Another milestone reached. It took a full year getting from breaking 1500 to here, which makes it twice as fast as getting from 1400 to 1500. The main difference no doubt is that I've been on a more or less steady diet of blitz since last december. Roughly 1300 5/0 blitz games during that time, the longest breaks having been a couple of weeks at most. During this time my slow chess hasn't improved one bit. Yet more weight to my belief that blitz is mostly about experience, mileage.
Haven't been training much, but the little I've been doing has been openings. Zero endings, zero tactics. Just playing blitz, playing, playing, playing. And it seems like the way to go regarding blitz. Still got a staggering amount of work left with my openings though, so if what I've been saying about blitz & openings has any point in it, there's nowhere to go but up.
So onwards to 1700!
ICC 5-minute: 1613, 1318 games, +643, -652, =23.
RHP: 2031, 335 games, +230, -87, =18.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Building A Repertoire, And Mastering It
"I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand."
For the last months I've been busy building up an opening repertoire. Not that I didn't have one before, as I've played the same openings for a year or two already. But although I did put some work into it, it never was very systematic nor thorough. Reading books, studying games, blitzing the openings, sure, but I never really focused into it as with tactics. And I probably didn't need to, except maybe considering blitz where it really turned out to be surprisingly useful. There was just always other more important things to train.
So, now I've finally reached the point where I feel it's usefull to dive deep into it, and will be properly focusing on openings for some time. I began booking up on my selected openings a few months ago, going through videos & books and putting all the relevant lines into a database. All of which I've gone through many times already, so I'm somewhat familiar with the ideas, but shaky on the actual variations. Such knowledge is simply not digestable without extensive drilling, and although some of it stays with you, most of the details evaporate fairly soon.
It's still very much a work in progress, as playing a sicilian there's just such a huge ground to cover. I'm also already training the parts I've already plugged in, but still only beginning to cover anti-sicilians, not to even mention polar bear. I've got maybe 30% of the eventual material plugged in, of which I've now drilled (exhaustively) about 30%. So maybe 90% of the drilling still ahead, and also getting rest of the planned material into a database. This might take a while. It's not hard, but time consuming. A year, or two, but months at minimum. There are existing dbs, but I really want to construct my own versions, handpicking what I need.
The method of training is very much the same as with tactics: Drill the positions until they're second nature to you. Effortless, instant recognition of familiar elements and related patterns. -In practice I've got the lines in Chess Position Trainer, every opening as a separate sub-repertoire, from which I drill random lines until I know them inside out. Currently I'm doing lines from move 1 into the end of the line, around 16-30 moves deep generally. In sicilian the first 11-12 are pretty much fixed, so it's manageable. Also, I might not remember people's names, but this is the type of memorization I excell in.
In time I plan to switch into drilling from random positions, which requires accurate recognition of all the elements present in the given position. Out of order recollection. So far it seems that might turn out to be much easier than it sounds, the lines are not only sinking in well but also the triggering details start sort of popping up. Many of which you never knew about before, but somehow just deduce from constant exposure in different but similar positions. The black box of the brain at its best, nonverbally and unconsciously classifying patterns from a jumble of data. It doesn't need reasons or narrative, just feed it huge amount of data and let it do what it evolved to do best.
What I'm seeking to gain with all this, is a basic, rock solid opening repertoire. It won't be 'complete' by any definition of the word, nor it will be final. But it'll provide my brain a blitz-proof model of all mainlines and basic deviations, a geometry I can instantly recollect and recognize with no calculation. A base on which to build further understanding of the related typical middle- and engame positions and schemes. And when it's all in I'll probably start adding other openings as well, just to complement the understanding by learning different types of positions. But that's another project for another time.
Well, enough banter, back to work.
For the last months I've been busy building up an opening repertoire. Not that I didn't have one before, as I've played the same openings for a year or two already. But although I did put some work into it, it never was very systematic nor thorough. Reading books, studying games, blitzing the openings, sure, but I never really focused into it as with tactics. And I probably didn't need to, except maybe considering blitz where it really turned out to be surprisingly useful. There was just always other more important things to train.
So, now I've finally reached the point where I feel it's usefull to dive deep into it, and will be properly focusing on openings for some time. I began booking up on my selected openings a few months ago, going through videos & books and putting all the relevant lines into a database. All of which I've gone through many times already, so I'm somewhat familiar with the ideas, but shaky on the actual variations. Such knowledge is simply not digestable without extensive drilling, and although some of it stays with you, most of the details evaporate fairly soon.
