Chess Information Overload
Today, I will be leaving my country of birth to head back to Australia. I leave somewhat with a very heavy heart as I will start to miss my parents and my brother.
I am very reluctant to leave for Sydney but work beckons. I still honestly do not know if I want to stay on in Australia.
On to chess things, there's one problem with looking at chess books in a bookstore.... there are far more books to read than you can possibly have time for. A Google seach on chess yields thousands of websites. And as you've guessed it, you're going to suffer from information overload!
I was reading this book at Borders in which the chess author highlighted that a good way to improve your chess is to gather a games database of your favourite openings. Unfortunately, sorting out the good matches from the bad ones can be onerous, to say the least.
So how do you sort out the good from the bad? There is no easy answer. Even if you were to purchase a database, there's no guarantee that 80% of the database is suitable for you. From that book (I wished I had noted down the book title now), I gleaned the information that it is far better to pick a handful of good games that you can familarise yourself with than to learn from a hundred average games.
As I went perusing through the various chess databases, it occured to me that:
a. I need to have an idea of what I want (which opening I want to adopt),
b. find out whose GM's playing style closely resembles mine (so that I won't end up doing something that is not suited to my style) and
c. learn to annotate and analyse my own games (with and without the aid of computer chess programs).
I'm still reading up and slowly digesting the Emms' book. The progress is getting much harder and slower than I would have preferred.
I am very reluctant to leave for Sydney but work beckons. I still honestly do not know if I want to stay on in Australia.
On to chess things, there's one problem with looking at chess books in a bookstore.... there are far more books to read than you can possibly have time for. A Google seach on chess yields thousands of websites. And as you've guessed it, you're going to suffer from information overload!
I was reading this book at Borders in which the chess author highlighted that a good way to improve your chess is to gather a games database of your favourite openings. Unfortunately, sorting out the good matches from the bad ones can be onerous, to say the least.
So how do you sort out the good from the bad? There is no easy answer. Even if you were to purchase a database, there's no guarantee that 80% of the database is suitable for you. From that book (I wished I had noted down the book title now), I gleaned the information that it is far better to pick a handful of good games that you can familarise yourself with than to learn from a hundred average games.
As I went perusing through the various chess databases, it occured to me that:
a. I need to have an idea of what I want (which opening I want to adopt),
b. find out whose GM's playing style closely resembles mine (so that I won't end up doing something that is not suited to my style) and
c. learn to annotate and analyse my own games (with and without the aid of computer chess programs).
I'm still reading up and slowly digesting the Emms' book. The progress is getting much harder and slower than I would have preferred.
posted by tanch @ 9:56 AM
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