Yeah no, this post is just a list of opinions that are presented as absolute truth. The only qualification OP has is his FM title. And maybe his experience as a chess teacher. But both those things don't really allow such claims.
And yeah, needless to say, i disagree with pretty much every point on that list.
And yeah, needless to say, i disagree with pretty much every point on that list.
<Comment deleted by user>
Thank you for your comment. Would you care to elaborate your opinion? What has triggered you in the text? I am a bit surprised by your approach, as those statements presented in the post (except the one related with the London) are well known places.
Thanks again for reading and replying to the text.
Thanks again for reading and replying to the text.
@mizant83 Thank you for this interesting blog! There is much truth to this, but I would like to say a few things:
1. After analyzing without engine, if you turn on the engine you can see if you missed anything-which can be crucial.
2. The London System is a good opening that no less then Carlsen has even played-which you can prepare and study and use to dominate the opening and the game.
3. I mostly agree with everything els-thank you so much!
1. After analyzing without engine, if you turn on the engine you can see if you missed anything-which can be crucial.
2. The London System is a good opening that no less then Carlsen has even played-which you can prepare and study and use to dominate the opening and the game.
3. I mostly agree with everything els-thank you so much!
Oh last thing-blitz chess.
As Avetik Grigoryan has ponited out, blitz is often harmful for beginners if that is what they learn at first-but blitz in itself is not harmful, even if bullet is.
:)
As Avetik Grigoryan has ponited out, blitz is often harmful for beginners if that is what they learn at first-but blitz in itself is not harmful, even if bullet is.
:)
@MariusBajorski said in #2:
> Yeah no, this post is just a list of opinions that are presented as absolute truth. The only qualification OP has is his FM title. And maybe his experience as a chess teacher. But both those things don't really allow such claims.
>
> And yeah, needless to say, i disagree with pretty much every point on that list.
Respectfully though, isn't an FM title and many years of teaching experience the exact type of thing that would qualify him to make these points? He mentioned he was open to critique, but IMO if criticism is to be constructive, it should provide details on the points of disagreement.
> Yeah no, this post is just a list of opinions that are presented as absolute truth. The only qualification OP has is his FM title. And maybe his experience as a chess teacher. But both those things don't really allow such claims.
>
> And yeah, needless to say, i disagree with pretty much every point on that list.
Respectfully though, isn't an FM title and many years of teaching experience the exact type of thing that would qualify him to make these points? He mentioned he was open to critique, but IMO if criticism is to be constructive, it should provide details on the points of disagreement.
@PrettyAwful said in #7:
> Respectfully though, isn't an FM title and many years of teaching experience the exact type of thing that would qualify him to make these points? He mentioned he was open to critique, but IMO if criticism is to be constructive, it should provide details on the points of disagreement.
My criticism is the claim of absolute truth in this post. There's trainers who are stronger and have more experience and say the opposite. There's also trainers that say the same thing or similar things. The point is that all those things are debated and there's no agreement. And tell me one reason why a beginner should listen to this guy instead of any other random coach.
> Respectfully though, isn't an FM title and many years of teaching experience the exact type of thing that would qualify him to make these points? He mentioned he was open to critique, but IMO if criticism is to be constructive, it should provide details on the points of disagreement.
My criticism is the claim of absolute truth in this post. There's trainers who are stronger and have more experience and say the opposite. There's also trainers that say the same thing or similar things. The point is that all those things are debated and there's no agreement. And tell me one reason why a beginner should listen to this guy instead of any other random coach.
@mizant83 here's a detailed breakdown:
> 1 - GOING FOR TRICKS FROM THE FIRST MOVE
Apart from going for scholar's mate, there's many other ways to play for tricks early on. It strengthen's a players tactical understanding, it introduces them to common motifs. On top of that, what is way more important is that it's fun. OP acknowledges this point, however unterestimates it. Positive emotions improve learning (Hascher & Edlinger, 2009), negative emotions, like boredom, are bad for learning (Tze et al., 2015). Also, successes have a positive effect on the self-concept of capability, which is positive for the formation of motivation, which is very important. This concept arises through comparing oneself with others. (Seidel & Krapp, 2014). Especially for kids this is helpful, as they will compare themselves to their peers of similar age. Is sounds dumb, but when I started playing chess, I wasn't motivated at all. It was only when I suddenly had a really good tournament and became the best in my age group in my region that I was motivated to study. I could also observe that the kids who played aggressive openings often became good chess players later.
> 2 - PLAYING THE LONDON SYSTEM
If a player enjoys playing the London System, there's nothing wrong with it. I wouldn't recommend it to my students if they asked for a repertoire, but I would certainly let them play it. In general, forcing players away from their favorite openings and learn new openings is a great way to make them enjoy the game less. This is also something I observed with many peers. A friend of mine really liked the "Hedgehog" opening and her trainer forbid it ??? Guess who stopped playing chess altogether a year later...