It's still very much a work in progress, as playing a sicilian there's just such a huge ground to cover. I'm also already training the parts I've already plugged in, but still only beginning to cover anti-sicilians, not to even mention polar bear. I've got maybe 30% of the eventual material plugged in, of which I've now drilled (exhaustively) about 30%. So maybe 90% of the drilling still ahead, and also getting rest of the planned material into a database. This might take a while. It's not hard, but time consuming. A year, or two, but months at minimum. There are existing dbs, but I really want to construct my own versions, handpicking what I need.
The method of training is very much the same as with tactics: Drill the positions until they're second nature to you. Effortless, instant recognition of familiar elements and related patterns. -In practice I've got the lines in Chess Position Trainer, every opening as a separate sub-repertoire, from which I drill random lines until I know them inside out. Currently I'm doing lines from move 1 into the end of the line, around 16-30 moves deep generally. In sicilian the first 11-12 are pretty much fixed, so it's manageable. Also, I might not remember people's names, but this is the type of memorization I excell in.
In time I plan to switch into drilling from random positions, which requires accurate recognition of all the elements present in the given position. Out of order recollection. So far it seems that might turn out to be much easier than it sounds, the lines are not only sinking in well but also the triggering details start sort of popping up. Many of which you never knew about before, but somehow just deduce from constant exposure in different but similar positions. The black box of the brain at its best, nonverbally and unconsciously classifying patterns from a jumble of data. It doesn't need reasons or narrative, just feed it huge amount of data and let it do what it evolved to do best.
What I'm seeking to gain with all this, is a basic, rock solid opening repertoire. It won't be 'complete' by any definition of the word, nor it will be final. But it'll provide my brain a blitz-proof model of all mainlines and basic deviations, a geometry I can instantly recollect and recognize with no calculation. A base on which to build further understanding of the related typical middle- and engame positions and schemes. And when it's all in I'll probably start adding other openings as well, just to complement the understanding by learning different types of positions. But that's another project for another time.
Well, enough banter, back to work.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
1506 on ICC 5-minute Blitz!
F i n a l l y ! It's been over two years since I first crossed 1400 on ICC 5-minute, and even though the effort has been sporadic at best, it still took more than enough time. I've had these spells of blitz in which I decide to work on it properly, but they've seldom lasted for more than a couple of weeks at a time. Then 3-8 months of hiatus, and back on it. -It's always been hard to keep myself motivated to train blitz more, as slow chess has always gone so much better for me. Obviously you always much rather do things you're good at. Hopefully that'll change for the better now after reaching a basic level of not dropping everything in every game, so my strat
egic/positional strengths should also begin affecting the games. Still much to do on the basic technique though, and I'll also no doubt dive back under 1500 soon enough. Gotta just keep hammering.
It took me 1002 of 5-minute games on ICC, and 2679 on FICS, so roughly 3700 games in total over the four years I've played chess. From what I've heard from other people, they've needed less than half of it to get onto the same level. Maybe it's a side-effect of starting chess 30-years old, but frankly I doubt they've been that counting the amount that precisely. It's so easy to underestimate things like this, forget old accounts and whole sites you've played on. If I'd have to give a guesstimate on my own total amount without my training diary, I'd probably say something like a thousand games in total. But I know I've played exactly 1002 5/0s on ICC, 149 other blitz time controls, 2679 5/0s on FICS, and about 60 games on other sites. So I'd guess their real number of games is much closer to my 3700 than the 1000-2000 they often estimate. Then again, my long pauses in blitz training can't be good, so maybe... Well, I don't know for sure. But I wanted to document these things so other beginner can have at least one exact reference of how much work it took. I would've killed for data like this in my first two years.
So what worked and what didn't?
Well, for one, I must say that tactics never did anything for my blitz, even though it's always advertized as the holy grail of fast chess. It has benefitted me hugely on correspondence chess and the ability of solving tactical puzzles, but my blitz never improved on bit before I begun playing blitz heavily. Although obviously you have to have some basic proficiency in tactics, you can't just expect to survive in blitz if you never drilled tactics. But it isn't the bottleneck, at least on the low levels.
