the stronger i get, the stronger i get
went to the gym this morning, i felt tired, i still managed to bench press about 185 pounds. not too shabby for a 145 pound short guy. i love the gym, all that sweating, grunting, hard breathing….but i digress.
thing is, i had gotten out of it for a bit, lost whatever i had. when i got back into it, i had to start at the beginning, and i could only bench about 100 pounds, and not that much, and i was weak and couldn’t get stronger. but i found, as i got stronger, i could put more weight on and push harder and push more which in turn got me even stronger. at first, i was so weak i couldn’t bench enough to get a solid workout, i would tire quickly and easily, but as i got stronger, i could go longer and heavier and get bigger increases.
so it has been (a bit) with chess. at first, i didn’t’ know what i was looking at, so i took it at face value, took what i saw as the truth, and moved on, not really knowing how to use what i just learned. now that i’m a scant bit stronger, (stronger, yes, yet i still have managed to retain my indefatigable ability to suck like a chest wound) the things i learn and see mean more to me now then they did. i’m slowly, like at the speed of a retarded sloth, “getting it.”
i remember reading how “the art of attack” is a great book for 1600 and thinking “why can’t i read it? i’m an adult, i can understand concepts, i can read it and understand it and use it.” and i read it and i understood it, but now that i know a slight bit more, i understand it a slight bit more. it all makes sense to me now, how a book, how information, is targeted at someone with a certain rating.
a 1600 presumably knows a certain amount of chess stuff. so he will interpret the information in the book differently and perhaps more efficiently than someone with less knowledge.
and so the more i know, the more efficiently i will be able to take in the information, the more i will learn from each thing i do. the stronger i get, the stronger i will get.
how exciting.
Ivan W said,
April 7, 2008 at 9:22 am
185, that’s pretty impressive. I am 150 and I think my 1 rep max is about 150. I was having a confidence issue lately after losing a few games, but yesterday I won a game in which I was horribly lost for a long while. I think I got my confidence back!
Getting to 2000
Sciurus said,
April 7, 2008 at 11:10 am
Yes, 185lb is great, indeed. The only thing I can do well in the gym is leg presses.
Anyway, while I totally agree with your points, I still developed a slightly different attitude towards this issue lately. I wrote is up in a post on chess knowledge, skill, and fun. In short, knowing more might not make me a better player, but makes chess as a whole more fun for me.
drunknknite said,
April 7, 2008 at 2:45 pm
YES!
You hit a good point. Build a foundation. Then move on to special topic books. It’s not about doing what everybody else is doing. It’s about learning what you need to learn. It starts with simple concepts, the most simple. Even Silman may be out of reach for players under 1400.
I think the best series for a player of your strength is the Seirawan series on Winning Chess. Those books helped me, they are simple and fun.
A lot of times if I’m reading the author will say something and as soon as I read it it seems like something I’ve known for years but could never put into words, that’s the feeling you’re looking for. An introduction to something that you know is possible, given in systematic examples with explanations seems to be best.
Start small, and you will make progress. If you had tried to lift 185lbs when you hadn’t lifted weights before what would happen?
Polly said,
April 7, 2008 at 2:51 pm
185 pounds I’m impressed! I’d hate to meet you in a dark gym. You might bench press me by accident.
Can you play me either tonight or tomorrow?
es_trick said,
April 7, 2008 at 3:33 pm
I agree with a whole lot of what DK wrote a few days ago. I’ve even found my own “stone to polish.”
But I have to say that Znosko-Borovsky’s “Art of the Combination” has been a difficult read for me. I got it on someone’s recommendation when I was still unrated, with a playing strength of around 800. I’ve never been able to get past the first half of it after several tries, and my rating’s now in the 1500 range.
I have Silman’s “The Amateur’s Mind.” I need to get the one called “Reassess Your Chess” in order to more fully understand what he’s talking about in “The Amateur’s Mind.” There were some things I liked in “The Amateur’s Mind,” but I kind of got turned off by a couple of things –1) most of his examples come from Queen pawn games are ‘positional’ in nature (not my style), and 2) Silman sometimes comes off as a bit abrasive or condescending, and makes me feel stupid.
I’ve read through Seirawan’s “Winning Chess Tactics” and “Winning Chess Strategy” (which I think were co-written by Silman) and those books are refreshingly positive and upbeat, though the style is sometimes a bit annoying in that it feels like it’s aimed at 8 - 10 year olds. Still, they were good reviews (I felt like I knew 75-80% already), and I think were beneficial.
I still say that for someone at your level, toughening up mentally during games, using more of your allotted time on the clock, and learning to control wild emotional swings will make a big difference in performance. Phaedrus and Temposchlucker have been discussing how much things like concentration, stamina, coffee, alcohol, and so on, impact one’s playing strength.
http://chesstrainerphaedrus.blogspot.com/2008/03/framework-of-chess-improvement.html
My feeling is that all of those things together might help me play 200-300 points better than my rating if everything is at peak, but cause my to play like an 800 if everything were off.
Last week Elizabeth Vicary wrote an article for CLO that included her tips for how to use your time when you have long games. I think some of them were very useful to practice.
http://main.uschess.org/content/view/8318/446/
chessloser said,
April 8, 2008 at 7:56 am
ivan - the confidence is a big thing. i’ve had some issues with mine, but yeah, you need a win or two to get it back and it helps once you have it back. nice win, good on you for hanging in there and fighting, it makes the win that much sweeter…
scurius - you are right, knowing more definately makes it more fun, even if it doesn’t make me that much better…
drunknknight - ya know, i learned a lot from you in the short time i spent with you, and i consider your opinion important. . it’s good to know i’m on the right track…
polly - hahah, by accident. hey, what is this? oh, its polly…..
es_trick - dealing with the long games, the time between moves, concentration and such, that is my downfall. nice link to vicary’s stuff, i need that info, thanks…