In the spirit of sharing and reform, I have decided to work to add positive value to all readers and since I found something interesting, I will also put it here just in case some of you may have missed it. Below is a video which describes and exhibits a simple way of thinking in chess which I love to employ. Simple but effective. But since people may not consider someone with a name like The Chess Ninja to be a credible source, let me allow GM Maurice Ashley to share his invaluable opinion with you.
Showing posts with label Coaching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Coaching. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
A Recipe for Disaster
Some of you have questioned why I keep bothering with First GM despite his useless advice and ignorance. Here is one example why. I find myself uncomfortable and uneasy just sitting down and watching someone pretend to know how to play chess and trying to impart his "knowledge" upon the many chess players as "the way to go". This would have been fine if he allowed an active discussion by the public, but ever since he started deleting all the comments on his blog, he has become the epitome of what he preaches others not to be. Below is one of his recent articles and I have included my comments in bold to show why people should not take heed of his advice blindly. It shows how little he knows about chess.
What makes me the expert? Well, I am no expert. But at least I have played at the minimum 20 more years of chess than Raymond Siew. That should count for something. Listening to a bridge player (self-proclaimed expert at that too) and a mind coach on chess is like asking advice from your real estate agent about stock market investing. A definite recipe for disaster.
Competitors analysis-what is an opening?
Why and how do we analyse our competitors? Has this any bearing to openings? So many names, Ruy Lopez, Sicillian.....etc.etc.etc. What does it all mean? Read here. Actually an opening has no meaning until we see all 4 components of chess.
If this part does not already show you that he has no understanding of chess, don't worry. There are other examples later. Analyzing our competitors is not limited to openings. I will explain more on this later in the post.
Our opening repertoire is but an expression of who we are. What we like and dont like. For we are all gifted differently. And without competitors analysis that also has no meaning for in competition it is all relative. We may think we are good tactical players but our competitor may be better. But on the other hand we may be weak positional players but our competitor may be weaker relative to us. So detailed evaluation of our strength vs the competitors strength and our weaknesses compared to our competitor improves our understanding of who we are relative to who they are.
This is only partially true. It is one thing to have a pet opening. But any self-respecting chess player would have worked on understanding opening principles rather than just moves in an opening. Any GM can and will be able to play the best moves in any opening even if they have not read that in a book before simply because they understand the opening principles. But thinking on every move on the board is a waste of time. And within the time constraint of every game, an unprepared player is bound to miss some home-prepared ideas. That is why people prepare openings. A strong player who understands opening principles can most certainly fare well against any opening that he faces. The type of opening that one plays is not entirely dependent on his/her personality. It is used to achieve a preset objective prior to the game.
Note: I am assuming here that we are giving our best in every game of course. Because unless we are, the measurement is not accurate.
And this can change depending on time control. Not all openings are the right ones for the different time controls.
So when I see that even our senior players are sometimes one opening type players, I wonder how deep our understanding of chess really is? Can we build a house with just one hammer? I also wonder why we send our players to all these International competitions blind. They just do not know who they are fighting. What is the measure of our gap? Are we so afraid of our competitors that we dont even dare to measure them? Lest we have to awaken from our sleep?
Questioning the understanding of our senior players only because they stick to one opening is pure immaturity. The opening is just one stage of the game. In fact, it is only 1/3 of the game. Do not foreget about the middle-game and the endgame. It is as if these two parts do not require any understanding about the game at all. Playing an opening over and over again only deepens our understanding in that opening. We all know for a fact that novelties are found just about every other day. What this means is that, even if people have been playing the same opening for decades, new ideas still can be found. That is why, practice makes perfect.
Having a favorite opening does not mean the player does not know how to play other openings. But why get stuck on openings? Preparing against the opening of one particular player is simply too narrow. If you have acute observation skills, Kramnik did not only prepare against Kasparov's openings, but against Kasparov's personality as well. Kasparov is well-known for his novelties, but also for his aggressive chess. The Berlin Wall was meant to frustrate Kasparov, which worked to some extent. Of course, there are other factors involved. For a full detailed account of how Kasparov felt during the match, go ahead and read his book, "How Life Imitates Chess". Now, think about Anand vs Kramnik. The same thing happened. Anand completely outprepared Kramnik in their match. If you don't remember these, you can simply visit the Chessbase website and look at the comments made by Kasparov on those games.