Endgames, well, that's a sort of mixed thing. Although my endgame studies have been far from what I'd like it to be (in quantity/quality), it has had some effect. But, I think the blitz endings get played 'wrong' far more often than 'correctly', so the theory doesn't have that much impact. I'd assume the training effect of playing blitz endings 'incorrectly' for thousands of games is much more relevant in practice, as is any other kind of training practical endings. On higher levels the correct theory will have an increasing effect of course, but at 1500 everybody is still playing everything 'wrong'.
Slow games haven't had much effect either. It's the area I've always used most time since the beginning, analyzing positions for hours every day. The outcome has been that I'm great at seeing what I did wrong afterwards, but that's just too little too late. The ability to analyze slow games is just too, well, slow. The revelations must come instantly, without thinking, or otherwise you lose on time. -Perhaps the slow games will some day reach a critical number, so I'll have seen all the basic situations so many times that playing them correctly becomes instinctive, but after 4 years it still takes conscious thinking time. People who've played for decades are probably in a very different situation regarding all this.
That pretty much leaves openings. The unappreciated love of beginning players, on which the experienced players always tell you not to waste study time. -And in slow chess that's actually true. But in blitz... I don't think so anymore.
During the past year that I've finally focused on my openings properly, it's become obvious that my opening knowledge has been abysmal. The shallowness and uncertainty on even the things I thought I knew has been simply enormous. As the cliché goes, I'm only beginning to undertand the extent of my ignorance. I now study openings every day, and it's paying dividends especially in blitz. I'm actually outplaying my opponents on book knowledge, and to top that I'm even understanding why their non-book moves are inferior. Of course that still happens mostly in the mainlines, and quite early at that, but it's a promising start. I'll continue on that vein and see where it'll get me.
ICC 5-minute: 1506, 1002 games, +484, -504, =14.
RHP: 2061, 324 games, +226, -81, =17.
egic/positional strengths should also begin affecting the games. Still much to do on the basic technique though, and I'll also no doubt dive back under 1500 soon enough. Gotta just keep hammering.It took me 1002 of 5-minute games on ICC, and 2679 on FICS, so roughly 3700 games in total over the four years I've played chess. From what I've heard from other people, they've needed less than half of it to get onto the same level. Maybe it's a side-effect of starting chess 30-years old, but frankly I doubt they've been that counting the amount that precisely. It's so easy to underestimate things like this, forget old accounts and whole sites you've played on. If I'd have to give a guesstimate on my own total amount without my training diary, I'd probably say something like a thousand games in total. But I know I've played exactly 1002 5/0s on ICC, 149 other blitz time controls, 2679 5/0s on FICS, and about 60 games on other sites. So I'd guess their real number of games is much closer to my 3700 than the 1000-2000 they often estimate. Then again, my long pauses in blitz training can't be good, so maybe... Well, I don't know for sure. But I wanted to document these things so other beginner can have at least one exact reference of how much work it took. I would've killed for data like this in my first two years.
So what worked and what didn't?
Well, for one, I must say that tactics never did anything for my blitz, even though it's always advertized as the holy grail of fast chess. It has benefitted me hugely on correspondence chess and the ability of solving tactical puzzles, but my blitz never improved on bit before I begun playing blitz heavily. Although obviously you have to have some basic proficiency in tactics, you can't just expect to survive in blitz if you never drilled tactics. But it isn't the bottleneck, at least on the low levels.
Endgames, well, that's a sort of mixed thing. Although my endgame studies have been far from what I'd like it to be (in quantity/quality), it has had some effect. But, I think the blitz endings get played 'wrong' far more often than 'correctly', so the theory doesn't have that much impact. I'd assume the training effect of playing blitz endings 'incorrectly' for thousands of games is much more relevant in practice, as is any other kind of training practical endings. On higher levels the correct theory will have an increasing effect of course, but at 1500 everybody is still playing everything 'wrong'.
Slow games haven't had much effect either. It's the area I've always used most time since the beginning, analyzing positions for hours every day. The outcome has been that I'm great at seeing what I did wrong afterwards, but that's just too little too late. The ability to analyze slow games is just too, well, slow. The revelations must come instantly, without thinking, or otherwise you lose on time. -Perhaps the slow games will some day reach a critical number, so I'll have seen all the basic situations so many times that playing them correctly becomes instinctive, but after 4 years it still takes conscious thinking time. People who've played for decades are probably in a very different situation regarding all this.
