When I read the part about pattern recognition, it explained how I got the answer relatively quickly (Geoff I know I PM'd this but after your blog I thought I would share to get the ball rolling).
At least twice in games, I have used a knight and rook to mate a king at the edge of the board, and I immediately thought of a variation of that theme with the other rook as a surrogate for the edge of the board-with the proviso that the two rooks had to mutually protect each other.
I got excited and rushed to post, and it was only then that I realized that my position could not be reached legally! I think that says something about me, but I'm not sure what, yet.
I've seen people get it very quickly and you did PM me right away.
If can just pop into your head, it can happen.
Show it to other players and watch what happens.
It's the good players who are often surprisingly slower.
Hopfully one or two of the other lads may think about how they study
and why they need to study.
I've showed them how hard it is if they have never seen a pattern before.
But my real aim is to get them thinking the art of combinations
is not the reserve of the good guys. They can do it.
Just a wee titsy bitsy bit of work is required.
Masters have hundreds of these patterns and not just mating patterns.
Pawn formations are big with them. Not the standard double pawn
isolated pawn that we know. Other things.
I can look at a position and spot most tactical shots.
These guys can look at a pawn formation and see what pieces
work best with that formation, trade off the pieces that don't fit
and work that formation into a won ending AND avoid my wee tactic.
It's all done (apparently) with a handful of glances.
You do not realise what they have been up to until you are looking at
a lost ending.
(someone else is going to have show them that bit. I'll get them tacically
aware, I'll give them teeth.)
I'll leave comments off as I rarely go back to look at it again.
Anything to say - say it in this thread.
Shortly after my Uncle Len introduced me to chess at the age of nine, the queen and rook understandably became my favorite pieces. During the decade of my twenties, thanks to the good fortune of five accomplished mentors, the lowly pawn became my favorite piece (though for all the wrong reasons, i.e., believing each one carried a crown in its knapsack, a penchant for positional symmetry per se, etc). Now (no longer young and since getting back into the noble game in 2007 after decades away) the mighty pawn is still my favorite piece, and finally I'm beginning to understand some of the reasons why.
It's the way it often goes as players understand the game more and more.
You want to be a good player, then get the tactics up to scratch.
This is all they need, a sharp eye ready to spot every trick in a postion.
So armed with a bag of tricks the players soon realise that they cannot
use them if their pieces are not developed. So they do some work on
an opening, Usually at this stage gambits.
Then they discover that against a reasonable player the gambits do not
always work. So a more subtle approach is required and pawns do have
a role to play. They are not just cannon fodder.
Players often split here some refusing the shed their taste in gambits and
hone them into sharp weapons. (guilty).
Others discover the 'dull' openings and formations do contain enough for
them to win a game and go this way.
The perfect player is the one who can do both but at the root of either style
is this tactical base and the skill to spot tactcial ideas.
The trouble is players want to go from learning the rules to good player
without the bit inbetween.
I can only tell you what worked for me. I'm not gifted I worked at it.
I enjoyed doing it.
I stiill enjoy pulling to pieces a combination completely wringing it dry of
every tactcial possibility. Guys like doing the same with clocks and car
engines. I like doing with postions. Try it.
I'm in good company, apparently Keres was the same, his trainer, I cannot
recall his name, use to despair at Keres's habit of finding every possible
way to win in an adjourned game or test postion. One way was never enough.
Originally posted by greenpawn34 It's the way it often goes as players understand the game more and more.
You want to be a good player, then get the tactics up to scratch.
This is all they need, a sharp eye ready to spot every trick in a postion.
So armed with a bag of tricks the players soon realise that they cannot
use them if their pieces are not developed. So they do some w every possible
way to win in an adjourned game or test postion. One way was never enough.
"Others discover the 'dull' openings and formations do contain enough for
them to win a game and go this way."
Colgate Palmolive VP once took me aside following a boardroom meeting in Chicago and said, "Bobby, the onus shall fall upon the proper anus." It did. Four months later, one product manager in the Surgical/Medical Professional Products Division was given a severance package in lieu of a relocation invitation to transfer to the corporate office consolidation in Boston. Guess maybe those words printed indelibly. Now, decades later, placing the onus to attack (hopefully fortified positions) on my opponents seems often to characterize my tack on the game. Acknowledged even in the first few lines of my RHP Profile.
31 Jul '10 00:43
Mating Patterns - Studying Tactics
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