Chess philosophy

Discuss anything you like about chess related matters in this forum.
John McKenna

Re: Chess philosophy

Post by John McKenna » Mon Oct 20, 2014 1:28 am

Mats Winther wrote:Calculation isn't all. There is a function called intuition, lacking in computers. Intuitively, white is lost after Qg4.

In fact, human chess players typically try various moves and reject them because they are intuitively bad. So they often choose a move by sifting out the move that they don't feel bad about. The article doesn't take into account the human function of intuition.
/Mats
I believe the synthesis of human knowledge, intuition and creativity combined with computer accuracy is an excellent blend for chess analysis. It is... a question of man and machine working together rather than a fight between the two. (Christian Kongsted)

The day may come when man will be part machine and the machine part human to such an extent that man will be - for all intents and purposes - a cyborg. :lol:


The machine works and forces man to co-operate. (Oswald Spengler)

Arshad Ali
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Re: Chess philosophy

Post by Arshad Ali » Mon Oct 20, 2014 10:54 am

John McKenna wrote: I believe the synthesis of human knowledge, intuition and creativity combined with computer accuracy is an excellent blend for chess analysis. It is... a question of man and machine working together rather than a fight between the two. (Christian Kongsted)
Couldn't agree more. When looking at older chess books, with their airy conclusions based solely on dogmatic positional judgments, buttressed by no tactical lines or just a few sample variations, one is almost invariably left frustrated and unconvinced. The analysis has to be run through a chess engine, and then it either has to be binned in toto or at least drastically revised. Today's annotators are testing their analysis against a chess engine and/or trying to make engine analysis palatable in terms of human understanding. The quality of analysis in today's better chess books is streets ahead of the quality of analysis of chess books thirty, forty and fifty years ago. Our understanding of the game has been vastly enhanced because of engine analysis.

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MJMcCready
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Re: Chess philosophy

Post by MJMcCready » Tue Oct 28, 2014 6:33 am

Many of these topics are covered are Rowson's '7 Deadly Sins'. I think that book is the best example of understanding chess philosophically that I have read.

Lewis Martin
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Re: Chess philosophy

Post by Lewis Martin » Tue Oct 28, 2014 10:31 pm

Arshad Ali wrote:
Couldn't agree more. When looking at older chess books, with their airy conclusions based solely on dogmatic positional judgments, buttressed by no tactical lines or just a few sample variations, one is almost invariably left frustrated and unconvinced. The analysis has to be run through a chess engine, and then it either has to be binned in toto or at least drastically revised. Today's annotators are testing their analysis against a chess engine and/or trying to make engine analysis palatable in terms of human understanding. The quality of analysis in today's better chess books is streets ahead of the quality of analysis of chess books thirty, forty and fifty years ago. Our understanding of the game has been vastly enhanced because of engine analysis.
I'd disagree with what you are saying here. I would say that the quality of analysis is not much different: perhaps even better ages ago with regards to players analysing their own games, demonstrating their understanding and giving an insight of their own thoughts. Though an advantage of that is not many modern players have actually published their games as of the 21st Century, and I am excluding those that explain games that they didn't play. Anish Giri, is one, though that was more to do with explaining his improvement from youth chess to now.

With regards to opening theory books, well: its not that surprising nowadays is better generally due to building up on previous works, though I'm sure there are some quality books that just can't be matched. Other books in terms of a more general approach, e.g. Nunn's books are very good however is that due to the author's writing skills and chess acumen, or building on previous works?

I'm sure this sort of discussion is a matter of one's taste with regards to reading chess books.

Michael Flatt
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Re: Chess philosophy

Post by Michael Flatt » Wed Oct 29, 2014 1:27 am

It does seem to me that it is a mistake to disregard older chess publications as being out-of-date and of no value. If nothing else they provide a historic record of the development of all aspects of chess not just opening theory.

Real gems like Bobby Fischer's My 60 Memorable Games (1969) remain highly instructive, give an insight into a top chess player's approach to games against his close rivals and provide real entertainment. The attempt to update it with more modern 'accurate' analysis destroyed the essence of the book and was wholly misguided.

Richard Reti's Modern Ideas In Chess (1923) and Masters Of The Chess Board (1933) contain many interesting ideas and are highly readable.

Why ignore the contributions of earlier writers whose works have done so much to our understanding of the game we love?

I am sure that all forumites and chess players have their own favorite authors and books.