That pretty much leaves openings. The unappreciated love of beginning players, on which the experienced players always tell you not to waste study time. -And in slow chess that's actually true. But in blitz... I don't think so anymore.
During the past year that I've finally focused on my openings properly, it's become obvious that my opening knowledge has been abysmal. The shallowness and uncertainty on even the things I thought I knew has been simply enormous. As the cliché goes, I'm only beginning to undertand the extent of my ignorance. I now study openings every day, and it's paying dividends especially in blitz. I'm actually outplaying my opponents on book knowledge, and to top that I'm even understanding why their non-book moves are inferior. Of course that still happens mostly in the mainlines, and quite early at that, but it's a promising start. I'll continue on that vein and see where it'll get me.
ICC 5-minute: 1506, 1002 games, +484, -504, =14.
RHP: 2061, 324 games, +226, -81, =17.
Monday, November 10, 2008
2002 On Red Hot Pawn
Finally made it, don't feel any different. It took a little over three years, but to be honest I've been mostly lazing up the last one. Have turned into a slightly more well rounded player though, due to the endgame training, which has opened up my understanding of the other phases of the game as well. Although the slowly cumulating experience probably didn't hurt either.
My openings still suck, as do my middlegame. My calculation is abysmal, and I'm really not even remotely satisfied with my tactics either. A lot of work needs to be done to cover even the basics of endgame, which I've only scratched so far. If anything, I see more holes in my game than I saw a year ago. But I guess that's positive, to know at least some of what needs fixing.
If this is 2000, I'm not impressed. I still feel like a beginner, blindly fumbling his way through the ropes. I'm turning 34 in two months, started at thirty, and getting here wasn't really that difficult (in the sense that everything's been simple repetitive training, instead of complex deep & mystical secrets). Only laborous.
Right now I'm quite confident that anybody can reach 2200, regardless of age. Probably more. There's so many simple basic things yet to learn that it isn't even funny. When those simple things are exhausted, that's the first possible 'ceiling' for an adult. Until that it's just going through those things one by one, training them until you can't get them wrong. Train more, read less.
RHP: 2002, 307 games, +212, =17, -78.
Chess.com: 2097, 15 games, +14, =0, -1.
CTS: 1632, 107832 problems, 80.0%.
My openings still suck, as do my middlegame. My calculation is abysmal, and I'm really not even remotely satisfied with my tactics either. A lot of work needs to be done to cover even the basics of endgame, which I've only scratched so far. If anything, I see more holes in my game than I saw a year ago. But I guess that's positive, to know at least some of what needs fixing.
If this is 2000, I'm not impressed. I still feel like a beginner, blindly fumbling his way through the ropes. I'm turning 34 in two months, started at thirty, and getting here wasn't really that difficult (in the sense that everything's been simple repetitive training, instead of complex deep & mystical secrets). Only laborous.
Right now I'm quite confident that anybody can reach 2200, regardless of age. Probably more. There's so many simple basic things yet to learn that it isn't even funny. When those simple things are exhausted, that's the first possible 'ceiling' for an adult. Until that it's just going through those things one by one, training them until you can't get them wrong. Train more, read less.
RHP: 2002, 307 games, +212, =17, -78.
Chess.com: 2097, 15 games, +14, =0, -1.
CTS: 1632, 107832 problems, 80.0%.
Monday, August 04, 2008
KQ vs. KR Mating Tutorial, Part 1 - Philidor's Position
I think the time has come to try putting it all into a tutorial. Or a series of posts, as the ground to cover is just too much for a single post. It would no doubt fill a small book, and I'm not gonna go that deep into it. Just the essentials which will allow you to figure the rest out, just like I did.
The amount of different types of positions you need to be able to play is quite extensive, so I can't possibly cover all of them, nor even know all of them thoroughly. But I'll go through the essential positions, trying to point out what I found to be important and practical. The rest you'll need to fill in by yourself, by training these positions over and over and over against an engine. The reason is because, even if I managed to write it all down, it wouldn't be much use to anyone. KQkr mate is not something you can learn by reading some kind of directions, no matter how complete, it's far too complicated for that. Instead you need to get your hands dirty, work on the typical procedures until you know them like the back of your hands. Build up intuition for what kind of candidates to look for, as well as pattern recognition for the various little tricks there are, and become able to jump from technique to another without missing a beat. Which is very typical for this mate, as you'll always need no jump between 3, 5 or more different techniques to get where you want to.
