reflections from a chess grandmaster

[Tami]

This is a link to a very interesting article by former World Chess Championship candidate Kevin Spraggett. http://canchess.tripod.com/reflecti.htm

There are several ideas that could be relevant to our quests to become better go players:

1) A quiet, conducive environment for playing/training
2) Rather than simply filling up with information, focussing on applying it.
3) Playing stronger opponents
4) Really understanding the structure of the game (in chess, opening, middlegame, endgame; in go, knowing how to identify and correctly combine the different components).
5) Board control - getting a deep understanding of relationships (in chess, pieces are mobile which creates unique relationships not analogous to go, but even bearing that in mind there are many kinds of intra-group relationships in go from ladder breaks to ko threats).
6) It's important to play actively! If things are not going your way, you can seek to change the flow.
7) Critical points - knowing an important decision when it arises; and knowing how to take it correctly. An obvious example in go would be knowing which side to block or which side to approach.
8) Don't be disheartened by slumps and losing streaks - it could be that you are growing (right now, I`m trying very hard to hold on to this point!)

[chessweiqi]

I think that is good advice, but it is not helpful if the grandmaster does not know the differences in learning. In chess, you're basically a computer that calculates everything but doesn't need to know why, you only need to know what to play. To understand the beginning, middle, and endgame in chess, you just need to study tactics. In go you have to look positionally unlike chess because in go it's much harder to make a comeback. Also in response to the note of "Rather than simply filling up with information, focusing on applying it", the difference between kyus and dans are kyus only know the information, the dans try to use it as much as possible. Playing stronger opponents is good, but it can't be way too strong, and you also need to review games to understand why you lost. Just like in the fuseki, you can't just memorize things like in chess, you need to know why. A 5 professional dan told me that the people he knew who memorized joseki but didn't learn why to play certain moves didn't make it above 5 amateur dan. He also told me that most pros don't learn any joseki until a lot later. In reply to the first comment about playing in a quiet environment, it only depends on the player. Some don't like playing in a silent atmosphere, but prefer some background noise just so that the silence doesn't get to them.

[Bartleby]

I think that is good advice, but it is not helpful if the grandmaster does not know the differences in learning. In chess, you're basically a computer that calculates everything but doesn't need to know why, you only need to know what to play. To understand the beginning, middle, and endgame in chess, you just need to study tactics. In go you have to look positionally unlike chess because in go it's much harder to make a comeback.

I have no strong feelings about the rest of your post but this first part is highly questionable.

Chess has a very strong positional element, and to get good at this element requires understanding, not just calculation. You can make an argument that tactics is a large part of chess, but this same argument could be made about Go.

I have played many games of chess at the master level, and my experience is that once you get to about 2300 FIDE and above it is positional understanding, and not tactics, that is the biggest factor in playing strength.

[Faro]

I think that is good advice, but it is not helpful if the grandmaster does not know the differences in learning. In chess, you're basically a computer that calculates everything but doesn't need to know why, you only need to know what to play. To understand the beginning, middle, and endgame in chess, you just need to study tactics. In go you have to look positionally unlike chess because in go it's much harder to make a comeback.

I have no strong feelings about the rest of your post but this first part is highly questionable.

Chess has a very strong positional element, and to get good at this element requires understanding, not just calculation. You can make an argument that tactics is a large part of chess, but this same argument could be made about Go.

I have played many games of chess at the master level, and my experience is that once you get to about 2300 FIDE and above it is positional understanding, and not tactics, that is the biggest factor in playing strength.

Kasparov said about Magnus Carlson that he has the best positional judgment he has ever seen, second only to Karpov.

[SmoothOper]

Just like in the fuseki, you can't just memorize things like in chess, you need to know why.

This isn't true. Chess openings have a substantial memorization component to them. The reason being that in chess there are a narrow number of moves and a narrow number of successful combinations, so better chess players will have the openings and variations memorized dozens of moves deep. Chess the middle game becomes more complex, and then the end game narrows in terms of the number of possible moves that a player could consider at each turn.

