Which Two Books ? - The Quest continues

[Chris Bernard]

I know, I know we put this one to bed last year.

All you need to get through a 9 round tournament is a 2nd hand lap top full of Fritz, an opening mega database with every pgn file by date, tournament and opening order and as many copied chess books in pdf format as you can find legally or probably not (you know who you are people) – in fact complete information overload .

And two light soporific novels such as “Adventures in English” by Soheil or “My 60 memorable Limericks” by Francis Fields

but I still find something missing

Here I am in Paleochora about to go to the – 2nd round and find myself dipping into “Chess for Tigers” which is helping.
My 1st round opponent – a norm seeking Israeli IM – told me Joeseph Dorfman’s “My Method” had helped him in my situation in the past which I thought I'd pass on.

Strangely three of the English players although listed for months as playing were not in the starting pairings having missed a local deadline and were added later – perhaps they thought we no longer wished to join in !

[soheil_hooshdaran]

Dorfman's is not "My method"; it is "THE Method in Chess"(the method used by the world elite-Ethine Bacrot was his famous student which he turned from 1900 to 2700+!). and it is an excellent book. It helped me a lot.

[John McKenna]

Best of luck to Chris, Nathan, Daniel & Karl. (All playing under the flag of St. George.)

[Chris Bernard]

In Round 2 there was a 1 second power cut so the building alarm went off. Other than that no major upsets apart from a prolonged “touched & move” discussion on one of the lower boards.

Nathan Alfred and Daniel Gallagher were both on 2/2. With quite a few GM’s on 1.5, drawing with Black against opponents 400 points below. In Rd 3 Nathan got Black against last year’s winner Borovikov 2556 and Daniel looked to be a pawn down going into the endgame against an IM. Both are playing lower graded opponents today so should hopefully be on 3/4 by the end of the day.

My favourite Austrian Gent and fellow Questor informs me his book of choice to get him through this years tournament is Broznik’s “Techniques of Positional Play”.

[Brendan O'Gorman]

John Watson on Dorfman's Method book:

Unless you're looking for 'The Lightly Annotated Games of Dorfman With His Mostly Inapplicable Pedagogical Observations', you should stay away from this book.

Full review here: http://theweekinchess.com/john-watson-r ... d-part-one

[Barry Sandercock]

Good advice from Brendan !

[John McKenna]

Obviously IM Eylon Nakar found Dorfman's book of some use in his quest for a title.

Today in round 4 all four English players are paired with young, or youngish, Greek opponents.

Perhaps Chris has the toughest test since he is black against an eleven year old rated 2005 who drew with white in round 2 against GM A. Volodin (2489).

At least nobody was unlucky enough to be on the flight to Crete that had to return to the UK yesterday due to a strange smell on board.

[Tim Harding]

John Watson on Dorfman's Method book:

Unless you're looking for 'The Lightly Annotated Games of Dorfman With His Mostly Inapplicable Pedagogical Observations', you should stay away from this book.

Full review here: http://theweekinchess.com/john-watson-r ... d-part-one

Not only Watson. One of the world's most respected chess writers and trainers Mark Dvoretsky devotes pages 63-76 of his fairly recent book For Friends and Colleagues II: Reflections on My Profession to a detaIled denunciation of Dorfman and his supposed "Method."

[Francis Fields]

I wouldn't recommend limericks to improve your chess but merely a light hearted relief after a win/loss. In case you didn't know the limericks were recited by Gyles Brandreth on Countdown - not a chess player as far as I am aware.

Personally, I think reading Dvoretsky is good!!

[John McKenna]

To: Theodora (wherever she is now)

A feisty young woman on Crete
Peformed a miraculous feat -
She won a Sicilian
While riding on pillion
Without ever leaving her seat!

[soheil_hooshdaran]

John Watson on Dorfman's Method book:

Unless you're looking for 'The Lightly Annotated Games of Dorfman With His Mostly Inapplicable Pedagogical Observations', you should stay away from this book.

Full review here: http://theweekinchess.com/john-watson-r ... d-part-one

IM Watson comment is irrelevant.

Dorfman's book is neither a game annotation's book nor an instructional one.

He told me his aim was only to introduce a method for finding moves. You cannot expect such a book to cover everything.

[Chris Rice]

John Watson on Dorfman's Method book:

Unless you're looking for 'The Lightly Annotated Games of Dorfman With His Mostly Inapplicable Pedagogical Observations', you should stay away from this book.

Full review here: http://theweekinchess.com/john-watson-r ... d-part-one

IM Watson comment is irrelevant.

Dorfman's book is neither a game annotation's book nor an instructional one.

He told me his aim was only to introduce a method for finding moves. You cannot expect such a book to cover everything.