This is not an easy mate, and will require quite a lot of effort to learn. But I firmly believe anyone can learn KQkr mate, it just takes time & elbow grease. It took me 3-4 weeks to get to this point, and a few hundred repetitions mating from the essential positions. It's not gonna happen quickly, and you'll need to rehash everything multiple times.
So why should you do all this work? It's not like you'll run into KQkr mate on regular bases, far from it. - Well. Just like KNB mate, it's the side-effects that count, not the mate itself. The journey is more important than the destination. - It teaches you a lot of piece coordination, how to really operate the mighty queen, and how to defend with the rook. During these weeks the constant KQkr drilling has made a tremendous impact on my board vision, as the drills require you to be aware of the whole board, diagonals, individual squares and the colour of them. It's been like a veil had been lifted from my eyes, I can see a lot more in open positions than I used to. It's definitely worth it, from the practical point of view.
Okay, enough babbling, let's get down and dirty. The first position to learn is Philidor's position, which is a forced mate from as early as 1777:
This is what you're aiming for, and also where you'll end up if you opponent plays the best defence. - What's noteworthy in this position, is that if it's black to move, he's in zugzwang and will drop a rook (I'll get back to that in a minute). But, if it's white to move, as it often happens, you need to lose a tempo. The way to do that is to triangulate with checks 1.Qe5+ (extremely typical check in other KQkr positions as well, get used to looking for these), 1...Ka7 2.Qa1+ Kb8 3.Qa5 (1...Ka8 2.Qa1+ Ra7 gets mated with typical 3.Qh8#). Now it's the same exact position, but black to move.
black's options: 3...Kc8 loses directly to 4.Qa6 pinning the rook and mating. So only rook moves are possible, but every single one of them drops the rook and gets black mated. Let's see how:
3...Re7 4.Qd8+ forks the rook.
3...Rf7 4.Qe5+ Ka7 5.Qe3+ Kb8 (Black king has to return or get mated at once, another typical check from centre) 6.Qd8+ forks the rook.
3...Rg7 4.Qe5+ forks the rook.
3...Rh7 4.Qe5+ Ka8 5.Qa1+ Kb8 6.Qb1+ forks the rook. (This is the main way to move the queen from wrong colored diagonal to right one. Learn it, you'll be using it a lot.)
That took care of the 7th rank, now let's see the other escape direction, the b-file:
3...Rb3 4.Qe5+ Ka7 5.Qg7+ (the good ol' diagonal swap) Ka8 6.Qg8+ forks the rook, or mates if black tries Rb8 to interpose.
3...Rb2 4.Qe5+ forks the rook
3...Rb1, the best defence, falls to diagonal swap, what else. 4.Qe5+ Ka7 5.Qd4+ (work out why that was needed) Ka8 6.Qh8+ Ka7 7.Qh7+ Kb8 8.Qxb1+ Kc8 9.Qb7+ Kd8 10.Qd7#
That's it, black has no other sane moves, Game Over.
The things to take home from the Philidor's position, are the importance of the typical check from the centre and the diagonal swap. Drill these lines against Fritz until you can blitz them as fast as you can move your mouse, to the point where you'll be constantly visualizing several moves ahead, and your hand just goes through the motions. Notice that in none of black's tries the king escapes, instead you can always mate directly after winning the rook. So if you're forced to mate the lone king by chasing it accross the board, you're doing something wrong. In a real game you'll likely need most of the 50 moves available, so it's important that you can mate efficiently.
I hope I didn't screw up the notation, and that the diagram actually shows.
RHP: 1988, 298 games, +204, =17, -77.
Chess.com: 1985, 7 games +7, =0 , -0.