Especially for beginners, theory is almost never something you need to work on, especially when they already play an opening that follows basic opening principles. I'd much prefer my students to play the London system than some bullshit like 1. h4 2. Rh3
> 3 - PLAYING BULLET AND BLITZ CHESS
Now this is just complete nonsense. First of all, some people don't have time for longer games. Bullet and Blitz won't make you a worse chess player. Even somebody who plays ultrabullet for 30 minutes a day will probably be slightly better than someone who doesn't practice chess at all. In general, spending time with chess is good when you want to get good at chess. Obviously, some form of practice are more effective than others: Simply playing chess is one of the least effective training methods, no matter what time control. But instead of telling beginners they SHOULDNT do THIS, offer them possibilities what they can do instead.
By the way, playing with varying time controls is in general better than playing the same time control all the time. Especially for time management: You won't learn time management if you only play 15+10. You will learn time management for this time control, but not for any other.
> 4 - MEMORIZING OPENING MOVES
First of all, you can't explain every move to a beginner. It simply doesn't work. In most positions, several moves are very good. You can explain why one move is good, but that's not enough, you also have to explain why they play it now and why they don't play other good moves. Let's say you want to teach a beginner the Scottish line 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4
You can say: e4 opens up a diagonal for a bishop and attacks the center. Nf3 develops your knight and attacks the center, especially the pawn on e5. d4 attacks the center, opens the bishop and forces the opponent to take your pawn on d4, weakening their center. This all makes sense, but a beginner won't understand why you play THOSE MOVES IN PARTICULAR. They could also play the italian, the ruy lopez, even London System or queens gambit, they all follow the rules you mentioned. If you don't have your students memorize opening moves, you will never be able to teach them advanced concepts of certain openings, because they won't get there.
And second of all, some people enjoy memorizing openings, I'm one of them. I noticed that I'm good at memorizing and I like it. It also helps me with chess, I often win games out of the opening. As I said before, there might be more efficient learning strategy, but an inefficient strategy that's used is better than an efficient strategy that isn't used.
> 5 - NOT ANALYZING OWN GAMES OR TURNING ON THE ENGINE
Saying that not analyzing games is bad is a double negative, what you're actually saying is "Analyzing your games is good", which is something I can get behind. But turning on an engine is certainly not harmful. It helps you find your mistakes and important points in a game much faster. My own trainer (who is an IM and has won awards - so there's some merit to what he says) always analyzes games with the engine, even with stronger or titled players. It's simply an efficient tool.
And for beginners, it's even more helpful: Beginners are so bad at the game (sorry) that they don't even understand WHAT the mistakes are. You can't improve on something you don't know exists.
> 6 - DOING CHESS PUZZLES RELYING ON INTUITION
I mean I agree with your general point which is probably that doing chess puzzles with 100% focus is definitely better than just doing them quickly. This is definitely correct, you will get much, much more out of chess puzzles which take you 5-15 minutes to solve than the ones that you solve in 10 seconds by just looking at the position. But still, my general point applies: Doing chess puzzles relying on intuition is still better than doing nothing at all. It also helps discovering motifs and is a quick way to practice chess without putting much effort in, you can do it when you're tired or in a meeting you don't care about etc. When I played more actively, I also did a puzzle storm run before each game, just to "start my tactical brain" and get in the chess mood.
In general, I think "You shouldn't do these things" is a very bad approach for beginners. Let them do what they enjoy doing. Instead, you should offer more effective alternatives for learning, that are also fun and engaging.
> 1 - GOING FOR TRICKS FROM THE FIRST MOVE
Apart from going for scholar's mate, there's many other ways to play for tricks early on. It strengthen's a players tactical understanding, it introduces them to common motifs. On top of that, what is way more important is that it's fun. OP acknowledges this point, however unterestimates it. Positive emotions improve learning (Hascher & Edlinger, 2009), negative emotions, like boredom, are bad for learning (Tze et al., 2015). Also, successes have a positive effect on the self-concept of capability, which is positive for the formation of motivation, which is very important. This concept arises through comparing oneself with others. (Seidel & Krapp, 2014). Especially for kids this is helpful, as they will compare themselves to their peers of similar age. Is sounds dumb, but when I started playing chess, I wasn't motivated at all. It was only when I suddenly had a really good tournament and became the best in my age group in my region that I was motivated to study. I could also observe that the kids who played aggressive openings often became good chess players later.
> 2 - PLAYING THE LONDON SYSTEM
If a player enjoys playing the London System, there's nothing wrong with it. I wouldn't recommend it to my students if they asked for a repertoire, but I would certainly let them play it. In general, forcing players away from their favorite openings and learn new openings is a great way to make them enjoy the game less. This is also something I observed with many peers. A friend of mine really liked the "Hedgehog" opening and her trainer forbid it ??? Guess who stopped playing chess altogether a year later...
