Give me words, not moves

     Twenty years ago Swedish trainer IM Jesper Hall published a slim (176 pages) book titled Chess Training for Budding Champions, a book that is aimed at players who are well beyond beginner, but need guidance on how to further improve. 

     Hall based the book on the training program that he used in order to improve. At the age of 13, Hall was an "untrained hacker" with "great gaps in (his) positional knowledge" and his trainer, a 2300+ master, showed him how to study systematically. He shares some of his secrets in the book. 

     One of the things I found interesting was the chapter on using a chess engine. Hall wrote that after going through books like the Informator or some annotated games he is left feeling exhausted. "Who can learn anything from all these variations, variations, and more variations?", he wrote. 

     As he points out, people cannot utilize this type of information because they are looking for information that can be put into words. And, if all that is given is a string of moves it's left up to the reader to interpret them...something that is beyond most of us. 

     Hall is absolutely right! Many times while annotating games for this blog I have come across Stockfish's evaluation that run something like 26.Nd5 being given a question mark and the evaluation is -2.76 whereas after 26.h3 and then 27.Nd5 the evaluation is +0.78. Often the problem is that I can't see any purpose in 26.h3. That makes it hard to comment on the move! 

     Hall has hit the nail on the head when he wrote that engines have created a norm where variations have replaced words. Hall wrote, "Computers do not think like (humans)...They have no intuition and cannot make a selective choice of which moves to analyze, so they calculate everything...Answers spill out with symbols and numbers for explanation." You can't put it much better that that! 

     Hall analyzes his games without the aid of an engine and only then checks his analysis with an engine. He considers such analysis an important part of his training because during a game there is no engine analysis to guide you. 

     He makes it clear that merely listing a string of moves in several possible variations is pretty much useless. He also makes the sagacious observation that engines have lead us to losing appreciation for the great annotators of the past along with their instructive annotations, that explain the game in human terms and thereby help improve the reader's understanding. 

     That's not to say that engines are not a great help...they are. Hall uses his computer "both as an archive and as a tool for searching for information." To that end, it was interesting to see how a titled player organizes his chess files. 

 

1) A game database. For example, ChessBase's Mega Database which he updates every couple of weeks using The Week in Chess. 

2) A database of his own games. Annotated, of course! Even the bad ones. 

3) A database with the openings that he commonly plays. 

4) A database of openings he does not play regularly, but has found fun to analyze and where he might find novelties to surprise an opponent. 

5) A database with opening variations he plans to analyze. 

6) A database of "position-types". These are games, tactical positions, exercises and endings that arise from the same position types. Just a note...notice he includes endings! He add that "this database is tied to the openings database and he sometimes move variations between the databases. 

7) Endgame database. This is a collection of basic positions for the various endings with his own explanations, and guidelines and positions that illustrate the themes. 

8) A database he calls "Grains of gold." This database contains games that make him "love the game of chess." 

 

     Hall also touched on practicing against an engine. They play quite differently from a human and they a tendency to go for material. He warned, "It is dangerous to play a lot against computers because you get used to their style; this can have negative effects in a real game position." 

    He advises that if you play against an engine it should be to test openings and positions of the type you are interested in and, also, they are good practice partners for studying endings. I noticed he mentioned endings, a neglected area of study for a lot of amateurs!

     I think that if one is serious about improving, then Hall's suggestions on computer use are, perhaps with some modifications to suit the individual user's preference, quite on point. To that end one is going to have to invest some money in a good program. Two database programs spring to mind: ChessBase and Chess Assistant. 

     Chess Assistant costs about $95, but before spending the money you can download the free Lite version HERE to try it out. I have Chess Assistant 18 on my laptop, but have not used it because my preference is for ChessBase products. I also have ChessBase 16; it is a program specifically designed to handle databases, but it'll cost you 2-4 times as much as CA.