Comments on Druss Blog: Modifying my approach

This might help: link

2006-03-03T06:17:00.000Z

This might help: link

i have a recommendation for you that might help yo...

2006-02-20T20:59:00.000Z

i have a recommendation for you that might help you.

i too tried just doing a lot of tactics and some of the same conclusions as you.

Instead, now all I study is tactics and the games of world champions. I first try to guess the move before looking at what the GM played. I give myself 2 minutes or more each move and more if it is a critical position. This way I can learn positional play, openings and endgames all at once. Besides world champions know more about chess than all these average GM's.

I think tactics and studying games of world champions is all it takes. My results are really improving. try it.

Good luck fellow patzer

Interesting post. I agree; parts of the circles ar...

2006-02-18T23:23:00.000Z

Interesting post. I agree; parts of the circles are seriously lacking in "fun".

You bring up some thorny issues, issues that masters cannot even agree upon.

I see it like cooking; the position is meat and vegetables and tactics are spice. There is no best overall recipe, although top chefs can win contests again and again.

>>>Is there any book out there which lists them?

I am not sure what your question is exactly. Beside "Excelling at Positional Chess" by Aagaard, there are books by Fine, Silman, Watson, Nimzovich, Weeramantry, Kotov, and many others.

I like this :"...Aagaard claims that there are pos...

2006-02-15T21:19:00.000Z

I like this :

"...Aagaard claims that there are positional rules, but you have to know when to apply them and when not to...".

Doesn't that beg the question? Are there rules for knowing when to apply the positional rules, or not?

It seems to be that these "rules" are really guidelines, and the more experience you have, the more accurate you can be in knowing when the guidelines apply.

Or more concretely, a GM just "knows" when to start the variation calculation engines, when to apply
basic rules (ie. "a knight on the rim is dim" ), and when to just trust instinct.