn’t threaten anything; it’s tempting,
but not forcing. Instead, I’d consider 1. Rxc8 Qxc8, leaving the Knight offside, and start
looking for a way to move one of my pieces to the e6 square. Why learn a thinking method
that leads one to excessively complicated and speculative play when simple chess may be
better?
Similarly, observe training position #21:
Again we have our colored arrows and our key squares, but a moment’s simple
observation should reveal that the most critical elements for White are (first) the
discovered check on the g-file and (second) the Queen’s potential to intrude on the h5-
square. The key move, of course, combines these two ideas. 1. Ne4+ attacks the Knight
file:///C|/cafe/Reviews/books.htm (3 of 9) [02/26/2005 9:36:36 AM]
Book Reviews
that defends h5, and after 1…Kf7 2. Nxf6 Kxf6 3. Qxh5 it takes very little to convince me
that Black is dead. But surely this is not an idea that one finds by an analysis of key
squares; it’s something that jumps out because of well-honed pattern recognition. In any
tactics training book this position would be listed in the chapter “Discovered Check,” and
any decent player should find the idea by noticing the tactical theme. I don’t see the need
for the “Bangiev method” at all.
Squares Strategy 1 does start from the valid premise that chess mastery requires
disciplined thinking. Alexander Kotov couldn’t have said it better. But it’s not enough to
work hard; one must also work on the right things. Effort must be expended on the right
sorts of exercises, or most of the effort will be wasted. This is why good chess trainers can
command high fees. This is also why analysis of one’s own games is critical to chess
improvement; nothing else will reveal where one’s efforts need to go. And this is where
Squares Strategy 1 seems to fail. I looked hard and simply couldn’t find material that
justifies the amount of effort it takes to master. Those who succeed in acquiring the
Bangiev thinking method, after countless hours of struggling through these two databases,
may find that their decision-making process is no more accurate than it was to begin with.
As Dorothy Parker once said, this CD fills a much-needed gap.
By contrast, Schlosser’s Fritz Technique Trainer: 2 seems at the very
least to be a useful concept. I have not seen volume 1 of this series but
understand it is similar in nature. This database contains 121 positions
from the games of Wilhelm Steinitz in which the first World
Champion is winning. However, each position still presents
difficulties, and it’s easy to overlook the most effective continuation.
In most cases this means the difference between winning in five
moves and playing on for 20 or 30, perhaps allowing the weaker side
to escape with a draw. In other cases the position is sharp enough that
the attacker may end up in serious trouble by following the wrong
path. The idea is to load up each position in your Fritz playing program and play Steinitz’s
side against the computer. Can you bring home the bacon against the remorseless
machine?
Given everything I just said about channeling your efforts into the right area, the target
audience for this CD should be obvious. It’s mostly aimed at people who regularly build
up strong, even winning positions, but then fail to secure the victory because they can’t
calculate and evaluate the critical positions well enough. It just so happens that I resemble
that remark, so Technique Trainer: 2 interested me immediately. I loaded up the first
position and solved it in a matter of 30 seconds or so; feeling very smug, I moved to
position #2, which you can see in the graphic.
file:///C|/cafe/Reviews/books.htm (4 of 9) [02/26/2005 9:36:36 AM]
Book Reviews
Ten seconds’ thought should be enough to convince us that Black is winning. But how best
to secure the win? Admittedly, in this position, almost anything will win in the end. There
are ideas like …Qxh2 bringing the heavy pieces ominously close to the White King, but he
seems to have enough bolt holes to save his hide. This approach would probably win
material, but not lead to immediate mate. One might also play …Qf6, preparing a
discovered attack on the White Queen with …Rg1+. There are several other ideas as well,
all of them good – but which is strongest? Look at the position for a few minutes before
you move on, and see what you think.
The winning idea, which Steinitz found, is to check with the Queen from a6, forcing White
to block with 2. c4, after which 2…dxc4 simply sets up too many threats to parry. But it
still takes a couple more moves of concrete calculation to verify that these threats are
indeed too much for White to parry. This approach looks plausible; only concrete analysis
will verify that it is in fact the strongest approach. How did you do at finding this
approach? Steinitz won in four moves from the diagram. I went barking off into the woods,
smug no more.
This position is fairly typical of the material on this disc. The stronger side has many
possible approaches, but one choice is best and leaves the opponent with the fewest
options. Yet few if any start with an obvious tactical shot. Rather, one must calculate
several alternatives and evaluate the resulting positions correctly in order to choose the
best plan. Thorough analysis and accurate evaluation are the order of the day.