The amount of different types of positions you need to be able to play is quite extensive, so I can't possibly cover all of them, nor even know all of them thoroughly. But I'll go through the essential positions, trying to point out what I found to be important and practical. The rest you'll need to fill in by yourself, by training these positions over and over and over against an engine. The reason is because, even if I managed to write it all down, it wouldn't be much use to anyone. KQkr mate is not something you can learn by reading some kind of directions, no matter how complete, it's far too complicated for that. Instead you need to get your hands dirty, work on the typical procedures until you know them like the back of your hands. Build up intuition for what kind of candidates to look for, as well as pattern recognition for the various little tricks there are, and become able to jump from technique to another without missing a beat. Which is very typical for this mate, as you'll always need no jump between 3, 5 or more different techniques to get where you want to.
This is not an easy mate, and will require quite a lot of effort to learn. But I firmly believe anyone can learn KQkr mate, it just takes time & elbow grease. It took me 3-4 weeks to get to this point, and a few hundred repetitions mating from the essential positions. It's not gonna happen quickly, and you'll need to rehash everything multiple times.
So why should you do all this work? It's not like you'll run into KQkr mate on regular bases, far from it. - Well. Just like KNB mate, it's the side-effects that count, not the mate itself. The journey is more important than the destination. - It teaches you a lot of piece coordination, how to really operate the mighty queen, and how to defend with the rook. During these weeks the constant KQkr drilling has made a tremendous impact on my board vision, as the drills require you to be aware of the whole board, diagonals, individual squares and the colour of them. It's been like a veil had been lifted from my eyes, I can see a lot more in open positions than I used to. It's definitely worth it, from the practical point of view.
Okay, enough babbling, let's get down and dirty. The first position to learn is Philidor's position, which is a forced mate from as early as 1777:
This is what you're aiming for, and also where you'll end up if you opponent plays the best defence. - What's noteworthy in this position, is that if it's black to move, he's in zugzwang and will drop a rook (I'll get back to that in a minute). But, if it's white to move, as it often happens, you need to lose a tempo. The way to do that is to triangulate with checks 1.Qe5+ (extremely typical check in other KQkr positions as well, get used to looking for these), 1...Ka7 2.Qa1+ Kb8 3.Qa5 (1...Ka8 2.Qa1+ Ra7 gets mated with typical 3.Qh8#). Now it's the same exact position, but black to move.
black's options: 3...Kc8 loses directly to 4.Qa6 pinning the rook and mating. So only rook moves are possible, but every single one of them drops the rook and gets black mated. Let's see how:
3...Re7 4.Qd8+ forks the rook.
3...Rf7 4.Qe5+ Ka7 5.Qe3+ Kb8 (Black king has to return or get mated at once, another typical check from centre) 6.Qd8+ forks the rook.
3...Rg7 4.Qe5+ forks the rook.
3...Rh7 4.Qe5+ Ka8 5.Qa1+ Kb8 6.Qb1+ forks the rook. (This is the main way to move the queen from wrong colored diagonal to right one. Learn it, you'll be using it a lot.)
That took care of the 7th rank, now let's see the other escape direction, the b-file:
3...Rb3 4.Qe5+ Ka7 5.Qg7+ (the good ol' diagonal swap) Ka8 6.Qg8+ forks the rook, or mates if black tries Rb8 to interpose.
3...Rb2 4.Qe5+ forks the rook
3...Rb1, the best defence, falls to diagonal swap, what else. 4.Qe5+ Ka7 5.Qd4+ (work out why that was needed) Ka8 6.Qh8+ Ka7 7.Qh7+ Kb8 8.Qxb1+ Kc8 9.Qb7+ Kd8 10.Qd7#
That's it, black has no other sane moves, Game Over.
The things to take home from the Philidor's position, are the importance of the typical check from the centre and the diagonal swap. Drill these lines against Fritz until you can blitz them as fast as you can move your mouse, to the point where you'll be constantly visualizing several moves ahead, and your hand just goes through the motions. Notice that in none of black's tries the king escapes, instead you can always mate directly after winning the rook. So if you're forced to mate the lone king by chasing it accross the board, you're doing something wrong. In a real game you'll likely need most of the 50 moves available, so it's important that you can mate efficiently.
I hope I didn't screw up the notation, and that the diagram actually shows.
RHP: 1988, 298 games, +204, =17, -77.
Chess.com: 1985, 7 games +7, =0 , -0.
Friday, August 01, 2008
Mating with KQ vs. KR
During the last weeks I've been training the intimidating Q vs. R mate, and yes, it's every bit as hard as it's said to be. Maybe even more so.
