Chess Overload !

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abiodun
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Location: Beautiful Upstate NY...USA

Chess Overload !

Post by abiodun » Sun Aug 05, 2012 12:51 am

Image

I'm just wondering if anyone else here, besides me, feels the pressures of "Chess Information Overload" .....?????

From all the hard cover books, and e-books that I have, I use to try to put into practice in all of my over-the-board and internet games, much of what I read about. However, seems that I've reached the point now that IT'S BECOME JUST TOO MUCH ....... My brain circuits are becoming frazzled !

For instance ..... it used to be fun memorizing all of my favorite responses playing Black against the Ruy Lopez . Perhaps now that I'm retired, my memory has started to falter, but I no longer wish to memorize all of those lines.

So all I'm asking is ...... am I alone in my feelings .....????.....

Opinions and Feedback FROM ALL is Encouraged and Welcomed !


:?: :?: :?:
ImageChess is more than simply my pastime .... It has become My Passion !

islanderfan
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Re: Chess Overload !

Post by islanderfan » Sun Aug 05, 2012 10:02 am

I have really never studied books, most of the time can;t remember all that is said in it. But I have looked at a few but mostly I just play the game!

cmulligan
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Re: Chess Overload !

Post by cmulligan » Sun Aug 05, 2012 11:40 am

islanderfan wrote:I have really never studied books, most of the time can;t remember all that is said in it. But I have looked at a few (pictures) but mostly I just play the game!
Fixed that for ya,Brian. Also,we all already know you never really studied books... :D :lol: :lol: :D

islanderfan
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Re: Chess Overload !

Post by islanderfan » Sun Aug 05, 2012 12:49 pm

Playboy has some great articles. That's a man's magazine Eugene and Chris, cause you know them Army and Southern people. :lol: :lol: :lol:

ecperreault
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Re: Chess Overload !

Post by ecperreault » Sun Aug 05, 2012 1:00 pm

... stupid reading ...
And all the writing, too!
You want to talk about NUMBERS! I remember once, there was these 3 groups of numbers with dashes and she said to remember them...
Never did call her back.
I just gave up on reading 'cause I couldn't pronounce the words like: QKnt-QR6! Geez! All those CAPITALIZED letters with numbers... how do you pronounce the QK sound? and hyphenated too!
AND there is those Frenchy words like 'Passant' - Now what is that!
Ha! Have you ever tried to pronounce O-O-O!!! Sounds like a Barn Owl in heat.
Naw! I have to agree with Brian this time...
Reading and Writing Chess is like trying to do that with plain ole English... It is downright confusingable!
... and Brian ain't figured that out yet either :lol: :lol: :lol:
NOTE! I am an expert in 'Playboy' articles. I even learned to read Playboy in Braille!!! It's just a lot better when you run your fingers along the bumps... gives the 'articles' more feeling.

iamachessstudent
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Re: Chess Overload !

Post by iamachessstudent » Sun Aug 05, 2012 2:38 pm

IT can be very confusing out there, all the electronic media that we have now AND the actual books that come out at seemingly the worst times for our budgets ad time, but this is what I do:

I have my set opening repertoire...these are what I have played for years and have devoted so many hours to improving, studying and KEEPING...when I see a new book relevant to those few openings, I BUY and study it even harder!

I limit myself to the websites I get information from, face it, there are almost infinite sites that all have info, articles, theory and other opening samples you can get anytime..the key is to pick 2-3 of your favorite and stick to them.

I also use ChessBase 11 updated weekly with new games and I stick to a database I made with AL openings that i have played and keep track of..this way you get the latest n greatest automatically...

Is day the key is DO NOT OVER TAX yourself....choose those few sites and your main openings to continue to buy books and update. If you try and buy all the new stuff out there for every opening that you have played, you will spend MUCH $$ unnecessarily!

