The Secret of Chess

Use this section to advertise yourself or your products.
User avatar
IM Jack Rudd
Posts: 4815
Joined: Tue Apr 17, 2007 1:13 am
Location: Bideford
Contact:

Re: The Secret of Chess

Post by IM Jack Rudd » Sun Feb 11, 2018 6:46 pm

I'd be considering ...b4 before I considered ...f6 and ...e5. My knight needs to be somewhere more productive than e4, mind.

Roger de Coverly
Posts: 21291
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 2:51 pm

Re: The Secret of Chess

Post by Roger de Coverly » Sun Feb 11, 2018 8:49 pm

IM Jack Rudd wrote:
Sun Feb 11, 2018 6:46 pm
I'd be considering ...b4 before I considered ...f6 and ...e5. My knight needs to be somewhere more productive than e4, mind.
.. b4 is the other "obvious" idea. Presumably the Knight needs to be on c6 to help make it work. Are there any active plans for White while Black is doing that?

Lyudmil Tsvetkov
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed Aug 30, 2017 7:03 am

Re: The Secret of Chess

Post by Lyudmil Tsvetkov » Sat Feb 24, 2018 4:17 pm

Yeah, b5-b4 is the much better idea, but hardly the easiest to do here. Black should play Nd6-b7-d8-c6, something like that.
After b5-b4 ab4 ab4, white should hold with perfect play with rooks on c1 and c2 and knight on d1, while the pressure is not very pleasant.
Black has some minuscule advantage above, but hardly convertible.
SF does not aim at a similar plan, simply because it considers its knigth on e4 much better placed: central, attacks the shelter, c3,g3, f2 pawns, etc.
Still a draw, but certainly, there are better drawing setups with white.

Lyudmil Tsvetkov
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed Aug 30, 2017 7:03 am

Re: The Secret of Chess

Post by Lyudmil Tsvetkov » Sat Feb 24, 2018 4:40 pm

February is SF month for me, but currently I am playing only handicap games, as low on energy.




Do other people like to face SF with the full set or in a handicap game?

Lyudmil Tsvetkov
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed Aug 30, 2017 7:03 am

Re: The Secret of Chess

Post by Lyudmil Tsvetkov » Mon Mar 26, 2018 3:06 pm

The second volume of 'The Secret of Chess', containing example games, is out.
803 games in total.
The games follow the Table of Contents of the first volume, covering each and every term.
Some terms are covered by a single game, while others, more important ones, by as much as 15.
The volume features 5 world champions, among which Carlsen, Kasparov and Fischer, 3 top engines, Stockfish, Houdini and Komodo, as well as a number of other players.
I have browsed 15 000 games to carefully select those 803.
All games are tactical and positional masterpieces.

The book is available here: https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Chess-Exa ... dpSrc=srch

I guess everyone, programmer or chess player, who has found the first volume interesting or would like to clear his ideas on the concepts, should have a look at this one.
For the time being, the games are unannotated. It will take couple of years to fully comment 800 games, so I wanted to have this consolidated version out.
I guess at some point there will be also a volume with annotated example games, but this will not be too soon. And I am not certain what portion of the games will be featured there, probably just a smaller one.
The main reason for releasing this volume is that many people asked me for illustrative games to better comprehend the concepts. Initially, I had not considered this at all.

Lyudmil Tsvetkov
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed Aug 30, 2017 7:03 am

Re: The Secret of Chess

Post by Lyudmil Tsvetkov » Tue Mar 27, 2018 9:49 am

Just to mention that the comparison between top engine and human play in the collection is an interesting observation.
We all know that top engine games last much longer on average, and the collection will only corroborate that.
But there is one more interesting phenomenon I discovered, namely that top engines tend to use some terms more often than humans, that would concern in particular for some reason outposts, especially more advanced ones, and material imbalances.
Why so?
Still not fully certain, but maybe one of the reasons is that the human imagination on average will have bigger problems with some lines, requiring deeper or highly unusual calculation.
So that chess changes, there is no doubt about that, and we will be seeing further very interesting developments in the future conceptually, no doubt about that.

Roger de Coverly
Posts: 21291
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 2:51 pm

Re: The Secret of Chess

Post by Roger de Coverly » Tue Mar 27, 2018 10:07 am

Lyudmil Tsvetkov wrote:
Tue Mar 27, 2018 9:49 am

But there is one more interesting phenomenon I discovered, namely that top engines tend to use some terms more often than humans, that would concern in particular for some reason outposts, especially more advanced ones, and material imbalances.
Why so?
To the extent an engine will rely on assessment rather than calculating to near the end of the game, won't what it considers important be a function of what the programming team told it? For that matter if it uses an opening book, that may tilt it in the direction of the positions likely to arise from its opening choice.