So why is it so hard? Well, to begin with, there isn't any clear cut single technique to it like in the KNB for example, which btw. seems like a walk in the park in comparison. Instead you need to learn a bunch of typical positions, learn the ins & outs of them, then recognize similarities on the board and jump from one technique to another, in a way which seems quite random. And with a bit of luck, you'll manage to fumble your way into a forced winning of the rook.
Basically, you'll need to drill it over and over with fritz, build up a huge repository of typical maneuvers, and sort of feel your way through it. I think I've got it down fairly well now, as I can win it from random positions against tablebase most of the times. But I still don't know half of the time how I got into a 'familiar position', or why I suddenly dropped off from the beaten path. I just make moves which seem 'reasonable', and somehow end into some recognizable position eventually. So there's still lots of ground to cover, but I'm starting to get there. In slow games I think I can pull it off, but blitz is still out of the question, at least against tablebase. Agains fritz without tablebase I can blitz it, but mostly because fritz plays it very similarly every time.
I'll try to write some kind of a real tutorial at some point, but there's so much material to cover it'll take some time. And also my knowledge about it isn't really focused enough to put it into words yet either.
But anyway, here's an example against the ICC KQkr bot:
[Event "ICC"]
[Date "2008.08.03"]
[White "wormwood"]
[Black "KQkr"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "1329"]
[BlackElo "2200"]
[TimeControl "300+12"]
[FEN "8/7k/8/8/6Q1/8/r1K5/8 w - - 0 1"]
1. Kb3 Ra6 2. Qd7+ Kh6 3. Kc4 Rf6 4. Kd5 Kg5 5. Ke5 Rf2 6. Qg7+ Kh4 7. Qg6 Rf3 8. Ke4 Rf2 9. Qd6 Kg4 10. Qd1+ Kg3 11. Qg1+ Rg2 12. Qe3+ Kh2 13. Kf4 Rg7 14. Qe5 Rg3 15. Qd6 Kh3 16. Qe6+ Kh2 17. Qe5 Rg2 18. Kf3+ Kg1 19. Qa1+ Kh2 20. Qe1 Ra2 21. Qe5+ Kg1 22. Qd4+ Kh1 23. Qh8+ Kg1 24. Qg8+ Kh2 25. Qxa2+ Kh3 26. Qg2+ Kh4 27. Qg4# 1-0
(2008.08.03 - Updated the above example to a new, more streamlined one. This one I managed in a little over a minute against a tablebase. Getting pretty close to being able to blitz it.)
The basic idea is to force the defender in zugzwang, so that he'll have to separate the rook from the king. After which the rook should drop fairly soon. Checks are usually just tools to get into a zugzwang, and the most important (and hardest to see) moves come without a check. Up to a point where you start looking for non-checking moves for candidates rather than those familiar checks. But naturally there are some extremely important checks as well.
I doubt any of this makes much sense without diagrams and specific variations, but hopefully I'll get to that some day.
So why is it so hard? Well, to begin with, there isn't any clear cut single technique to it like in the KNB for example, which btw. seems like a walk in the park in comparison. Instead you need to learn a bunch of typical positions, learn the ins & outs of them, then recognize similarities on the board and jump from one technique to another, in a way which seems quite random. And with a bit of luck, you'll manage to fumble your way into a forced winning of the rook.
Basically, you'll need to drill it over and over with fritz, build up a huge repository of typical maneuvers, and sort of feel your way through it. I think I've got it down fairly well now, as I can win it from random positions against tablebase most of the times. But I still don't know half of the time how I got into a 'familiar position', or why I suddenly dropped off from the beaten path. I just make moves which seem 'reasonable', and somehow end into some recognizable position eventually. So there's still lots of ground to cover, but I'm starting to get there. In slow games I think I can pull it off, but blitz is still out of the question, at least against tablebase. Agains fritz without tablebase I can blitz it, but mostly because fritz plays it very similarly every time.
I'll try to write some kind of a real tutorial at some point, but there's so much material to cover it'll take some time. And also my knowledge about it isn't really focused enough to put it into words yet either.