Well you're absolutely right that Dorfman's intention is to show a method of finding moves. Personally I had two games in the past where his method was successful for me in positions where I felt I was struggling. I don't understand why you say it's not an instructional book, of course it is. It's instructing you how to find good moves using his move algorithm.

However, there were many games where I was floundering about trying to understand what Dorfman would have played if he was at the board and I don't really think he explained his method well enough so that I could understand it, as Watson and Dvoretsky have touched upon. I think I might have understood better if I could have discussed it with him face to face as it obviously didn't do Bacrot any harm. However, I guess that's never going to happen.

At the end of the day I came to the practical conclusion that you can use Dorfman's method as a basis for finding a move but you should customise it for yourself so you can, as it were, fill in the gaps in the explanation that Dorfman left. If chess was that easy, where you just read a book and then won every game, we would all be Dorfman's strength!

[Chris Bernard]

Well Rd4 brought a nice tactical win by Daniel with more forks pins and skewers than a kebab shop cutlery draw.

Nathan went into R & 5P v R & 3P but ended up at the time control R&2 v R&1. His King traveled from c3 to e7 then back to g1 to eventually collect the passed pawn on g3 and win.

My opponent whose grade is the same as his year of birth (2005) is the Greek U12 superstar from Athens and is a nice kid but does have an imperious air about him. When we looked at the game outside he was sitting back in his chair waving his arm with the local coach translating “here it is completely lost“. It would appear I was completely lost after move two in the Nf6 Scandinavian and each move therafter.

Books ? He has Chessbase. When pressed he suggested I work through Artur Yusopov’s 9 volume course on chess fundamentals as he called it.
It would appear this answers this previous chess forum question http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?t=6940

[soheil_hooshdaran]

John Watson on Dorfman's Method book:

Unless you're looking for 'The Lightly Annotated Games of Dorfman With His Mostly Inapplicable Pedagogical Observations', you should stay away from this book.

Full review here: http://theweekinchess.com/john-watson-r ... d-part-one

IM Watson comment is irrelevant.

Dorfman's book is neither a game annotation's book nor an instructional one.

He told me his aim was only to introduce a method for finding moves. You cannot expect such a book to cover everything.

Well you're absolutely right that Dorfman's intention is to show a method of finding moves. Personally I had two games in the past where his method was successful for me in positions where I felt I was struggling. I don't understand why you say it's not an instructional book, of course it is. It's instructing you how to find good moves using his move algorithm.

Let's consider the regressive scale:
He tells the King's safety is paramount, but never states how to evaluate it (FST Dorfman doesn't consider space an advantage. He told me "you are very happy" when I discussed with him such matters)! So is material balance, superiority in Q-less endings and pawn structure.

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However, there were many games where I was floundering about trying to understand what Dorfman would have played if he was at the board and I don't really think he explained his method well enough so that I could understand it, as Watson and Dvoretsky have touched upon. I think I might have understood better if I could have discussed it with him face to face as it obviously didn't do Bacrot any harm. However, I guess that's never going to happen.

Grivas' chess college might be a less expensive way for you to learn those concepts. So are Lev Alburt's books, as Dorfman himself has worked with GM Alburt and considers him "fabulous". The list of books at trainers.fide.com/recommended-books also contains the books of GM & FST Valeri Beim

GM Dorfman called Dvoretsky "a poor Patzer" when I told him about the importance Dvoretsky attaches to space!
At the end of the day I came to the practical conclusion that you can use Dorfman's method as a basis for finding a move but you should customise it for yourself so you can, as it were, fill in the gaps in the explanation that Dorfman left. If chess was that easy, where you just read a book and then won every game, we would all be Dorfman's strength!

[Chris Rice]

Grivas' chess college might be a less expensive way for you to learn those concepts. So are Lev Alburt's books, as Dorfman himself has worked with GM Alburt and considers him "fabulous". The list of books at trainers.fide.com/recommended-books also contains the books of GM & FST Valeri Beim

GM Dorfman called Dvoretsky "a poor Patzer" when I told him about the importance Dvoretsky attaches to space!

I was wondering as you have a FIDE grade of 1795 whether you had actually read and understood any of the above books yourself? I can't see that referring to other people's works in order to understand Dorfman's Method is really going to work.

I did meet Grivas in Norway one time, the other GMs there didn't seems to have much of an opinion of him and thought better of the other two Greek GMs Skembris and particularly Kotronias. I think Dorfman and Dvoretsky just don't get on as Dvoretsky was a very strong player in his own right though clearly not as strong as Dorfman which is why I think he concentrated on the training aspect more and is considered to be one of the world's best so he's definitely not a patzer and Dorfman knows it.