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Chess tactics explained

chesstactics.org

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Re: Chess tactics explained

#21

Post by YetAnotherNick »

mci wrote: post #16

> This site teaches chess in words. > It assumes you know only how the pieces move and builds step-by-step from there. Do not get me wrong: TFA is a fine and useful book for an intermediate player but the above claims are overselling it. They are equivalent to telling you that learning the x ^= y; y ^= x; x ^= y; trick will make you a better programmer while being silent on what copy-and-paste programming, magic cons…

I think this book is for pre IM level and I think you can do well by learning tactics rather than remembering all the 15 length opening sequence. It is fine if you miss a tempo if you can attack when you need to. Of course in GM level classical chess missing few tempos could be equal to a loss and structure is very important. A Primer of Chess and Nimzowitsch's My System are targeted for IM/GM.

Re: Chess tactics explained

#22

Post by mci »

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #21
mci wrote: post #16

> This site teaches chess in words. > It assumes you know only how the pieces move and builds step-by-step from there. Do not get me wrong: TFA is a fine and useful book for an intermediate player but the above claims are overselling it. They are equivalent to telling you that learning the x ^= y; y ^= x; x ^= y; trick will make you a better programmer while being silent on what copy-and-paste programming, magic cons…

I think this book is for pre IM level and I think you can do well by learning tactics rather than remembering all the 15 length opening sequence. It is fine if you miss a tempo if you can attack when you need to. Of course in GM level classical chess missing few tempos could be equal to a loss and structure is very important. A Primer of Chess and Nimzowitsch's My System are targeted for IM/GM.

Thank you for the reply. I do not advocate "remembering all the 15 length opening sequence" either.

> A Primer of Chess and Nimzowitsch's My System are targeted for IM/GM.

This is an interesting assertion. How about you take a peek into either book?

Re: Chess tactics explained

#23

Post by Fiahil »

tlamponi wrote: post #7
Normille wrote: post #2

I wondered if the popularity of 'The queen's Gambit' would lead to a brief infatuation with chess in the popular imagination. The fact I've seen about 3 chess related submissions on HN recently, where I don't recall ever seeing one before, suggests it does. I used to enjoy a game of chess back in the day, although I was never very good. And I always imagined myself playing chess with a remote opponent by post when I…

> I wondered if the popularity of 'The queen's Gambit' would lead to a brief infatuation with chess in the popular imagination. There are some indicators that yes, that show has increased interest in learning chess. For example, check the Google search trend for "learn chess" over the last 12 months, or even 5 years to ensure it is no periodic increase of interest: https://trends.google.de/trends/explore?q=learn%20ch…

Wow ! That's amazing !

Re: Chess tactics explained

#24

Post by ludocode »

mci wrote: post #16

> This site teaches chess in words. > It assumes you know only how the pieces move and builds step-by-step from there. Do not get me wrong: TFA is a fine and useful book for an intermediate player but the above claims are overselling it. They are equivalent to telling you that learning the x ^= y; y ^= x; x ^= y; trick will make you a better programmer while being silent on what copy-and-paste programming, magic cons…

I believe the opposite is true. Most chess teachers will agree that tactics are much more important than positional advantage for lower level players.

For example here's Jeremy Silman talking about it:

https://web.archive.org/web/20120205054644/http://www.jeremy...

After learning simple piece development and basic checkmating techniques, it's tactics, tactics, tactics. The positional concepts you espouse like rooks on open files are only useful to lower level players in service of opening up opportunities for tactics. Rather than learning pawn structure directly, he recommends actively sacrificing pawns to open up tactical opportunities. He doesn't recommend ignoring positional concepts of course, but he expects his students to learn them slowly, almost by accident, during focused practice on tactics.

Modern chess engines (pre-NN) even work the same way. Traditional chess engines with limited memory and limited depth search had rich, complex evaluation functions to try to compare the positional strength of a position. Modern chess engines have evolved towards simpler, faster evaluations, instead relying on vastly deeper tactical searches with gigabyte-size transposition tables. It's all in service of tactics.

Re: Chess tactics explained

#25

Post by chki »

mci wrote: post #16

> This site teaches chess in words. > It assumes you know only how the pieces move and builds step-by-step from there. Do not get me wrong: TFA is a fine and useful book for an intermediate player but the above claims are overselling it. They are equivalent to telling you that learning the x ^= y; y ^= x; x ^= y; trick will make you a better programmer while being silent on what copy-and-paste programming, magic cons…

>> If you're a whiz at strategy but not much good at tactics, you will have trouble winning or having fun because your pieces will keep getting taken.

>I beg to differ. You should first learn how to supercharge your pieces by controlling the centre, putting rooks on open files, co-ordinating your bishop pair, keeping a strong pawn structure, etc. [...]

I would disagree. At a rating level below 1300 (where all beginners start) I'm pretty sure that openings don't matter at all and strategy is not very important. Magnus Carlsen, the World Champion, has even suggested that by being only good at tactics you can get to a 2000 ELO rating. If your opponent can look two moves further ahead you will almost always loose. This is also the reason why small children are able to beat seasoned chess amateurs playing at a club level. The children definitely have a limited understanding of the strategy and they don't know a lot of opening theory. But they will outplay you in the middle game.