Next, why do we send our players to international competitions blind? Simple. The underlying cause is simply the lack of resources. If the MCF requires the players to pay for their own fare to represent the country, it is using precious resources that could have been put into training and preparation. Plus, having a one week training camp is not called preparation. Do not kid ourselves. The second point is, most chess players do not even know how to prepare. Most of the chess players in Malaysia have the wrong chess books to learn openings. Worse, some even have the wrong approach. Now, I am sure you are going to bring in Rahman's coaching about how to prepare. Well, the players must first be willing to learn from their errors themselves. There is simply too much dependence on the chess coach these days.
Nonetheless, preparation is an on-going process and should happen all-year round. Preparing against your opponent's openings is just preparing for a small part of the game. If you have played chess long enough, you would be able to guess your opponent's personality and strength on the board itself through the moves that he/she makes. To push it further, you can even guess from the way the person moves the piece. You can see the confidence, or the nervousness, etc. It is all there. Being able to adjust your style of play as you play against your opponent is also part of preparation. That is real competitor analysis, not just openings.
Every detailed analysis of our competitor improves our understanding of chess; tells us what else we need to work on; who we are, who they are, relative to us and the time control. Openings have no meaning unless seen in that context. Unless of course we are playing kindergarden chess.
Openings can be seen from many other perspectives. Many of us employ it as a surprise tactic. This works some of the time. They are not the determinant of a player's personality. It does not determine who they are and what they like. Chess is a game of counter against counter. I will try to employ an idea to prevent you from getting your favorite position, and you will try to counter that. Then I work on countering your counter and the process goes on. It is not just a one dimensional process that you can prepare for at home just from reading opening books to understand your opponents.
What makes me the expert? Well, I am no expert. But at least I have played at the minimum 20 more years of chess than Raymond Siew. That should count for something. Listening to a bridge player (self-proclaimed expert at that too) and a mind coach on chess is like asking advice from your real estate agent about stock market investing. A definite recipe for disaster.
Competitors analysis-what is an opening?
Why and how do we analyse our competitors? Has this any bearing to openings? So many names, Ruy Lopez, Sicillian.....etc.etc.etc. What does it all mean? Read here. Actually an opening has no meaning until we see all 4 components of chess.
If this part does not already show you that he has no understanding of chess, don't worry. There are other examples later. Analyzing our competitors is not limited to openings. I will explain more on this later in the post.
Our opening repertoire is but an expression of who we are. What we like and dont like. For we are all gifted differently. And without competitors analysis that also has no meaning for in competition it is all relative. We may think we are good tactical players but our competitor may be better. But on the other hand we may be weak positional players but our competitor may be weaker relative to us. So detailed evaluation of our strength vs the competitors strength and our weaknesses compared to our competitor improves our understanding of who we are relative to who they are.
This is only partially true. It is one thing to have a pet opening. But any self-respecting chess player would have worked on understanding opening principles rather than just moves in an opening. Any GM can and will be able to play the best moves in any opening even if they have not read that in a book before simply because they understand the opening principles. But thinking on every move on the board is a waste of time. And within the time constraint of every game, an unprepared player is bound to miss some home-prepared ideas. That is why people prepare openings. A strong player who understands opening principles can most certainly fare well against any opening that he faces. The type of opening that one plays is not entirely dependent on his/her personality. It is used to achieve a preset objective prior to the game.
Note: I am assuming here that we are giving our best in every game of course. Because unless we are, the measurement is not accurate.
And this can change depending on time control. Not all openings are the right ones for the different time controls.
So when I see that even our senior players are sometimes one opening type players, I wonder how deep our understanding of chess really is? Can we build a house with just one hammer? I also wonder why we send our players to all these International competitions blind. They just do not know who they are fighting. What is the measure of our gap? Are we so afraid of our competitors that we dont even dare to measure them? Lest we have to awaken from our sleep?
Questioning the understanding of our senior players only because they stick to one opening is pure immaturity. The opening is just one stage of the game. In fact, it is only 1/3 of the game. Do not foreget about the middle-game and the endgame. It is as if these two parts do not require any understanding about the game at all. Playing an opening over and over again only deepens our understanding in that opening. We all know for a fact that novelties are found just about every other day. What this means is that, even if people have been playing the same opening for decades, new ideas still can be found. That is why, practice makes perfect.