There are two ways to look at this CD. On the one hand, all the positions that Schlosser
assembled already exist in Steinitz’s games, and an ambitious student could just download
a file like STEIN1.PGN and play solitare chess for free. On the other hand, Schlosser has
done for us the work of selecting those positions where exact, careful calculation makes
the most difference, and where most players go astray most easily – the positions where
World Champions show the rest of us what that title really means.
In other words, Schlosser has cut away the fat and left only the meat, and this is where the
value of the CD lies. Sure, I could go through Steinitz’s games and pull out these positions
myself, but I never have. Now I can just load them up in Fritz, start the clocks, and get
some intense practice in technique without the effort of finding good practice positions on
my own. My experience is that most positions justify between 10 and 30 minutes of careful
calculation, so 121 exercises will take me a long time to complete. Anyone who completes
all 121 will have done some serious practice at evaluating critical positions, and that will
file:///C|/cafe/Reviews/books.htm (5 of 9) [02/26/2005 9:36:36 AM]
Book Reviews
have to show up as an improvement in their practical play.
If you want to focus on a particular aspect of technical play, Schlosser also provides a
“theme key” that breaks the positions into groups. The largest group involves attacks on
the king that lead either to mate or decisive material advantage; other groups include
simply material-winning attacks, endgames, attacks that lead to a winning endgame,
positions where Fritz finds a long forced mate, and three positions in which your task is to
find the stoutest defense, rather than the win. The positions are also rated by level of
difficulty, and I find Schlosser does a good job assigning these levels to a group of
positions where none are exactly easy.
Finally, each position comes presented four different ways: ready to play against Fritz;
annotated and illustrated with text and graphical explanations of the various themes and
alternatives available; as Steinitz played it against his original opponent; and as Fritz plays
it out against itself.
One thing you do not get on this disc is instruction. Schlosser gives no list of thinking tips,
no advice on how to approach critical positions like these. He offers little instruction
beyond his thoughts about each position. But that seems to be the point of this CD. The
positions themselves are the instruction, and they will help you only if you work them out
yourself. If you want someone to coach you on the proper approach to chess calculation,
there are several authors who can give you the appropriate coaching. These are the
exercises on which you can practice.
My reaction is that this is a well-chosen, albeit somewhat small, collection of technically
winning positions for those who need practice at securing the win. If you often seem to let
opponents escape just when you should be nailing the lid down on the coffin, this disc and
its companion contain the right kinds of practice positions for you. If not, then we can
move on.
Jacob Aagaard continues his torrential output of chess training
materials, this time turning his attention to positional play. His new
DVD for the Fritz Trainer, Basic Positional Ideas, contains seven
lessons totaling over three hours of lecture, followed by fifty training
positions that you can solve for yourself before checking against his
analysis. As is usual for the Fritz Trainer, each lecture has a board
window, a video window, and an annotation window on the computer
screen at the same time. Aagaard presents his lecture in the video
window while the board window plays through the illustrative games
he has chosen to illustrate each point.
Aagaard does his typical good job of using the graphical annotation capabilities of Fritz to
illustrate his points. The experience of each of these lessons is like sitting with a trainer
who takes you through games and game fragments, running through variations and
pointing out key squares and lines on the board while describing fundamental points about
the example at hand. Unlike a live trainer, you can’t stop and ask a question; also unlike a
live trainer, you can pause, rewind, and replay the talk as often as you wish. In the end, the
more of these Fritz Trainer discs I get, the more I like them.
Naturally, a full series of lectures on positional play would take far more than three hours.
On this DVD Aagaard focuses on a few positional themes that center on play against
weaknesses. The first two lectures focus on the creation and exploitation of weaknesses,
especially pawn weaknesses, examining both classical and modern games. The next two
lectures describe the positional aspects of pawn play, including creating squares for pieces,
grabbing space, and fixing weaknesses in the opponent’s pawn structure. The next two
cover positional piece play, which mostly means improving the placement of the pieces
file:///C|/cafe/Reviews/books.htm (6 of 9) [02/26/2005 9:36:36 AM]
Book Reviews
within the current pawn structure. Finally, the last lecture covers prophylaxis, or how to
keep the other guy from doing all of the above to you.
As I have come to expect, Aagaard chooses excellent examples to make his points, and
along the way offers other insights that deepen appreciation of chess in general, as well as
leading to better decisions at the board. For example, when talking about the famous game
Bogoljubow – Capablanca, New York 1924, Aagaard points out a simple truth that had
long escaped me: Capablanca dominated in his era not so much because of his great
strength, but rather because most players at that time had no clue how to play with
weaknesses. Many of Capablanca’s wins boil down to inflicting a single weakness on the
opponent’s position and then grinding him down, while the opponent does virtually
nothing to avert his fate. Modern players understand the need to fight for activity as
compensation for a weakness; in part they learned this lesson by observing the fate of so
many of Capablanca’s opponents. After this lesson I have a new appreciation for
Capablanca’s games, as well as a better understanding of how to play weak positions.