Bigger is not always better...used books also, dated material, especially on sites that you play woint hurt you badly...and they still teach u the basics of that openings... take advantage of those !

ecperreault
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Re: Chess Overload !

Post by ecperreault » Sun Aug 05, 2012 3:28 pm

When in doubt - ask islanderfan!
When islanderfan is in doubt - he asks cliff!
When cliff is in doubt - he asks cmulligan!
When cmulligan is in doubt - he asks abiodun!
When abiodun is in doubt - he asks davidswhite!
... and when davidswhite is doubt ...
Naturally he asks islanderfan :P
... and the circle starts again!
I doubt this circle does any good for it always starts with one who knows the least and asks someone else for something. That someone asks another who they expect knows something better... and on it goes until it finally reaches the 'Top Of The Knowledge Mountain' resident: DavidSWhite - who doesn't share his secret information, so he in turn asks islanderfan what he thinks - and the circle is complete!
It is a viscous circle, but why would you change it!? Except to add a few more options in the middle somewhere :wink:

iamachessstudent
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Re: Chess Overload !

Post by iamachessstudent » Sun Aug 05, 2012 4:34 pm

Ummm ok

so much for my advice.....

cmulligan
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Re: Chess Overload !

Post by cmulligan » Sun Aug 05, 2012 10:57 pm

Advice? Where? Got distracted by the Playboy comments earlier & haven't read anything since...been looking for pictures... :lol: :lol:

davidswhite
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Re: Chess Overload !

Post by davidswhite » Mon Aug 06, 2012 4:25 am

I do everything that iamachessstudent does with the exception of sticking to any particular opening book or one of my own construction(which I've never actually created). I,also,as does he,follow the weekly updated games on ChessBase 10 and print out any annotated games I think might prove useful for the openings.Unfortunately,I've found most of the annotations,especially by the GMs,close to useless since they write in a kind of shorthand as if they're attempting to communicate only with each other.
I keep a written record of the 1st 15-20 moves of every game I've ever played in correspondence chess,categorized by the name of the opening that was used.Whenever one of the games wound up with a loss for me I subjected it to a postmortem,specifically notating where I went wrong.Of course,if I had had the time,I would have done the same thing for the games I'd won,notating where my opponent had erred because winning doesn't mean that I'd chosen the strongest line and that against a different opponent might have been punished for using it.
Previously Eugene referred to me as being "notoriously slow" and he's right...but only in the openings.I tend to trust nothing that I've done before merely because it may have won and am forever trying to reinvent the wheel,spending a great deal of time questioning the wisdom of each move of a continuation which I may have used hundreds of times before almost always deciding to play each move precisely as before...only having wasted about 20 days on my clock.
So,I sit with my pile of over 150 paperbacks which deal with the openings,over a thousand of my handwritten prior game openings,and many hundreds of annotated printouts from ChessBase and wonder What The Hell I'm going to do.The fact is that I absolutely hate the Openings and the theories which created them and can barely wait for each game to get out of anyone's book so that we can finally begin playing chess on our own.

David

marandreo
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Re: Chess Overload !

Post by marandreo » Mon Aug 06, 2012 6:32 am

davidswhite wrote:The fact is that I absolutely hate the Openings and the theories which created them and can barely wait for each game to get out of anyone's book so that we can finally begin playing chess on our own.
:idea: So, it's time to start playing Fischer Random (alias Chess960)! :idea:

davidswhite
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Re: Chess Overload !

Post by davidswhite » Mon Aug 06, 2012 9:33 am

Just reading my comment would lead naturally to that conclusion.In fact, I still find 64 squares daunting enough for me and,while the openings cause me the most angst,I have no feeling that the playing field with my opponents is uneven.
Fischer concocted 960 to eradicate in one swoop all the advantages obtained over him in opening theory by strong GMs who continued competing and learning during the decades he absented himself from competitive chess while he was primarily devoting his energy into progressively deeper levels of paranoid madness.
David

islanderfan
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Re: Chess Overload !

