Problem with Amateur's Mind plans? Silman wrong? - 2008/05/19 23:49I don't think Silman's plans work in his book, "The Amateur's Mind". He seems to be making the same kind of mistakes that he criticizes his students for! The example on page 46 is a real doozy. It's Black to play.
The whole point of this game is to illustrate that in order for bishops to be effective, you need to open the game up, even if that means not pushing the white Knight black from it's support point. He says the bishops take priority.
At first glance, it seems like Black had a decent position. Without a computer program, it seems like once the center is won by 1...f6 and 2...e5 and a rook can go to d3... Black is in good shape. According to Silman, "Black has already won." (Silman is playing black here).
However, when analyzing the game with Fritz... it points out some glaring problems with the game! Some are easy to spot without the computer too.
White had numerous chances to really turn the game around drastically and yet didn't. It's clear the person playing White is an inferior player to Silman.
Had white not blundered, Black's plan of opening the game up would not have worked (and thus, proving that Silman's plan was not the best plan after all!). The only reason black won was because white misplayed... not because Silman chose the best plan (and isn't that the point of this book?!)
Let's look at the game:
1. Fritz/Rybka says 1... f6 actually gives White a slight edge (0.12) when Black's original position was better (-0.50). Ironically, 1...f7 (the move Silman says is a "resounding no!") gets a -0.58, which is pretty much the same advantage as Black's starting position. Perhaps Rybka/Fritz is not smart enough to understand the position... yet it's funny that when comparing the two moves, the computer would select the move that Silman rejects 100%.
2. Another interesting bit is that 2... e5 improves White's position according to Rybka/Fritz (0.36). I found this kind of odd... Nonetheless, no move really turns the balance so much that I can find so much fault with this strategy. Ironically, the computer says white is 0.50 to 0.60 ahead the entire time for awhile during the game... which is contradictory to the idea that "Black has already won."
* 3. This is where a big problem arises. The computer is reporting 7...Qd5 as a blunder. After the move is played, Fritz/Rybka says White is 2.18 to 2.22 ahead! That's a pretty big jump, especially when Black is supposed to be winning! The computer recommended 7... Rh3 instead followed by 8. fxe5.
The computer thinks white's capture with the pawn on g6 is a terrific move to exploit the blunder (as was played during the game!). So, white is winning after 8. hxg6!
* 4. Nonetheless, play followed to 9. Ne4??, which the computer also considers a terrible blunder by white - so much so that it considers the position now equal (0.00)!
I have to admit, when I was putting in the moves into Fritz when following the game, I also saw exactly what Fritz/Rybka saw and asked myself, "Why didn't white play 9. Nxd3?" It's not a strong move... just an obvious one that maintains the 2.35 advantage that the computer is assessing by the time of this move.
After seeing the board, it's really hard to imagine Black winning this game. Why did White miss it? Why was it not mentioned in the book? I'm terribly confused why White did not take the rook here
*** 5. Play continues at *exactly* 0.00 for many moves until black plays 13. Rf8! Despite Silman thinking this is a strong move by indicating it with a "!", Fritz/Rybka reports this as a massive blunder!
According to Fritz/Rybka, after 13. Rf8??, white's position improves to 6.30 just after 14 ply (and it steadily grows as the analysis continues)!
Instead of the lousy 14. Qc1 that was played by white... Fritz/Rybka is recommending 14. Qxd3 - again, getting rid of that Rook on d3 that the knight should have picked off on move 9!
At this point on, there is no more mate in 17 moves from the starting position like the author confidently suggests. In fact, Black is pretty much dead.
Did Silman do as his student's do... hope they didn't see the move 14. Qxd3? He certainly badgers his student's for praying they don't see weaknesses in the position. White failing to capture the rook not once, but twice certainly qualifies. Silman was in a losing position and won because his opponent made several blunders!
Conclusion ---------- Honestly, I don't know what anyone can learn from this book. The principles seem good, but the game examples are not convincing. I am not convinced that this principle works in practice. Certainly there was more to the position than the Knight vs. Bishop imbalance... which is why his 'plan' didn't work.
How can you even learn from books when the examples are as bad this? Sigh...
Problem with Amateur's Mind plans? Silman wrong? - 2008/05/20 10:30I hope someone with more experience than me will get into this discussion, Egervari. It sounds very interesting if other arguments can be brought in here.
