Hey Combo_Kid, your quote above looks like a quote from a chess novel!


Chess Fan

I think they DO know better, hence their attitude.
I don't think there is that much disagreement about the importance of tactics. Titled authors, that is, the people who know what they are talking about generally agree that tactics is a big part of the game, but they know better to not overemphasize tactics as the sole decisive element of the game. The only one who really disagrees with that view seems to be De La Maza, who, of course, is not a titled player. So there is no need to make it sound like there is a lot of confusion about chess instruction. There is one confused individual who happened to publish a book. Most of the knowledgable instructors do not differ that much on what should be emphacized.

Instructors differ greatly; at times, it seems as though there are as many methods as instructors. There are numerous books on the opening, with each author recommending a different repertoire. There are many endgame books, with different authors emphasizing different aspects of theory. Middlegame books are fewer, but there again we see the same sprawl of approaches--the Art of--fill in the blank--Attack, Defense, Planning, Standard Sacrifices, etc; or Secrets of--fill in that blank again!--this or that, etc, etc, etc. If chess were a profession, would there be a generally accepted body of theory that could be said to represent the stock of knowledge needed to be learned by: the average club player? An expert? A master? I mean, look at your standard medical or bar exam--differing states would and probably do place different emphasis on various aspects of the profession, but how much do they differ? Probably not much. In chess, things are all over the map. After all, this is an art/sport/science/whatever-you-want-to-call-it that's been run by stupid bureaucrats (and more recently, some would claim, by a gangster) since 1924--and they still haven't settled upon a proper format for the world championship!

One of the most understandable aspects of de la Maza's method is the emphasis on the fundamentals. The simplest thing you can say about chess is that it's a war game; without much stretching, this means it could be called a mental martial art.

Now take the physical martial arts. Every single one of them includes repetitive exercises--drills--for beginners. My first martial art was tang soo do. I can remember standing stiff-legged as a kid among rows of other young aspirants, and executing "mindless" or "robotic" kicks and punches for hours on end. From time to time, the instructor (a fifth-degree black belt which would correspond in chess to a 2700+ GM) would have one of his assistants (also a black belt) move up and down the rows and randomly kick--and kick hard--the back leg of some of us white belts. If your leg was flexed properly, you withstood the blow and continued punching and kicking; if not, down you went. Through orange belt (one stripe, two stripes), green belt (one stripe, two stripes), and red belt, this and other little tests continued. The result was that, if the average kid kept this up for some years, by the time he became a young man, his responses had become automatic. A certain punch is thrown by an opponent? Up comes the proper block--no thought in it at all. That was the ideal, to be on autopilot, so that one could concentrate on executing more complicated attacks and defenses when these were needed. As de la Maza points out in the book, it's the same thing in chess. If you can't execute two-, three-, and four-move combinations--particularly during those final hours of tournament play when you're low on time and very tired from hours of concentrating--then you need more training, grasshopper!

So de la Maza writes a book emphasizing tactics drills to help eliminate blunders, which more than anything lose games. Great, right? Well, no, not hardly; other chess authors, who also say basic tactical mastery is important for beginners, shriek that de la Maza has "overemphasized" tactics! De la Maza says use a computer, it's more efficient; just obvious, no? Apparently not, since even a computer guru like Nunn shakes his head sagely and admonishes de la Maza for hyping computers! Oh, wait, there's more--de la Maza is faulted for including money as an inducement or inspiration to play better--just bad, very bad, chant the titled boys in unison! De la Maza comes from America, remember?--the land of Show Me the Money! We attach great prestige to those little green pieces of paper; so of course when you write a chess book, you're going to say that your method helps readers to win money!

Maybe the best explanation is that the chess writing establishment doesn't like the competition. After all, how are you going to continue to command big money per hour from beginners if some guy like de la Maza writes a popular book telling players to trust Professor Fritz for their basic tactical training instead of going to you?

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"Oh, I'm sorry. Did I break your concentration?"--Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction

Well, opening books are not really a good example. I wouldn't consider them a part of traditional chess instruction. In fact, most instructor deemphacize the importance of opeing preparation untill one reaches a certain level. Also, many improving players can probably slow down their progress considerably by studying openings and in that sense it would be an interesting discussion of what can delay one's chess improvement more - De La Maza's book or your average chess opening book.