Post by islanderfan » Mon Aug 06, 2012 11:18 am

Shelby Lyman is a good chess writer. He has his own column in Newsday.

ecperreault
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Re: Chess Overload !

Post by ecperreault » Mon Aug 06, 2012 1:31 pm

Shelby has been around longer than dirt.
Unfortunately, he believes in the old standard GM Theory that:
'Whenever publishing analysis, only include lines that work against everyone EXCEPT me.'
Meaning, there is a deeper understanding than you read - and they won't write it!

iamachessstudent
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Re: Chess Overload !

Post by iamachessstudent » Mon Aug 06, 2012 8:38 pm

Shelby Lyman really made his claim to fame when he hosted the World Chess Championship Show for PBS during the Karpov-Kasparov matches of the 80s n 90s
He has guests like Jimmy Sherwin, Sammy Reshevsky, Ilya Gurevich and Edmar Mednis ( one of my favorites post after his death )
their poor lil computer that was still able to predict some moves and allot of blitz chess int he studio, but to listen to the GMs talk bout he positions was SO interesting, at the time and it was breakthru stuff at that time!! Of course now there is steaming video so....
Jeff has VHS taped them, and i had converted them to DVDS and i still watch them on a rainy day... just good stuff :)

iamachessstudent
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Re: Chess Overload !

Post by iamachessstudent » Mon Aug 06, 2012 8:41 pm

Fishcer Random NEVER ughhhhhh

I'm so fascinated by modern openings and unlike David, I embrace them and try to make them better...but wow
that is allot of work and time..
Im starting to slow down also, and categorize my losses and wins by openings to see where things an go better...
There is always so much more you can do, the key is picking what works best for you and sticking to it :)

ecperreault
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Re: Chess Overload !

Post by ecperreault » Mon Aug 06, 2012 9:19 pm

1.a3 for an early attack!!!
1... a6!!! To squash any thoughts of grandeur by White!
Besides they allow for 'original' play by both sides without getting annihilated by a lack of Opening Lines ... AND THEY ARE FUN!!!

jumpnmustang
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Re: Chess Overload !

Post by jumpnmustang » Tue Aug 07, 2012 12:58 am

My problem isn't chess overload. It's impatience. I started CC in hopes that I can focus on it and learn, but for some reason when I play I don't focus on the training. I will play too fast and get in to strange positions that I don't even know how I got into them. It's hard for me to sit and focus knowing that I have more than one game to attend to. Then when I do have one game to attend to I find myself wondering when the move will get here. I think it is just a slight bit of attention deficit. I find that I can focus more in the OTB controls between g/60 to the 6 to 7 hour games. Right now my goal is fixing chaotic thinking. Slowly this is working. I am hoping this plan will leak into my CC thinking as well. I am learning now techniques to better these plans, but it's going slow.

I do books and videos. I think videos make up for at least 75% of my overall chess understanding. Possibly why I never got this overload problem. I am about 30ish points now from reaching the 2000 mark, and I figure if I keep up what I am doing till 2300-2400+ I won't have to worry about books really till then. So possibly my overload will be when I start studying openings at that time. For now it's all the fun stuff, like middle game and end game training.

davidswhite
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Re: Chess Overload !

Post by davidswhite » Tue Aug 07, 2012 1:20 am

Joshua posted:

"Shelby Lyman really made his claim to fame when he hosted the World Chess Championship Show for PBS during the Karpov-Kasparov matches of the 80s n 90s"