Lyudmil Tsvetkov
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed Aug 30, 2017 7:03 am

Re: The Secret of Chess

Post by Lyudmil Tsvetkov » Wed Mar 28, 2018 12:42 pm

To show how the concepts from the first volume are illustrated by examples in the second, below a game, covering the
'spearhead connected passer' term:


Lyudmil Tsvetkov
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed Aug 30, 2017 7:03 am

Re: The Secret of Chess

Post by Lyudmil Tsvetkov » Wed Mar 28, 2018 12:46 pm


SF still does not see Bxa4 wins here.
It lacks the necessary deeper knowledge, of course.
If an engine managed to implement all of the concepts in my book, it would certainly get to at least 5000 elos,
there is no doubt about this.

Lyudmil Tsvetkov
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed Aug 30, 2017 7:03 am

Re: The Secret of Chess

Post by Lyudmil Tsvetkov » Wed Mar 28, 2018 12:52 pm

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Tue Mar 27, 2018 10:07 am
Lyudmil Tsvetkov wrote:
Tue Mar 27, 2018 9:49 am

But there is one more interesting phenomenon I discovered, namely that top engines tend to use some terms more often than humans, that would concern in particular for some reason outposts, especially more advanced ones, and material imbalances.
Why so?
To the extent an engine will rely on assessment rather than calculating to near the end of the game, won't what it considers important be a function of what the programming team told it? For that matter if it uses an opening book, that may tilt it in the direction of the positions likely to arise from its opening choice.
Precisely.
SF and other top engines lack a wide range of refined concepts.
One of the reasons they fail to implement them is they are testing at very short TC, while similar terms require
huge depth to see how they play out.
Another reason, specifically in the case of SF, is the book they are using.
It is very lop-sided, containing all playable lines, for example 1. g4 a5, or 1. e4 g5.
In this way, they are unable to implement even king side fianchetto, Bg2/Bg7, although this
is one of the most valid terms in chess.

Lyudmil Tsvetkov
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed Aug 30, 2017 7:03 am

Re: The Secret of Chess

Post by Lyudmil Tsvetkov » Thu Mar 29, 2018 10:41 am

Btw., a correspondence GM just left a nice review on the first part on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-revi ... B074M85CVV
Thus, my supposition the stronger the reviewer the better the review seems to be true.
We need a top 10 reviewing, in order to get a truer picture of what the book offers.

Lyudmil Tsvetkov
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed Aug 30, 2017 7:03 am

Re: The Secret of Chess

Post by Lyudmil Tsvetkov » Fri Mar 30, 2018 10:17 am



Here is what I get in a single try by SF 9, but of course, there are improvements for both sides.
The point is, the knowledge contained in the 'spearhead connected passer' is there and objective,
it kicks in at some point, changing the evalution from positive to negative.
Search is unable to help SF very much here, as the lines are very deep, running into the 60+ plies.

Lyudmil Tsvetkov
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed Aug 30, 2017 7:03 am

Re: The Secret of Chess

Post by Lyudmil Tsvetkov » Tue May 29, 2018 7:18 pm

As part of a free promotion, running for a couple of days, my latest book, 'Practical Mates', is offered for free.
Download it here: https://www.amazon.com/Practical-mates- ... B07CQVNC6K
500 mate problems, ranging from 1 to 5 moves.
You will get much better after reading it, of course.
If interested, spread the word about it.

Lyudmil Tsvetkov
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed Aug 30, 2017 7:03 am

Re: The Secret of Chess

Post by Lyudmil Tsvetkov » Thu May 31, 2018 6:49 pm

2 more days to go for the free promotion of my latest book, 'Practical Mates'.
Download it here to get stronger at checkmate pattern recognition and at chess:
https://www.amazon.com/Practical-mates- ... B07CQVNC6K

Lyudmil Tsvetkov
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed Aug 30, 2017 7:03 am

Re: The Secret of Chess

Post by Lyudmil Tsvetkov » Thu Dec 06, 2018 1:15 pm

For people who kind of like my books, here my latest creation: https://www.amazon.com/Neverending-Tact ... 897&sr=8-2
Maybe someone will want to do himself a present for the New Year.

Post Reply