With go the memorization component isn't as important since the number of variations in the first few moves is so large, though some handicap gamers can get by with a few memorized joseki. In general with chess there aren't nearly as many combinations of plays, nearly as many players, and the culture isn't nearly as well developed, so the overall comparison may not be fair.

[Tami]

Aren`t we straying a bit into the old "let`s compare go and chess" argument a bit? I posted the link from Spraggett because I thought it was very well written and contained a lot of ideas that we go-sters could benefit from.

Actually, I have been playing a bit of chess again recently, and I`ve started to appreciate there are two games that can be played with the same pieces and the same rules: the first is call "let`s capture material", and the other is called "chess", which is a very beautiful and rich game. Chess begins when you rise above playing the other game. Similarly, I am starting to believe that there is a similar distinction on the go board.

[SmoothOper]

Aren`t we straying a bit into the old "let`s compare go and chess" argument a bit? I posted the link from Spraggett because I thought it was very well written and contained a lot of ideas that we go-sters could benefit from.

Actually, I have been playing a bit of chess again recently, and I`ve started to appreciate there are two games that can be played with the same pieces and the same rules: the first is call "let`s capture material", and the other is called "chess", which is a very beautiful and rich game. Chess begins when you rise above playing the other game. Similarly, I am starting to believe that there is a similar distinction on the go board.

I think we go players consider any discussion of chess to be an opportunity to win some converts

[siowy]

aside, i don't like chess because i find it boring when pieces trade.

that's my biggest grouch with it, as a 1500 player.

[zazen5]

I play both chess and Go. One of the key differences between the two games is that the start of a chess game looks like endgame in Go, whereas the start of Go looks like a chess endgame.

Differences on the brain: MRI studies have confirmed that chess uses the left hemisphere, Go more so of the right hemisphere.

I believe the chess literature to be extremely limiting in explaining why certain moves are made, and how they may be defensive or offensive, there is just endless algebraic notation about move combinations without the abstract meaning of how the tactics work together with the position and the long term implications. This extreme limitations of training makes training for openings and middle games for the most part boring and tedious and not relevant to real life. It is this nonsense work that made me not study it and instead play chess960 where all the extensive analysis on openings is removed.

I believe because the right hemisphere is involved more in Go that a person is always training their unconscious mind with Go. This is extremely valuable and profitable in living and one of the main reasons why I play Go. I increasingly find that I can discern both the mood of the player and their intentions towards me while playing Go. I also find more and more this understanding of intentions has begun to occur in real life too.

In Go there is much information that is broken down for relevance in the game, openings, middle game strategy and endgame. I dont study most joseki materials because I find the writings dont explain why certain moves were made. This being said, when I look at games or read any problems about go, for every single move I look at or make I try to understand why that move was made, what it implies for the immediate future as well as possible long range implications, whether I agree with the move, and what the best possible move should be. These factors of course vary depending on what the perceived intentions and playing style of the opponents are: If you are playing someone from Guangdong, for example, they may be more indirect than a Russian, maybe, maybe not. The point is to take active participation in timing the moves correctly so that the moves may be ambiguous with 4-5 possible intentions to an opponent who is very reactive or more forcing moves allowable with an opponent who is less reactive. It is this human element of the game that is so valuable and so difficult and why I continue to play, I can benefit from every single game.

[RobertJasiek]

I dont study most joseki materials because I find the writings dont explain why certain moves were made.

You might choose those writings that do explain reasons of every move, stone, sequence, group or relation. Look for literature explaining (joseki) meanings and strategy!

[zazen5]

Thanks for the feedback, those books do exist on joseki, however given that I have only so much energy I choose mostly to at the moment study L and D problems such as the ones by Cho Chikun. Nevertheless thanks for the encouragement.