I'm sorry,Joshua, but that's just too inaccurate to leave uncorrected.
Shelby Lyman first burst to fame in the summer of 1972 when he broadcast each move of the Fischer-Spassky World Chess Championship in Iceland from a small Albany PBS TV studio.It was a bare-bones operation with the arrival of each move being heralded by the ringing of a small bell and the written move being handed to Lyman by a young lady working at the studio.Lyman would then take a cardboard cutout from one of his pockets,representing the piece which had been moved,and then insert it into the appropriate sleeve of an upright chessboard in the room...discarding any piece which might have been taken by the move.
While waiting for the bell to signal the next move,Shelby would be on the phone with New York City's Marshall Chess Club to receive Grandmaster and Master
evaluations of the position as well as their expectations of each player's intentions.
The broadcast was originally intended to run from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM at which point PBS's regular broadcasting schedule was supposed to kick in.
However,Shelby Lyman's broadcast generated so much excitement that the program was extended to 5 hours ,pre-empting Sesame Street for each of the 21 games.
At the height of the Cold War an American chess genius dethroned the reigning Russian World Chess Champion and the game of chess exploded in popularity in the U.S.A.,Bobby Fischer became a national hero and Shelby Lyman,with almost zero budget,had brought the whole exhilarating experience into millions of American homes via television.
Having lived through it,I could never reflect on that World Chess Championship between Fischer and Spassky without also remembering Shelby Lyman.

David

ecperreault
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Re: Chess Overload !

Post by ecperreault » Tue Aug 07, 2012 2:39 am

David,
You must be as old as me or more!!!
I was living in Burlington, Vermont at the time the Fischer-Spassky match in 72. Being a bright lad of 13 and having 6 years of New England area chess under my belt already, I was of course drawn to it like a magnet.
David you described it very accurately!!!
The Keeseville, NY Pepsi bottling plant wanted to get in with some advertising - but was disallowed for it was a non-profit station and they didn't accept any advertising .

ecperreault
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Re: Chess Overload !

Post by ecperreault » Tue Aug 07, 2012 2:42 am

Just noticed a unusual title by my name...
'General Forum Grandmaster'
What is that all about?
Does that mean I am the most controversial? Viewed? Obnoxious? Insignificant (my X-wife would love that!)
Geez... I guess that makes me more important than islanderfan :P
Woo-Hoooo!!!

cmulligan
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Re: Chess Overload !

Post by cmulligan » Tue Aug 07, 2012 10:10 am

Calm down,Eugene. Don't let your head swell up too much. You're still not as important as islanderfan...or is that self-important...or unimportant...one of those at least,I think... :D

islanderfan
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Re: Chess Overload !

Post by islanderfan » Tue Aug 07, 2012 1:18 pm

Better than living in Washington or the South!

ecperreault
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Re: Chess Overload !

Post by ecperreault » Tue Aug 07, 2012 2:55 pm

Better than living in...
Seattle

Huh! I 'ad a business in Seattle once a while back when crazy Georgie was a bein' da prezdent.
I 'ad dibs on the new painty Bus Stop Bench on the corner ob two busy roads which be jus' right fer beggin' in the morn'. I done guard it all af'ernoon after the town crew finshed. I scratched me 'X' on the back in the fresh paint so eberybody know'd who be ownin' dis here bench and went ta work on the corner fer a couple hour. I earn'd six dollar and hit the Quik Stop for a couple bottles. I sat on me new bench jus' mindin' me own affairs a wachin' the traffic go by as I sipped 'em slow and steady... It took me a couple hour ta drain the 3 jugs and I was ready ta try out me new bench for a cool nights sleep after them thar 40's...
Bench.JPG
Bench.JPG (156.27 KiB) Viewed 41018 times
... and this short chubby Policeman ruint it fer me.
It be dark so it wern't today any more. Dat Bloke started 'ollaring loudly and I opened me eyes ta his spotlight in dem. I politely told 'im ta keep it down 'cause I was feeling me head pains.
Dern Blue Belly poinked me head two by twice wid his stick and told me to be a gettin' or he would be a runnin' me in!
I asked if'n dey 'ad feather mattresses there at the cage he work in - darned if'n he didn't poink me again and tol' me ta be polite and ta call him sir and crap.
So, I rubbed me new skull bumps and gots ta me knees and says as polite as me can be, 'Sir! If'n ya gots a nice bunk, a couple bottles and a few of those nice donuts you fat boys like I would like ta go dar...
When I woke I 'urt all over and decided that I didn't like dat Washington any mores no how. All dey gave me was balonee and brown cooked meat stuff wid bread and water. Bread and water!!! Like I be a common criminal and all.
I fell darn embarrassed about bein' treated like dat.
After me 3 days ob bacashun from me business I hitched a ride on da back bike rack of a city bus and skittered out of dat town and I ain't eber blowin' in dar like a tumbleweed eber agin!
I 'ab takin' me business ta Washington town jus' Nord of Po'tland' Oregon. Nice town and me earning 'bout fifty dollar an af'ernoon on 4th Plain road! I eben 'ave new boots now!
Dem politishuns be right. It be 'ard ta startin' a small business dees days!