Having a favorite opening does not mean the player does not know how to play other openings. But why get stuck on openings? Preparing against the opening of one particular player is simply too narrow. If you have acute observation skills, Kramnik did not only prepare against Kasparov's openings, but against Kasparov's personality as well. Kasparov is well-known for his novelties, but also for his aggressive chess. The Berlin Wall was meant to frustrate Kasparov, which worked to some extent. Of course, there are other factors involved. For a full detailed account of how Kasparov felt during the match, go ahead and read his book, "How Life Imitates Chess". Now, think about Anand vs Kramnik. The same thing happened. Anand completely outprepared Kramnik in their match. If you don't remember these, you can simply visit the Chessbase website and look at the comments made by Kasparov on those games.
Next, why do we send our players to international competitions blind? Simple. The underlying cause is simply the lack of resources. If the MCF requires the players to pay for their own fare to represent the country, it is using precious resources that could have been put into training and preparation. Plus, having a one week training camp is not called preparation. Do not kid ourselves. The second point is, most chess players do not even know how to prepare. Most of the chess players in Malaysia have the wrong chess books to learn openings. Worse, some even have the wrong approach. Now, I am sure you are going to bring in Rahman's coaching about how to prepare. Well, the players must first be willing to learn from their errors themselves. There is simply too much dependence on the chess coach these days.
Nonetheless, preparation is an on-going process and should happen all-year round. Preparing against your opponent's openings is just preparing for a small part of the game. If you have played chess long enough, you would be able to guess your opponent's personality and strength on the board itself through the moves that he/she makes. To push it further, you can even guess from the way the person moves the piece. You can see the confidence, or the nervousness, etc. It is all there. Being able to adjust your style of play as you play against your opponent is also part of preparation. That is real competitor analysis, not just openings.
Every detailed analysis of our competitor improves our understanding of chess; tells us what else we need to work on; who we are, who they are, relative to us and the time control. Openings have no meaning unless seen in that context. Unless of course we are playing kindergarden chess.
Openings can be seen from many other perspectives. Many of us employ it as a surprise tactic. This works some of the time. They are not the determinant of a player's personality. It does not determine who they are and what they like. Chess is a game of counter against counter. I will try to employ an idea to prevent you from getting your favorite position, and you will try to counter that. Then I work on countering your counter and the process goes on. It is not just a one dimensional process that you can prepare for at home just from reading opening books to understand your opponents.
Friday, October 8, 2010
No Free Lunch
Replying to First GM.
It is NOT OK that the majority do not know what is going on. It is because of this lack of transparency that we are where we are today.
Let me share a personal story with you. For those in the know, you may know who I am after this story, or at least have some clue. I know a junior player, S, who obtained 2nd placing at the National Age Group some time back.
In the selection process for the Asian Junior tournament that year, the champion had declined to play for whatever reason, and the place was offered to the 3rd placed player, skipping out S who was actually tied for first place but only lost out in the playoff.
Needless to say, S' parents protested but by the time they had found out about it, the MCF had ALREADY submitted the registration and had "assumed" that S would not want to play because he had PMR exams coming. S had found out ONLY because one of the players selected for the Girls category had contacted S to ask if S was playing. S did not even know that the MCF was sending any players.
The joke of this is that the 3rd placed player was exactly the same age, and had PMR exams too. So clearly, the excuse was not valid.
Rumor has it, some MCF official or other (I will refrain from giving names since I have no way of proving this), and the parents of the 3rd placed player had a closer relationship (with a possibility of bribes involved (which may or may not be monetary, as that parent had let slip of such an occurrence during a conversation with other parents).
So now you see, whether they are the best tournament director or not, or whether they are the best secretaries or not, it doesn't matter when there is no integrity. How can a place to represent Malaysia be offered to someone discretely? Does this sound familiar to you? Did Greg tell the world he offered you and Mark a place?
To address what you said about Hamid and Greg being in positions that they are the best at, let me share a famous example with you. Remember Bernie Madoff? He is one of the most brilliant investors in our time. How did he cheat so many other brilliant people out of USD50 billion? This was made possible by his reputation of being great with money.
But just because he is good at what he does, does not mean it is good for everyone. What he lacked was integrity and the whole scheme was shrouded by a lack of transparency. No one knew what he was doing. None of his investors did. No one questioned him as long as he was promising great returns.
Back to Malaysian chess. Putting aside the argument that Hamid and Greg are doing a great job, how can you insist that they are still the right people for the job if there is a lack of integrity and transparency? This was clearly shown again in the selection for the Olympiad.
Now, to push it one step further, if you examine why they had shunned you when you requested for a post mortem as a sponsor, if you think carefully, and connect that dot, to this dot that I have just shown you, it will be clear as day.