Especially for beginners, theory is almost never something you need to work on, especially when they already play an opening that follows basic opening principles. I'd much prefer my students to play the London system than some bullshit like 1. h4 2. Rh3
> 3 - PLAYING BULLET AND BLITZ CHESS
Now this is just complete nonsense. First of all, some people don't have time for longer games. Bullet and Blitz won't make you a worse chess player. Even somebody who plays ultrabullet for 30 minutes a day will probably be slightly better than someone who doesn't practice chess at all. In general, spending time with chess is good when you want to get good at chess. Obviously, some form of practice are more effective than others: Simply playing chess is one of the least effective training methods, no matter what time control. But instead of telling beginners they SHOULDNT do THIS, offer them possibilities what they can do instead.
By the way, playing with varying time controls is in general better than playing the same time control all the time. Especially for time management: You won't learn time management if you only play 15+10. You will learn time management for this time control, but not for any other.
> 4 - MEMORIZING OPENING MOVES
First of all, you can't explain every move to a beginner. It simply doesn't work. In most positions, several moves are very good. You can explain why one move is good, but that's not enough, you also have to explain why they play it now and why they don't play other good moves. Let's say you want to teach a beginner the Scottish line 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4
You can say: e4 opens up a diagonal for a bishop and attacks the center. Nf3 develops your knight and attacks the center, especially the pawn on e5. d4 attacks the center, opens the bishop and forces the opponent to take your pawn on d4, weakening their center. This all makes sense, but a beginner won't understand why you play THOSE MOVES IN PARTICULAR. They could also play the italian, the ruy lopez, even London System or queens gambit, they all follow the rules you mentioned. If you don't have your students memorize opening moves, you will never be able to teach them advanced concepts of certain openings, because they won't get there.
And second of all, some people enjoy memorizing openings, I'm one of them. I noticed that I'm good at memorizing and I like it. It also helps me with chess, I often win games out of the opening. As I said before, there might be more efficient learning strategy, but an inefficient strategy that's used is better than an efficient strategy that isn't used.
> 5 - NOT ANALYZING OWN GAMES OR TURNING ON THE ENGINE
Saying that not analyzing games is bad is a double negative, what you're actually saying is "Analyzing your games is good", which is something I can get behind. But turning on an engine is certainly not harmful. It helps you find your mistakes and important points in a game much faster. My own trainer (who is an IM and has won awards - so there's some merit to what he says) always analyzes games with the engine, even with stronger or titled players. It's simply an efficient tool.
And for beginners, it's even more helpful: Beginners are so bad at the game (sorry) that they don't even understand WHAT the mistakes are. You can't improve on something you don't know exists.
> 6 - DOING CHESS PUZZLES RELYING ON INTUITION
I mean I agree with your general point which is probably that doing chess puzzles with 100% focus is definitely better than just doing them quickly. This is definitely correct, you will get much, much more out of chess puzzles which take you 5-15 minutes to solve than the ones that you solve in 10 seconds by just looking at the position. But still, my general point applies: Doing chess puzzles relying on intuition is still better than doing nothing at all. It also helps discovering motifs and is a quick way to practice chess without putting much effort in, you can do it when you're tired or in a meeting you don't care about etc. When I played more actively, I also did a puzzle storm run before each game, just to "start my tactical brain" and get in the chess mood.
In general, I think "You shouldn't do these things" is a very bad approach for beginners. Let them do what they enjoy doing. Instead, you should offer more effective alternatives for learning, that are also fun and engaging.
@MariusBajorski said in #8:
> My criticism is the claim of absolute truth in this post. There's trainers who are stronger and have more experience and say the opposite. There's also trainers that say the same thing or similar things. The point is that all those things are debated and there's no agreement. And tell me one reason why a beginner should listen to this guy instead of any other random coach.
There is nothing like absolute throuth, but you sound like you know something for sure. For example, this thing with a "stronger trainer" who says something opposite then what I put there. I am asking you to name the author and provide the article/video that confirms your words (although this thing with a stronger trainer is a completely arbitrary thing, I am gonna let you choose almost any coach/chess author you want). Otherwise, you are just trolling the post cause you have nothing else to do.
> My criticism is the claim of absolute truth in this post. There's trainers who are stronger and have more experience and say the opposite. There's also trainers that say the same thing or similar things. The point is that all those things are debated and there's no agreement. And tell me one reason why a beginner should listen to this guy instead of any other random coach.
There is nothing like absolute throuth, but you sound like you know something for sure. For example, this thing with a "stronger trainer" who says something opposite then what I put there. I am asking you to name the author and provide the article/video that confirms your words (although this thing with a stronger trainer is a completely arbitrary thing, I am gonna let you choose almost any coach/chess author you want). Otherwise, you are just trolling the post cause you have nothing else to do.