Middlegame and endgame books are much closer to some sort of mutual interconnectedness in terms of key ideas. And yes, they cover a lot of areas, but that is not surprising: chess is complex.
The analogy is good. Except that De la Maza is not a 2700+ grandmaster. He is not a fifth-degree black belt. He is the fat kid who got tired of getting the back of his leg kicked by the instructor. He simply couldn't handle it anymore because he kept falling down after getting hit by the instructor. He got tired of that and decided to put together a training regimen for himself based on Rocky movies. His routine included pushups and running up the stairs. To further motivate himself he read the Rocky script 5 times a day and listened to the Rocky theme 12 times a day for 12 months. Sure enough, he got himself into a good shape and managed to beat up a few of the weaker kids in the martial arts class who only trained once a week while he was working out every day. Then he published a book that said the fifth-degree black belt didn't know what he was talking about and suggested a training regiment that included pushups, running up flights of stairs, reading Rocky script 5 times a day and listening to the Rocky music score 12 times a day for 6 months. Surely, it makes sense, since his "system" brought him such amazing success.

Of course, the truth is: a guy in great shape is not yet a great martial artist. And a guy who is above average in tactics is not a great chess player. So I am afraid that this former martial arts student would still be broken in half by anyone half-decent, no matter how tough his book claims he is.
I find it perfectly understandable that people who understand how complex chess really is don't like it when people who are not that good publish books and try to claim that everything is easy. And I doubt Nunn or Silman are worried about losing customers. The traditional ways of chess improvement are probably as superior to that of De la Maza as Nunn's or Silman's chess skills are superior to that of De la Maza.

I totally agree. If FIDE had been competent, all those instructional Chess books would resemble eachother much more closely in content.

I don't agree. Apart from a few outsiders (like de la Maza, but I could also mention Berliner, or Dorfman) most instructional Chess books stress the same methods and values: critical analysis of own games, solving of exercises, working with a stronger player, and a mixture of general principles and concrete calculation. *Everybody* agrees on how important tactical exercises are, and how you should solve many of them (like 20-30 a day) regularly to keep you "tactical muscles flexed" as Aagaard puts it. But only de la Maza recommends spending 4 hours a day *just* doing tactical exercises. And the only reason he's made monay of it, is because of the stupid phenomenon of big Class prizes, where a 2000 player can win $10,000.

Hmm, here is an idea: I should enter USCF and sandbag all the way to something like 900 USCF rating. Then I will go up, winning cash prizes at each level all the way to my real rating. After I will win 50 thousand or so in cash prizes I will retire and write a 60 page book "Super Fast Chess improvement by de la Russianbear" and get more money that way... :rolleyes:

Anyone know why MDLM quit playing chess as soon as he broke 2000? Why not shoot for 2200 and a master title?

I have a theory: perhaps he was thinking he got lucky in his latest tournament and his rating would likely go down if he kept playing - which would not be good if he wants to keep selling those chess improvement books.

That's a pretty bad example, because you need a huge amount of skill as well as a modicum of strength in order to have a chance against a fighter who is not that skilled but who is physically very powerful. The Chinese have a saying, which goes roughly: The strong will hit the weak and the fast will hit the slow. That's why in every martial arts club I ever saw, strong, well-muscled male martial artists who were only intermediate level (corresponding to de la Maza's expert strength) were seldom paired in freesparring with, say, women who were black belts (corresponding to Silman's IM rating), since the men would always have to hold themselves back so much that they would get little out of the practice, and if they kicked and punched as hard as they would against a man, they would put the women in the hospital. But in chess it would be the reverse; tactically speaking, the IM would put the expert into the hospital every single time.

And speaking of the title-worshipping attitude on display here, the Chinese have another appropriate saying, which goes: The mountain does not disdain the river for being low, and the river does not disdain the mountain for being unable to move.

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"Oh, I'm sorry. Did I break your concentration?"--Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction