Quote of the Month: Coordination of your forces means the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In my book Elements of Positional Evaluation, which is about evaluating the value of pieces (and not positions), one of the seven elements is coordination. Of course, coordination is not just associated with individual pieces and how each relates to the other pieces; it is often considered "as a whole" on how all the pieces coordinate with each other. One interesting aspect of coordination is that pieces that move on the same lines, like doubled rooks or batteries (pieces that move the same way on the same line, like a queen and bishop on the same diagonal) would seem to be coordinating … [Read more...]

Quote of the Month: I'm only interested in what's important. We all have filters attached to our senses to restrict the type of input we want to process. For example, when driving a car, you do not try to take in all the scenery. Instead, you focus on items that might affect the safety (or direction) of your car. If something in your peripheral vision, like a ball rolling onto the street, becomes a safety issue, then it becomes important; otherwise most "side" issues are easily missed. The idea that the brain "tunes out" less important input is necessary for our sanity, and we can think of this as a filter – the brain allows through to our consciousness only the most high priority items, so … [Read more...]