Personalized Study Book By Dan Heisman Quote of the Month: “Minimizing your biggest and most frequent mistakes will help more than correcting rare and subtle ones, no matter how interesting.” When I was in school (including college), I had an interesting method to study before a test: As I was reviewing the material, I would make note of any information that was either likely to be on the test and/or something I needed to understand better. I would try to fit this information onto two-sides of a standard 8.5”x11” piece of paper. When I finished studying the entire set of material (say by the morning of the test), I would continue to study from the single sheet of paper. Any … [Read more...]
Novice NookBy Dan Heisman
Determining Candidate Move Safety
Determining Candidate Move Safety By Dan Heisman Quote of the Month: “Whenever you think you have lost the meaning of life, look around you for those in need of your help and you shall find it.” I consider the most important issue on a chess board to be safety (off the board it is having fun, but that’s another story...). Students often cite after a lost game: “...I lost because I missed a tactic...” ...whereupon I usually provide a follow-up question, which they did not consider... “That’s ambiguous: Did you mean that you missed, and thus allowed, a tactic for the opponent that won the game for him, or did you fail to see a tactic for you that would have won, or saved the … [Read more...]
More on Homeworks
More on Homeworks By Dan Heisman Quote of the Month: “Whenever you think you have lost the meaning of life, look around you for those in need of your help and you shall find it.” Many years ago I wrote a Novice Nook The Four Homeworks which described four different chess “tasks” a student could do in-between lessons: Do puzzles appropriate to their level and needs – For players under 1800 or so, this should start with repetitious easy tactics, like learning the multiplication tables. But this category includes all kinds of puzzles, such as harder tactical puzzles, positional, endgame, and even board vision puzzles like Jeff Coakley’s Switcheroos and Double Whammies, as found in … [Read more...]
Improving Visualization
Improving Visualization by Dan Heisman Quote of the Month: “You can’t play what you don’t see.” The quote of the month has been one of my more popular ones. GM Soltis used it in his book The Wisest Things Ever Said About Chess. A big attribute of this principle is that it has several helpful meanings: If you don’t consider a move as a potential candidate, it can never be played, If you do consider a move, but don’t notice its potential, you won’t consider it seriously, If you don’t search for better candidate moves, you won’t find them, and If you are analyzing and can’t visualize the board clearly, you can’t analyze well. It’s this final interpretation that we want to … [Read more...]
The Immortal Quiescence Error Game
Novice Nook #163 The Immortal Quiescence Error Game by Dan Heisman Quote of the Month: Quiescent is quiet - there are no more forcing moves of consequence. In Quiescence Errors we examined the very frequent mistake of stopping analysis too soon. A most common example is a missed pseudo-sacrifice (some call it "sham sacrifice") combination which starts with giving up material but soon gains it back - and more - by force in the next few moves. One reason why amateurs get problems they see in books but miss those same combinations in games is that they start with a pseudo-sacrifice. In a problem the reader, if he is a lower-rated player, has the implicit instruction "Keep looking! … [Read more...]
Odds and Ends #2
Novice Nook #162 Odds and Ends #2 by Dan Heisman Quote of the Month: A lost opportunity to learn something leaves you at best stagnant.. Some of my favorite Novice Nooks cover more than one short subject: Techniques A Fistful of Lessons Examples of Chess Logic Odds and Ends Just because a subject was not “large” enough to merit an entire column did not mean it was any less important than ones that do. In fact, sometimes important advice about improving at chess is short and sweet, and that brevity may actually help the reader get the point. Pick Your Opponent’s Brain As mentioned in My Top Tips for Improvement, one of the best ways to improve is to hang out with … [Read more...]
A Microcosm of Life: Knowledge vs Intelligence
A Microcosm of Life: Knowledge vs Intelligence by Dan Heisman Quote of the Month: Never confuse ignorance with stupidity. That was one of the many pieces of advice given to me by NM Richard Pariseau when I started working for him at the simulation lab of the Naval Air Development Center in the early 1970s. The corollary, of course, is “Never confuse knowledge with intelligence.” ...a mistake often made not only by the public in general, but chess players as well. This is a very important distinction for those trying to improve at chess. Advancing your chess knowledge is important, even crucial, but it doesn’t replace honing your skills, e.g., properly using your … [Read more...]
Why Did You Make That Move?
by Dan Heisman Why Did You Make That Move? Quote of the Month: I don’t know why I made that move. One of the main jobs of a chess instructor is to help the student find better moves. But that includes some big assumptions, like the student wants to take the time to find a better move, or that he has some vague idea how. However, another big aspect of instruction is diagnosis, and the main things an instructor diagnoses is chess mistakes, particularly bad moves. There can be many causes for the same bad move: poor time management, lack of one of the three chess visions (tactical, board, and visualization), poor analysis skills, lack of a particular set of knowledge, etc. While the … [Read more...]
Learning Endgames
Quote of the Month: Until you are master strength you don't have to know more than about two dozen exact endings. The Quote of the Month is from GM Andy Soltis's book Studying Chess Made Easy, and can be found in his chapter "Overcoming Endgame Phobia." This chapter is full of good, practical advice, but the quote I selected is at the heart of Soltis's main point. In order to understand it, you need to know what Soltis's meant by "exact endgames." He defines these as endings with "only a few pieces and pawns. They are important because they can occur at the end of many other endgames and because their outcome is certain. Every exact endgame is either a forced win or a forced draw." I … [Read more...]
Piece Evaluation vs. Position Evaluation
Quote of the Month: Evaluation tells you how valuable something is. I have devoted many Novice Nooks to the suggestion that the main chess skill is analysis. I have also stated the companion thought process skill to analysis, and thus "second in command," is evaluation. My definition for evaluation of a position is determining which side stands better, how much better, and why? It is also important to differentiate between static evaluation and dynamic evaluation: Static evaluation occurs by considering the static elements of the position, e.g., what material is on the board, positional factors like weak pawns, open files, etc, and "visual" king safety – the apparent ability of the … [Read more...]