What happens when the Questions end?
I've been away enjoying studying and playing chess and just haven't felt the urge to write a single word. Probably the solitary nature of what I was doing didn't lend itself to laying out my thoughts.
Personally I find baring my soul fairly unconfortable but I am finding some small things that are puzzling me.
Since Phaedrus and Tempo have taken the time to comment on my last post I feel it only fair to discuss the matter and explain how I have seen the changes. I would like to point out first, as a qualifier, that I started to play chess in my late 20's and had not played alot before that.
For the past 18 months I have been memorising the chess games advocated in GM ram. In addition I have been studying endgames with Silman's book, Pachman's Modern Strategy for middlegames and playing through a game book. I have been annotating my long games and examining the short games for their tactical errors and opening mistakes. And, when I have time I am analysing the positions from GM ram.
No tactics? Nope, I have been working with Blokh first book on chess tactics having done Chess tactics for kids and Alburt's pocket chess training book.
So how has memorising games helped then? Surely all of the other things are the driver for the progress I am making. Well yes, and no. When I started playing, all of three years ago, I could not move the pieces in my mind at all. I could not remember opening theory without sitting for hours playing though it.
As Tempo alludes to maybe these games for a coathanger for the information. I have memorised 27 games so far, which I have to say I started just to see if I could do it rather than for any improvement reason. However, as I have read through Silman's work and played through the games repeatedly then the reasons for playing or not playing moves began to become obvious. The "mysterious" rook moves began to become clearer as Pachman lit a touch into the darkness of positional play. Tactics prevented or missed became elucidated during the repititous playing throughs.
Which lead me to my thesis. These games are a coathanger and a lesson in the different phases of the game. Answering the questions as to why a knight sacrifice is declined (Andersson vs Staunton, London 1851, French defence) or others. These games show methods to play an attack, defend a premature attack etc and allow the knowledge added from books to be tied into (onto) something memorised. Like learning a language, remembering what a door looks like and what it does. Images, words and ideas come together to allow more to be added in a spiral.
Personally I find baring my soul fairly unconfortable but I am finding some small things that are puzzling me.
Since Phaedrus and Tempo have taken the time to comment on my last post I feel it only fair to discuss the matter and explain how I have seen the changes. I would like to point out first, as a qualifier, that I started to play chess in my late 20's and had not played alot before that.
For the past 18 months I have been memorising the chess games advocated in GM ram. In addition I have been studying endgames with Silman's book, Pachman's Modern Strategy for middlegames and playing through a game book. I have been annotating my long games and examining the short games for their tactical errors and opening mistakes. And, when I have time I am analysing the positions from GM ram.
No tactics? Nope, I have been working with Blokh first book on chess tactics having done Chess tactics for kids and Alburt's pocket chess training book.
So how has memorising games helped then? Surely all of the other things are the driver for the progress I am making. Well yes, and no. When I started playing, all of three years ago, I could not move the pieces in my mind at all. I could not remember opening theory without sitting for hours playing though it.
As Tempo alludes to maybe these games for a coathanger for the information. I have memorised 27 games so far, which I have to say I started just to see if I could do it rather than for any improvement reason. However, as I have read through Silman's work and played through the games repeatedly then the reasons for playing or not playing moves began to become obvious. The "mysterious" rook moves began to become clearer as Pachman lit a touch into the darkness of positional play. Tactics prevented or missed became elucidated during the repititous playing throughs.
Which lead me to my thesis. These games are a coathanger and a lesson in the different phases of the game. Answering the questions as to why a knight sacrifice is declined (Andersson vs Staunton, London 1851, French defence) or others. These games show methods to play an attack, defend a premature attack etc and allow the knowledge added from books to be tied into (onto) something memorised. Like learning a language, remembering what a door looks like and what it does. Images, words and ideas come together to allow more to be added in a spiral.