Problem with Amateur's Mind plans? Silman wrong? - 2008/05/21 18:09I think you are right with your analysis and I don't use this book, but I still believe that you may be able to learn from a book if some of the examples are incorrect.
For example: I like Silman's book "How to reassess your chess", because some of the instructions are very informative, but even this book contains some very annoying errors, especially when it concerns his own games. I believe that (some of) these errors are corrected in a new edition of the book.
Problem with Amateur's Mind plans? Silman wrong? - 2008/05/21 18:32I agree with you. The book has many positive points. I don't mind the parts where he talks about rules or principles, showing positive and negative points of certain imbalances. All this information is very useful.
The main aspect of the book that I didn't like is the examples. During the positive "right way to do it" examples, he doesn't explain the game a whole lot, often showing 6 moves with little explanation. I'm not good enough of a player to follow what's going on in Fisher's games for example, so I often just take the situation "as is" and try and learn the little tidbits. Still, more explanation would have been nice.
Moreover though, I think looking over the amateur's games is a waste of time. Ironically, Silman talks to great length about these games and how bad they are. It's somewhat entertaining, but after awhile... it just becomes pointless.
1. 90% of the game usually just shows how bad the amateur is, and it has nothing relating to the principle being shown.
2. I usually don't connect with the amateur's mindset, so I often see the same problems Silman is seeing. I just think it's not very good to analyze games of mistakes that you aren't making yourself.
3. I think it's bad to analyze poor games, and spend so much time doing it. Maybe if you're a good player who is confident in their play, you can do this with ease... but I don't want to pick up bad habits. I'd rather learn good principles by osmosis
I'm going to keep reading the book and sort of pick and choose what to get gain from it. I heard his book "Reassess Your Chess" was much better because it had the learning style that corrects a lot of these problems.
Re:Problem with Amateur's Mind plans? Silman wrong - 2008/05/21 21:33I also see problems like this in Yassir Seirawan's book "Winning Chess Strategies"
On page 16, he shows a game example where he faces Karpov (the world champion at the time) from 1982. Here's the position at move 14, white to play:
Yassir's using this game to demonstrate the principle:
When you are up material, it's okay to give back to consolidate your position. Then go munch on more material after you consolidate.
Now, my problem with this example is not his play - it's his attitude, which is kind of similar to Silman. He almost gloats at how well he played and that his "plan" was the reason he won the game. And he mentions that it was good from move 1 onward.
When I first saw this position, I immediately saw the nice skewer, as did Yassir: Re3! is a great move.
The problem is what Yassir doesn't tell you. If you go to a game database, you can see that Karpov blundered on the move before!
Notice black's pawn on c5? 13...c5? was Karpov's last move! This effectively lost Karpov the game! Karpov should have played 13...b5, attacking the queen, which would have avoided the skewer entirely!
Yassir purposefully did not show the original 26 moves of this game to reader. That's weird, because in all of his other examples, he shows the initial move orders. Instead, Yassir just starts the game at move 14. Re3.
Why, you might ask? Because the reader would see that it was not the plan that Yassir had that won him the game... it was his opponent's misplay. Notice a pattern when comparing this game to Silman's?
I did some more research, and apparently, also in 1982, Seirawan played Karpov with the exact same position! Can you believe it? That's strange since they only played 4 games together in 1982. However, in that game... Karpov played 13...b5, attacking the queen! Guess what? Karpov whipped Seirawan off the board!
I don't mind the authors using examples where blunders are made. I just wish the authors would be honest with the reader and say, "Karpov blundered and gave me an opportunity for me to get ahead in material, which allowed me to create a new plan... and thank god because I was in trouble!" That's not what we get - he was a "master" because he beat a world champion. I'd appreciate the honesty more than the attitude I get from Yassir when reading his books.
To be fair, I like Winning Chess Strategies. I don't care much for most of the examples. but the principles and explanations are sound, and the smaller examples are useful. I'd recommend it. I just don't like it when authors do this to the reader. It's not honest, and it also demonstrates a different principle than the author is suggesting.
Also what I find extremely interesting is that both games had made tactical errors/blunders. It's odd that both authors won their games from technical play when these books are about winning games with strategy. If anything, it seems to me that tactical mastery is worth more than both of these books.
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