One example of Aagaard’s skill at choosing positions crops up during a discussion of pawn
weaknesses:
This position is from Salov – Lautier, when the former was a top-ten player and the latter
was a rising star. What makes this example interesting is the way it illustrates the
difference between classical play, such as Capablanca might have chosen, and modern
dynamic positional play. The very, very tempting option in this position is 1. Ba5 Qc8 2.
Bxd8, with the idea of eventually obtaining a good Knight versus bad Bishop ending.
Positionally, this is a sensible idea; however, even in the best of circumstances this alone
might not be enough to win. Perhaps a Capablanca might be able to convert such an
advantage, perhaps not. But Aagaard also uses this position to illustrate the way that
tactical considerations must always take precedence over positional ones. If White tries the
plan described above, Black replies with 2…Rxg2+! followed by 3…Qg4+ and a draw by
perpetual check!
Rather than going for the better minor piece, Salov played 1. f4! exf4 2. e5! dxe5 3. Bxe5
Qc6 4. Rxf4, when White has left Black with weak pawns on the Queenside as well as the
file:///C|/cafe/Reviews/books.htm (7 of 9) [02/26/2005 9:36:36 AM]
Book Reviews
worse minor piece. The win is still difficult, and the game went a further 40 moves.
Nonetheless, Salov made a sound positional decision when the attractive alternative led
nowhere.
Probably the greatest value of this DVD is the 50 illustrative positions that Aagaard
includes for the student to solve. I really like Aagaard’s choice of training positions; one
recent book was noticeably weakened by the absence of a section of training positions.
Here you get 50 positions in the Fritz Trainer interface, each of which gives you practice
applying the material from the seven lessons. For example, the position in the next graphic
is from Gurevich – Sokolov, Amsterdam 2000:
Just as the lesson gets interesting, the Glasgow Rangers score!
If we approach the position by looking for where the opponent is weakest – Aagaard’s
theme through all the lessons and exercises – the answer is, of course, his vulnerable King.
And if we survey White’s pieces for the one that is doing the least, and that we can do the
most to improve, the natural answer is the Queen. But how best to activate it? There are
two plausible candidate moves. The tactical player may be tempted by something like 1.
Qf2, preparing to exploit the Bishop on b2 as part of a direct assault on the King. However,
Gurevich took the second approach. If he could get his Queen to h5, it would lead to a
crushing attack. So Gurevich played:
1. Qd1! Bg7 2. Qh5 Bd7 3. Bf7
when Black is very uncomfortable. Yet this is not a tactical problem; there’s no winning
attack here. The next few moves illustrate the benefits of playing against the opponent’s
weaknesses, whether a tactical blow exists or not:
3…a4 4. Bg6 h6 5. fxe5 Rxe5 6. Bc1!
Gurevich actually missed this move during the game. But now Black is forced to play
6…Re3! to save his King, after which White takes the Rook, plays Re2, and captures the
Pawn on f5, leaving him a solid exchange ahead with a winning position.
This DVD is another good product from one of the better (and more active) authors around

Book Reviews
nowadays. Please note that, as usual, Fritz Trainer software such as this requires
ChessBase 9 or one of the newest generation of Fritz playing software to run: Fritz 8,
Junior 8, Shredder 8, HIARCS 9, or Tiger 15. You won’t be able to play the videos
properly without one of these.
So how do you know if this DVD is right for you? The best audience would be those who
are good at spotting tactical shots, yet often find themselves in passive positions or groping
for a plan. This usually means that playing for position is the weak aspect of your game,
and that’s where this DVD is aimed. It would also be helpful to those who understand
some of the static elements of position play, such as play against doubled or backward
pawns, but go astray in the modern sort of position where initiative and mobility count for
so much.
Order Squares Strategy 1: Tactics by Alexander Bangiev (CD)
Order Fritz Technique Trainer 2, by Henrik Schlosser (CD)
Order Basic Positional Ideas, by Jacob Aagaard (DVD)
[ChessCafe Home Page] [Book Review] [Columnists]
[Endgame Study] [Skittles Room] [Archives]
[Links] [Online Bookstore] [About ChessCafe.com] [Contact Us]
Copyright 2005 CyberCafes, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
“The Chess Cafe®” is a registered trademark of Russell Enterprises, Inc.

Chess Cafe

© 2010 ChessCafe.com. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted with permission

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.