But anyway, here's an example against the ICC KQkr bot:
[Event "ICC"]
[Date "2008.08.03"]
[White "wormwood"]
[Black "KQkr"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "1329"]
[BlackElo "2200"]
[TimeControl "300+12"]
[FEN "8/7k/8/8/6Q1/8/r1K5/8 w - - 0 1"]
1. Kb3 Ra6 2. Qd7+ Kh6 3. Kc4 Rf6 4. Kd5 Kg5 5. Ke5 Rf2 6. Qg7+ Kh4 7. Qg6 Rf3 8. Ke4 Rf2 9. Qd6 Kg4 10. Qd1+ Kg3 11. Qg1+ Rg2 12. Qe3+ Kh2 13. Kf4 Rg7 14. Qe5 Rg3 15. Qd6 Kh3 16. Qe6+ Kh2 17. Qe5 Rg2 18. Kf3+ Kg1 19. Qa1+ Kh2 20. Qe1 Ra2 21. Qe5+ Kg1 22. Qd4+ Kh1 23. Qh8+ Kg1 24. Qg8+ Kh2 25. Qxa2+ Kh3 26. Qg2+ Kh4 27. Qg4# 1-0
(2008.08.03 - Updated the above example to a new, more streamlined one. This one I managed in a little over a minute against a tablebase. Getting pretty close to being able to blitz it.)
The basic idea is to force the defender in zugzwang, so that he'll have to separate the rook from the king. After which the rook should drop fairly soon. Checks are usually just tools to get into a zugzwang, and the most important (and hardest to see) moves come without a check. Up to a point where you start looking for non-checking moves for candidates rather than those familiar checks. But naturally there are some extremely important checks as well.
I doubt any of this makes much sense without diagrams and specific variations, but hopefully I'll get to that some day.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Rook Endgames, Phase I
I just finished the first round of going through Karsten Müller's DVD 2 on rook endgames, and copying all of the starting positions into a database. That's about 70 positions in total, although some of them are more educational, in the sense that refuting the incorrect tries are much more important than the correct line. But quite a lot of them are also 'trainable' against Fritz as it is, meaning the meat of the positions lie in the correct mainline (along which engines probably step as sparring opponents). Which is exactly what I'm gonna do next.
So now I have all the positions in a chessbase database, even the 'untrainable' ones for completeness' sake. That way it's easy to load them up into Fritz (tools/options/training/endgame training), and use them instead of the pathetic default positions in the endgame training module.
On the first round I also went through the videos with some thought, and feel like I already gained a good familiarity with all the basic principles and techniques. Now the hard part begins, which is drilling the positions over and over, until the philidors, lucenas, vancuras, karstedts, saavedras etc. come as a second nature to me. I want to be able to blitz through all of it on autopilot if/when necessary, no matter how drunk or tired I might be. And at that point I'll attack the more discussional type of examples again, hopefully being able to spot the technical refutations and sidelines a mile away, as I should in a real game.
Quite a lot of the won lines end into a Q vs R endgame though, so maybe I should learn that first (it's on DVD 3, which I have but haven't gone through), in order to drill those positions until the bitter end? Sounds like a practical way to combine two drills, so maybe I'll just do that. it can't be that hard, can it? Although I did try it from the top of my head, and there's absolutely no way I could figure it out on my own. Seems more tricky than the KNB mate, which makes it pretty funny that most people probably resign rather than even think about trading the queen for a rook.
So now I have all the positions in a chessbase database, even the 'untrainable' ones for completeness' sake. That way it's easy to load them up into Fritz (tools/options/training/endgame training), and use them instead of the pathetic default positions in the endgame training module.
On the first round I also went through the videos with some thought, and feel like I already gained a good familiarity with all the basic principles and techniques. Now the hard part begins, which is drilling the positions over and over, until the philidors, lucenas, vancuras, karstedts, saavedras etc. come as a second nature to me. I want to be able to blitz through all of it on autopilot if/when necessary, no matter how drunk or tired I might be. And at that point I'll attack the more discussional type of examples again, hopefully being able to spot the technical refutations and sidelines a mile away, as I should in a real game.
Quite a lot of the won lines end into a Q vs R endgame though, so maybe I should learn that first (it's on DVD 3, which I have but haven't gone through), in order to drill those positions until the bitter end? Sounds like a practical way to combine two drills, so maybe I'll just do that. it can't be that hard, can it? Although I did try it from the top of my head, and there's absolutely no way I could figure it out on my own. Seems more tricky than the KNB mate, which makes it pretty funny that most people probably resign rather than even think about trading the queen for a rook.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