Re: Chess tactics explained

#26

Post by yodsanklai »

Normille wrote: post #2

I wondered if the popularity of 'The queen's Gambit' would lead to a brief infatuation with chess in the popular imagination. The fact I've seen about 3 chess related submissions on HN recently, where I don't recall ever seeing one before, suggests it does. I used to enjoy a game of chess back in the day, although I was never very good. And I always imagined myself playing chess with a remote opponent by post when I…

> I wondered if the popularity of 'The queen's Gambit' would lead to a brief infatuation with chess in the popular imagination

It did for me. Hadn't played chess for decades. After watching this show, my gf wanted to learn and it renewed my interest in the game. Not sure I want to go down this rabbit hole though...

> It's a shame that the advent of the internet has simultaneously increased your chances of finding someone to play with remotely

It works very well. I played a few games on lichess (recommended in the comments of another HN thread). I could find opponents who played at my level in a matter of a seconds.

There are also tons of youtubers who do a good job explaining strategies and such. It seems Chess never goes out of fashion, still a cool game!

It's amazing the amount of resource you can find nowadays. Back in the day, it was extremely limited. I remember I had a couple of books from my grandfather, plus a few friends I was playing with, and "chess master" on Amiga and that was it.

Re: Chess tactics explained

#27

Post by jstanley »

mci wrote: post #16

> This site teaches chess in words. > It assumes you know only how the pieces move and builds step-by-step from there. Do not get me wrong: TFA is a fine and useful book for an intermediate player but the above claims are overselling it. They are equivalent to telling you that learning the x ^= y; y ^= x; x ^= y; trick will make you a better programmer while being silent on what copy-and-paste programming, magic cons…

It's all well and good controlling the centre, putting rooks on open files, co-ordinating your bishop pair, keeping a strong pawn structure, etc., but if you leave your pieces vulnerable to tactics that your opponent can find and you can't, then it's all for nought.

That's why tactics can be considered more important than strategy.

Strategy becomes more important only when neither player is making tactical blunders.

Re: Chess tactics explained

#28

Post by fabian2k »

Normille wrote: post #2

I wondered if the popularity of 'The queen's Gambit' would lead to a brief infatuation with chess in the popular imagination. The fact I've seen about 3 chess related submissions on HN recently, where I don't recall ever seeing one before, suggests it does. I used to enjoy a game of chess back in the day, although I was never very good. And I always imagined myself playing chess with a remote opponent by post when I…

I don't think the chance of cheating is a serious issue if you're playing at a low level online. You're generally matched against playes with a similar rating, and someone using a computer heavily would drastically inflate their rating. Which also increases the chance at detection significantly.

Computers are scary good at chess, it's not exactly invisible if you use them to cheat. If you're a beginner it's also quite hard to understand why the computer makes certain moves, so if you just sprinkle in some computer moves in your game it's likely you might just fail to capitalize on those moves because you don't understand their purpose. The computer also plays some quite non-human moves at times, which is also likely to draw attention if someone is cheating a lot.

I'm not saying people don't cheat online in chess, but I don't think it's anywhere near prevalent enough to ruin the game.

Re: Chess tactics explained

#29

Post by mci »

chki wrote: post #25
mci wrote: post #16

> This site teaches chess in words. > It assumes you know only how the pieces move and builds step-by-step from there. Do not get me wrong: TFA is a fine and useful book for an intermediate player but the above claims are overselling it. They are equivalent to telling you that learning the x ^= y; y ^= x; x ^= y; trick will make you a better programmer while being silent on what copy-and-paste programming, magic cons…

>> If you're a whiz at strategy but not much good at tactics, you will have trouble winning or having fun because your pieces will keep getting taken. >I beg to differ. You should first learn how to supercharge your pieces by controlling the centre, putting rooks on open files, co-ordinating your bishop pair, keeping a strong pawn structure, etc. [...] I would disagree. At a rating level below 1300 (where all beginne…

Thanks for the reply. Since you are the second person who understands the opening theory as a subset of strategy (an alien notion to me), I added a clarification to my post.

Re: Chess tactics explained

#30

Post by jjeaff »

fabian2k wrote: post #28
Normille wrote: post #2

I wondered if the popularity of 'The queen's Gambit' would lead to a brief infatuation with chess in the popular imagination. The fact I've seen about 3 chess related submissions on HN recently, where I don't recall ever seeing one before, suggests it does. I used to enjoy a game of chess back in the day, although I was never very good. And I always imagined myself playing chess with a remote opponent by post when I…

I don't think the chance of cheating is a serious issue if you're playing at a low level online. You're generally matched against playes with a similar rating, and someone using a computer heavily would drastically inflate their rating. Which also increases the chance at detection significantly. Computers are scary good at chess, it's not exactly invisible if you use them to cheat. If you're a beginner it's also quit…

I suppose if you are really cheating, you wouldn't sprinkle in some computer moves. You would just move your pieces in the computer game exactly as your human opponent does. Then you move your own pieces in the human game exactly as the computer does in the computer game.
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