Arshad Ali
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Re: Chess philosophy

Post by Arshad Ali » Wed Oct 29, 2014 1:42 am

Michael Flatt wrote:It does seem to me that it is a mistake to disregard older chess publications as being out-of-date and of no value. If nothing else they provide a historic record of the development of all aspects of chess not just opening theory.
I enjoy Cozens' The King Hunt and Vukovic's The Art of Attack in Chess as well as Keres' trilogy on his own games. But look at the way Nunn has worked through these books, with engine-assisted analysis and and made numerous corrections.
Real gems like Bobby Fischer's My 60 Memorable Games (1969) remain highly instructive, give an insight into a top chess player's approach to games against his close rivals and provide real entertainment. The attempt to update it with more modern 'accurate' analysis destroyed the essence of the book and was wholly misguided.
Opinions vary. The kind of chess Fischer played against his opponents has been supplanted by a more technically accurate chess at the top levels, where the chess engine makes its impact felt.
Richard Reti's Modern Ideas In Chess (1923) and Masters Of The Chess Board (1933) contain many interesting ideas and are highly readable.
Readable but so full of errors and baseless generalisations I wouldn't know where to start, particularly the second title.

Francis Fields
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Re: Chess philosophy

Post by Francis Fields » Wed Oct 29, 2014 10:42 am

The only thing left to do when you are a queen down is evaluate - lost.

The idea that you should try and justify it with a variation is almost laughable.

Arshad Ali
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Re: Chess philosophy

Post by Arshad Ali » Wed Oct 29, 2014 2:02 pm

Francis Fields wrote:The only thing left to do when you are a queen down is evaluate - lost.

The idea that you should try and justify it with a variation is almost laughable.
But there are opening lines where the queen is sacrificed for three minor pieces or even two minor pieces. And then you do need subtle positional judgement buttressed by very exact calculation. I suppose for an ordinary club player it may not matter so much as his thought processes employ the shortcut positional judgements found in the old books -- but the chess initiated by the (so-called) "Soviet school" places an emphasis on exact analysis of particular positions, and this analysis can only be helped by chess engines. I'm surprised I'm even having to defend my position.

One of my favorite books is David Levy's Sacrifices in the Sicilian -- but I find I'm having to check and augment his analysis with an engine. A book written today by the likes of Nunn, Marin, Franco, or Dvoretsky would not have this lacuna in analysis because of the advent of the chess engine.

Of pre-computer analysis, the most impressive I've seen is Keres' analysis of his adjourned endgame position against Szapiel: 20 pages of variations. Most of it holds up well when tested against an engine. But even then, some of the sub-variations are not surviving.

JustinHadi

Re: Chess philosophy

Post by JustinHadi » Wed Oct 29, 2014 2:09 pm

Francis Fields wrote:The only thing left to do when you are a queen down is evaluate - lost.

The idea that you should try and justify it with a variation is almost laughable.
I knew I should have resigned after sacrificing a queen for a forced mate in the 4NCL.

Arshad Ali
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Re: Chess philosophy

Post by Arshad Ali » Wed Oct 29, 2014 2:17 pm

JustinHadi wrote:I knew I should have resigned after sacrificing a queen for a forced mate in the 4NCL.
What you should have done after sacrificing your queen is to have resigned, and then shown your opponent there was a forced mate.

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Christopher Kreuzer
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Re: Chess philosophy

Post by Christopher Kreuzer » Wed Oct 29, 2014 2:18 pm

Arshad Ali wrote: Most of it holds up well when tested against an engine. But even then, some of the sub-variations are not surviving.
How well do chess engine variations from even a few years ago hold up against chess engines of today? Will there be a need for the computer engines of the future to 'correct' the chess engines of today?

MartinCarpenter
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Re: Chess philosophy

Post by MartinCarpenter » Wed Oct 29, 2014 2:20 pm

If you're after perfect accuracy, then I guess so :) The trick nowadays is presumably to manage to tame and condense all the terrifying (and broadly useless) forests of variations the computers will merrily generate.

You certainly should correct old books where the mistakes are instructive. Keep the old analysis/insight of course but if nothing else anything that a super GM missed, even one a while ago, tends to be rather interesting/surprising.

Arshad Ali
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Re: Chess philosophy

Post by Arshad Ali » Wed Oct 29, 2014 2:32 pm

MartinCarpenter wrote:If you're after perfect accuracy, then I guess so :) The trick nowadays is presumably to manage to tame and condense all the terrifying (and broadly useless) forests of variations the computers will merrily generate.

You certainly should correct old books where the mistakes are instructive. Keep the old analysis/insight of course but if nothing else anything that a super GM missed, even one a while ago, tends to be rather interesting/surprising.
It's not just the calculating power of the engine -- it's that it also forces a GM annotating his games to be objective when there's a subjective bias to seeing one's own lines but not seeing the missed ripostes and defences of one's opponent. So these GMs tend to sprinkle their own moves with exclamation marks -- and the reasons are psychological. This can corrected if they use an engine to test their annotations. Alekhine was notorious for misleading and incorrect annotations -- though whether it was because of subjective bias or deliberate intellectual dishonesty, I don't know.

I like the old classics myself -- books like Chernev's Most Instructive Games and Logical Chess. But they'll only take one so far.

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