You had "forgotten" to give them a cut of the sponsorship. That is why their attitude was utterly poor towards you. They got even more scared when you requested for a post mortem. Now do you understand? It is not because they are lazy to attend to your queries. People who have the capability to "single-handedly" organize the Malaysian Chess Festival have no room to be lazy. Now, the next question is, why do they bother working so hard? There is no such thing as a free lunch.
Now, if you can connect all the dots since the first time I posted on your blog regarding the Olympiad selection, I have always pushed for a system that will ALLOW our juniors to succeed, a system of meritocracy. You can get all the GMs in the world to train our juniors, but if their achievements are "overlooked", then our junior players will always be junior players.
If rent-seeking continues to be prevalent, NO SPONSORS will ever come in. Raymond Siew, do you see the whole picture now? Do you know why your sponsorship and efforts will NEVER be appreciated by these goons? Next time you want to sponsor the MCF, try offering to pay for the officials to follow along for the trip. Maybe add in a presidential suite booking. It could do wonders.
It is NOT OK that the majority do not know what is going on. It is because of this lack of transparency that we are where we are today.
Let me share a personal story with you. For those in the know, you may know who I am after this story, or at least have some clue. I know a junior player, S, who obtained 2nd placing at the National Age Group some time back.
In the selection process for the Asian Junior tournament that year, the champion had declined to play for whatever reason, and the place was offered to the 3rd placed player, skipping out S who was actually tied for first place but only lost out in the playoff.
Needless to say, S' parents protested but by the time they had found out about it, the MCF had ALREADY submitted the registration and had "assumed" that S would not want to play because he had PMR exams coming. S had found out ONLY because one of the players selected for the Girls category had contacted S to ask if S was playing. S did not even know that the MCF was sending any players.
The joke of this is that the 3rd placed player was exactly the same age, and had PMR exams too. So clearly, the excuse was not valid.
Rumor has it, some MCF official or other (I will refrain from giving names since I have no way of proving this), and the parents of the 3rd placed player had a closer relationship (with a possibility of bribes involved (which may or may not be monetary, as that parent had let slip of such an occurrence during a conversation with other parents).
So now you see, whether they are the best tournament director or not, or whether they are the best secretaries or not, it doesn't matter when there is no integrity. How can a place to represent Malaysia be offered to someone discretely? Does this sound familiar to you? Did Greg tell the world he offered you and Mark a place?
To address what you said about Hamid and Greg being in positions that they are the best at, let me share a famous example with you. Remember Bernie Madoff? He is one of the most brilliant investors in our time. How did he cheat so many other brilliant people out of USD50 billion? This was made possible by his reputation of being great with money.
But just because he is good at what he does, does not mean it is good for everyone. What he lacked was integrity and the whole scheme was shrouded by a lack of transparency. No one knew what he was doing. None of his investors did. No one questioned him as long as he was promising great returns.
Back to Malaysian chess. Putting aside the argument that Hamid and Greg are doing a great job, how can you insist that they are still the right people for the job if there is a lack of integrity and transparency? This was clearly shown again in the selection for the Olympiad.
Now, to push it one step further, if you examine why they had shunned you when you requested for a post mortem as a sponsor, if you think carefully, and connect that dot, to this dot that I have just shown you, it will be clear as day.
You had "forgotten" to give them a cut of the sponsorship. That is why their attitude was utterly poor towards you. They got even more scared when you requested for a post mortem. Now do you understand? It is not because they are lazy to attend to your queries. People who have the capability to "single-handedly" organize the Malaysian Chess Festival have no room to be lazy. Now, the next question is, why do they bother working so hard? There is no such thing as a free lunch.
Now, if you can connect all the dots since the first time I posted on your blog regarding the Olympiad selection, I have always pushed for a system that will ALLOW our juniors to succeed, a system of meritocracy. You can get all the GMs in the world to train our juniors, but if their achievements are "overlooked", then our junior players will always be junior players.
If rent-seeking continues to be prevalent, NO SPONSORS will ever come in. Raymond Siew, do you see the whole picture now? Do you know why your sponsorship and efforts will NEVER be appreciated by these goons? Next time you want to sponsor the MCF, try offering to pay for the officials to follow along for the trip. Maybe add in a presidential suite booking. It could do wonders.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
The Harsh Reality
This is in reply to this and this.
Agreed. Let us also agree that we should not hide the harsh reality from the juniors. The obstacles that they are up against are brutally harsh. As if it is not enough that the competition is stiff.
The juniors need to understand that the local chess authorities are completely undependable. You should not expect ANYONE to support your chess "career". That is the harsh reality of the current situation.
Some of us may think that we are "protecting" our children by not letting them know about the harsh difficulties of life but that is going in the complete opposite direction. Frankly speaking, the juniors these days are "soft". I see parents accompanying them all over the place to play chess tournaments, including the MSSM. Now, the parents even book hotel rooms for the children during MSSM so that they can sleep comfortably etc. No doubt parental support is important, but if we keep protecting the kids from the harsh realities of life, when are they going to learn to face TRUE adversity?
Back in the day, most chess players HAVE to stay in the hostels with the rest of the team, and only 2 or 3 parents go along during the MSSM. The conditions of the hostels were shabby (probably worse than those at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi), but all the players grew from that hardship. There was only cold water in the common bathrooms. No fans in the hostels etc. Sometimes they would have to combat the bedbugs. This is what Chinese people call, "Eat bitter". When placed in such harsh conditions, these players would learn to find that other adversities are much more "manageable".
You can ask players in the olden days about who their coaches were. Many of them do not even have coaches. They all had to work hard on their own. Without the Internet, one of their main sources of chess information from the outside world was Quah Seng Sun's weekly article in the Star! Our children today are spoilt for choices in ways of helping themselves improve, yet they are not utilizing them. And whose fault is this? Whose fault is it that the children today only wait to be spoon fed by their so-called "coaches"? Somewhere along the way, we have developed a culture of dependence. If any of you junior players are reading this, why don't you do yourself a favor and go improve on your own for a little bit before you run to your coach again?
Agreed. Let us also agree that we should not hide the harsh reality from the juniors. The obstacles that they are up against are brutally harsh. As if it is not enough that the competition is stiff.
The juniors need to understand that the local chess authorities are completely undependable. You should not expect ANYONE to support your chess "career". That is the harsh reality of the current situation.
Some of us may think that we are "protecting" our children by not letting them know about the harsh difficulties of life but that is going in the complete opposite direction. Frankly speaking, the juniors these days are "soft". I see parents accompanying them all over the place to play chess tournaments, including the MSSM. Now, the parents even book hotel rooms for the children during MSSM so that they can sleep comfortably etc. No doubt parental support is important, but if we keep protecting the kids from the harsh realities of life, when are they going to learn to face TRUE adversity?
Back in the day, most chess players HAVE to stay in the hostels with the rest of the team, and only 2 or 3 parents go along during the MSSM. The conditions of the hostels were shabby (probably worse than those at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi), but all the players grew from that hardship. There was only cold water in the common bathrooms. No fans in the hostels etc. Sometimes they would have to combat the bedbugs. This is what Chinese people call, "Eat bitter". When placed in such harsh conditions, these players would learn to find that other adversities are much more "manageable".
You can ask players in the olden days about who their coaches were. Many of them do not even have coaches. They all had to work hard on their own. Without the Internet, one of their main sources of chess information from the outside world was Quah Seng Sun's weekly article in the Star! Our children today are spoilt for choices in ways of helping themselves improve, yet they are not utilizing them. And whose fault is this? Whose fault is it that the children today only wait to be spoon fed by their so-called "coaches"? Somewhere along the way, we have developed a culture of dependence. If any of you junior players are reading this, why don't you do yourself a favor and go improve on your own for a little bit before you run to your coach again?
Monday, October 4, 2010
Half-baked Chess Coaches
Replying to this.
The half-baked chess coaches that we have nowadays are hardly qualified to give any insights into the opening preparations of our junior players. Let's say a junior player is a specialist in the Sicilian Dragon. How is the coach going to know much, if at all, if he is a Caro-Kann player himself?
Will he be able to offer useful ideas in a short period of time? The coaches in Penang and Singapore can assist in positional understanding analysis. They do not assist in opening preparation, unless he (or she) is a specialist in that particular opening. In this day and age of opening databases, it is practical to work with the computer rather than a "self-proclaimed" coach.
The half-baked chess coaches that we have nowadays are hardly qualified to give any insights into the opening preparations of our junior players. Let's say a junior player is a specialist in the Sicilian Dragon. How is the coach going to know much, if at all, if he is a Caro-Kann player himself?
Will he be able to offer useful ideas in a short period of time? The coaches in Penang and Singapore can assist in positional understanding analysis. They do not assist in opening preparation, unless he (or she) is a specialist in that particular opening. In this day and age of opening databases, it is practical to work with the computer rather than a "self-proclaimed" coach.
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