cmulligan
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Re: Chess Overload !

Post by cmulligan » Tue Aug 07, 2012 2:56 pm

You keep thinking that, Brian. I'm ok with anything that keeps you out of the South... :lol:

iamachessstudent
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Re: Chess Overload !

Post by iamachessstudent » Tue Aug 07, 2012 7:07 pm

Something that can also help LOTs when you archive and keep track of your games is the ECO CODE!
some sites I played on will include that once your games are finished and it is SO much easier to isolate and get those specific openings to your games when you have that ECO CODE.
This site does not give it, so you have to manually input or run it through a computer analysis, even at the fastest speed and it will kick out the correct ECO and you can catalog from there.

Just another tip that can save you a ton of time when you are saving, analyzing and storing all of your chess games, win lose or draw!

Joshua

ecperreault
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Re: Chess Overload !

Post by ecperreault » Tue Aug 07, 2012 7:57 pm

ECO Code...

I spent a couple months at USASATC&S while in the Army at Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, Texas while getting my Military Intelligence training in Cryptography waaay back in the 70's.
In one of our first lessons we were to intercept about 40 transmissions in German, translate them into English (or what our working Language was at the time), exclude any extraneous transmissions and decipher the message. The beginner examples were easy like the ones you find in public 'Crypto' word problems.

Give this a whirl:
HINT: It reads out in plain English Left-to-Right, Top-to-Bottom
zowsb ijnjl ecjqv onvcf szdsj jclnd
qngou dqhsn oflob ndsjo vunco wsxoi
elgou zqlzo ljniu znnds kioav svxoi
ndson dsieu gnoqn nspkn nojov sbtgy


:!: The first person who posts the CORRECT answer wins a Lifetime Membership to the FREE Net-Chess website !!!
Doesn't get any better than that :P

PS: Military Intelligence is a lot like the County fair. No matter how hard you try at any task you just look dumber.

islanderfan
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Re: Chess Overload !

Post by islanderfan » Wed Aug 08, 2012 6:25 am

It reads: My name is Eugene. I am bad at chess. I wish I was in the Navy rather than the Army. And in closing Brian, is a far better chess player than Josh, Dave, Chris and Eugene combined. He should get an award and medal.

ecperreault
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Re: Chess Overload !

Post by ecperreault » Wed Aug 08, 2012 1:39 pm

Very close!
You may have gotten a single placement correct.
Give it another go, Brain... Oh, sorry about that - typo, you know! Give it another go, Brian.

gmiller
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Re: Chess Overload !

Post by gmiller » Thu Aug 09, 2012 5:16 pm

code writing is a lot like chess in that you have to know the solution before you can construct the problem for the other guy to attempt to solve
Greg Miller

ecperreault
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Re: Chess Overload !

Post by ecperreault » Thu Aug 09, 2012 5:38 pm

Well Done, sir!
I hope the 'wxyz' at the end as 'nulls' didn't throw off your count too much. It was a simple substitution problem with straight line construction.
And a good saying it is too!
You have won a ... oh, heck! You already own it... too bad.

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