Theo Todman's Web Page - Notes Pages
Status Reports
Status: Chess (2014 - September)
(Text as at 07/10/2014 17:39:50)
(For other versions of this Note, see the tables at the end)
Rationale for this Project- I occasionally think of returning to chess after a very long lay-off. I’ve hardly played since I left school, where I showed some aptitude – especially in my first season when, in the 3rd year at Grammar school, I won the North Gloucestershire under-15s championship, but things never really took off. For instance, I performed very badly in the West of England under-15s and only ever came runner-up in the North Gloucestershire under-18s. I played in the local adult league while at school and my grade meandered up to 158, if I remember correctly. While at school, I played on a low board for Gloucestershire seniors and captained the Gloucestershire juniors, though not from top board. I played in a number of congresses at school and immediately after university, with mixed results.
- Anyway, I effectively gave the game up and switched to bridge at Cambridge, playing chess on only three occasions for the King’s team.
- My trouble with chess was, I think, that I had a natural ability to calculate variations which stood me in good stead against players who knew next to no theory – but against stronger players I never got into positions where calculation did more than tell me I was losing. I only ever used to play matches, never practice games, and have never actually read a chess book beyond the first few pages.
- So, I don't want a repetition of any of that. If I return to the game, I'd like to learn to play properly. The question is how? I have a collection of (mostly old) books, but I've never been a keen reader of chess books – I can't easily envisage what's going on without either a lot of effort or setting the position up on the board.
- I suspected some chess software might be the best way forward – what I need is something that's fairly interactive and which will get me to learn both the principles of positional play and some opening theory, as well as play some practise games, in as painless a manner as possible. After advice from The London Chess Centre (follow Chess & Bridge), I purchased some software, as below. Unfortunately, the plan to make use of it hasn’t come to much.
- The incentive to return to the game is that my brother-in-law runs a team in the Middlesex and London Leagues. The chess scene in Billericay seems somewhat dismal.
Status as at end-September 2014 - I only planned to spend 1 hour / week – and that only in the first quarter – on this project in the last academic year, and that’s pretty much what happened, with only 11 hours expended across the year, mainly reading:-
- "Chess - Chess Magazine",
- "Martin (Andrew) - The Basics of Winning Chess",
- "Bilalic (Merim), McLeod (Peter) & Gobet (Fernand) - Inflexibility of Experts – Reality or Myth? Quantifying the Einstellung Effect in Chess Masters",
- "Bilalic (Merim), McLeod (Peter) & Gobet (Fernand) - The Mechanism of the Einstellung (Set) Effect: A Pervasive Source of Cognitive Bias",
- "Bilalic (Merim), McLeod (Peter) & Gobet (Fernand) - Why Good Thoughts Block Better Ones: The Mechanism of the Pernicious Einstellung (set) Effect",
- "Bilalic (Merim), Smallbone (Kieran), McLeod (Peter) & Gobet (Fernand) - Why are (the best) women so good at chess? Participation rates and gender differences in intellectual domains",
- "Sheridan (Heather) & Lahaye (Rick) - Psychological warfare and Einstellung effect", and
- "Sheridan (Heather) & Reingold (Eyal M.) - The Mechanisms and Boundary Conditions of the Einstellung Effect in Chess: Evidence from Eye Movements".
Plans for the 2014/15 Academic Year- To provide focus for higher priority projects, I do not plan to spend much time on this project in the near future. I may do so on an ad hoc basis. If so, actions will feature on the Summary_Task_List1. But I do not intend to produce any more editions of this report until this time next year.
- These are the items I’ll look at if time and enthusiasm allow:-
- Get to grips with Chessmaster – Grandmaster Edition.
- Continue second run through of "Martin (Andrew) - The Basics of Winning Chess".
- Re-start first run through of "Aagaard (Jacob) - Basic Positional Ideas".
- Review my copies2 of "Chess - Chess Magazine", and engage more seriously with some of the material therein.
Summary of Progress to Date
- Catalogued and categorised my Chess Book Collection.
- Started reading sundry of the above, and investigated various on-line material (Fritz, Rybka, Chess Mentor, etc) before contacting The London Chess Centre.
- Completed first run through of "Martin (Andrew) - The Basics of Winning Chess".
- Installed "Aagaard (Jacob) - Basic Positional Ideas". Study commenced.
- Installed Chessmaster – Grandmaster Edition, but haven’t really got to grips with it yet.
- Subscribed to "Chess - Chess Magazine", and skimmed the March 2009 – September 2013 editions.
- Visited Billericay Chess Club on 6th April 2011 (Billericay Chess Club). They meet on Wednesdays at 19:30, which clashes with Bridge. There was a club match, so I couldn’t play any of the better players, but played a rather sad young man who hadn’t make the cut. It was interesting to see how rusty I was, though I won all four games. I had a chat with one of the committee-members afterwards, and left my email address. I’ve not heard back, or been back. No-one in the club is as strong a player as I was in my prime, so I don’t think I’ll pursue the club further. See Essex Chess for the Essex Chess site.
In-Page Footnotes
Footnote 2: My subscription has now expired.
Live Version of this Archived Note
Table of 12 Earlier Versions of this Note (of 16)
Table of the 9 Later Versions of this Note
Summary of Notes Links from this Page
To access information, click on one of the links in the table above (if any).
Summary of Note Links to this Page
To access information, click on one of the links in the table above (if any).
Text Colour Conventions
- Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2019