Little do you realize this is a point in my favor. Howard is 15 years older than I am so I'm way ahead in the brain cell department. Also your earlier post reminded me of Rocky 4 when Ivan Drago says stoically to Apollo before their fight, "you will lose." I was scared.

As far as the nature of the match it will just be one rapidish game with a coinflip deciding the colors. The bet isn't who will be the best player after one year, it's just who will win that game. It's gambling, we're gamblers. Plus that way the loser can still claim they would have won if the format were a week long Kasparov vs Karpov struggle.

What do you guys think are the benefits of hiring a live coach? At present I only plan to use an online site to send games for criticism, and of course I'll look at chess engine analysis. I've simply researched my own lesson plan and will gather the appropriate books and software as needed.

Unfortunately the existence of this thread means I'm probably doomed anyway. If HL finds it his ego might come in to play and he'll actually prepare. Maybe I should have thought of that before telling anybody.

The children question was just a seperate thing. IMO coaches are not needed. Just download a strong engine and use a little bit of your brain to figure why it thinks like that. But remember you do not have to understand everything. Prob better to just concentrate to those moves that make your position more than 1 pawn worse compared to the best option.

Hey Allen,

I personally think you have a great shot at this. I agree with the other posters in that you'd have a really good shot if you work on your tactics and spend a good portion of those 6 hours solving problems.

Tactics and calculating ability.

Howard will obviously be rusty in that department and it would, most likely, be the deciding factor.

As for the openings, in order to take advantage of your (by then) better tactical acumen, you'd want to reach positions that are highly tactical.
Messy or complicated positions would be to your benefit, basically taking him out of his comfort zone.

A poster in the Dan Harrington thread said Howard plays boring systems and not main line stuff, so I'm not really sure how to prepare for those. Perhaps that poster remembers what lines Howard plays. Anyway try to complicate the position, maybe gambit a pawn or something.

A+ post and I agree.

Since it is only going to be one game vs HL, this is all excellent advice. His superior strategic/positional knowledge has more of a chance to show itself in a 7 game match.

Why in the world wouldn't you hire a coach?

imo, there's no really legitimate reason for a 1400ish to get a coach. If the coach is honest he'll just tell you to go study tactical problems on your own. The analog would be like trying to hire a poker coach before you even understand which hands beat which.

A coach can still select material for you, point you to master games and openings that might be helpful, etc.

If nothing else, a coach will make you spend your learning time more efficiently. If money was no concern, i'd always hire one.

Comparing a 1400 chess player to a poker player whoe does not understand which hand wins wich is a bit of a stretch. My first published rating was something like 1580 and I was tring to play the poisoned pawn variation of the Najdorf w black all the time.

OF COURSE a coach can do wonders. It does not need to be these long sitdowns ´Searching for Bobby Fischer´Josh Waitzkin-Bruce Pandolfini style. Just some periodical checkup over the internet, checking what and how you are doing, looking over some games, playing a few games to gauge progress.

And one more thoing: ONLY practising tactics for one year is a much too onesided approach. You do need to study SOME openings, if only to get a feel for the ensuing middlegame positions, you do need to get some middle game training to learn how to set up an attack where you unleash your arsenal of cheapo´s (chess lingo for effective, often overlooked but effective and unsuspected tactical shots) and you must have some idea of how to win a technical ending with for example a good knight vs a bad bishop or a rook ending a pawn up.

But hell, here everyone preaches his own religion, just pick your own. After you´ve absorbed the knowledge and advice of the forum, you might bribe a mod to eliminate the thread. But I thought one of the conditions of the bet was that HL was not allowed to do any chess work for a whole year. If he starts working now lets say not six hours per day, but twelve hours per week, you´ve moved yourself into a pretty difficult bet to win, or may just have gotten hussled haha. And for much $$ is the bet? Essential info we need of course.

Well no, obviously a 1400 has much more more knowledge of chess than somebody who doesn't know a straight beats a flush knows about poker, but that wasn't the point of the analogy. It was that before you go into anything advanced in any game, the 'advanced basics' must be mastered. In poker this is pretty simple stuff: the ranking of hands, basic preflop knowledge, etc. In chess the 'advanced basics' are much more difficult. The first step is never hanging a piece, but the step after that is then making sure you never fall for a '2 move' tactic, and not only never fall for them but also instantly see them yourselves. Even if you just stop there, which would be silly, that's something no 1400 is even close to capable of doing.

And learning openings is 100% pointless, especially in this context where it will be only one game. I would be willing to lay money on Lederer's first move being something along the lines of 1. b3 or 1. Nc3 or 1. .. b6 or 1. .. a6, etc. He's a decent player with a large practical experience edge and knows the first place a player who wants to challenge him is going to blow a huge chunk of his time - in the openings. There's zero chance Lederer plays anything remotely resembling main line. He's going to keep the position closed, quiet and maneuvering based.

A coach would be beneficial to Guide you in your studies and to analyze together with occasionally. Even once every two weeks would be fine.

Stress is on tactics like I said above, but obviously go over decent amount of openings, strategic themes, and endgames. Goes without saying for the most part.

Strategy and tactics go hand in hand. Tactics are born from strategic strengths in a position.

Endgames are tied into middlegames which are tied into openings (some games even go directly from opening to endgame). Try to understand the big picture of a chess game.

Example: Your opponent takes on a structural weakness (double pawns let's say) early on for the bishop pair and attacking chances. You defend and trade off pieces into an endgame where you can zone in on those weaknesses, win material, and thus the game.

This is a cliché that is just repeated over and over again, but it´s a fallacy. Of course you have to study opening theory. Not the latest hot line in the Sveshnikov or the Bajonet attack in the Kings Indian, but you do need to know some developing schemes, the basics of a couple of openings, above all because they teach you a lot about the middlegame too. Different middlegame plans flow from different opening (pawn) formations, it is THIS element you have to learn and understand.

Read the first chapter of the classic "The Soviet Chess Conveyor", where it is exactly stated that (albeit on a much hihgher level) a very high concrete and exact knowledge of the openings one plays, leads to a much better understanding of the middlegame. And before you slamdunk this one down, no of course I am not thinking the exact same rule apllies to someone trying to improve from 1400 to say 1800, just that saying that ´don´t study openings´ is an abused cliché, as if openings are not an integral part of (learning) chess. And i´m not going to enter into another eleven post-long debate over who is right and lets not hijack the thread. If you wanna continue debating this point I suggest we open another thread or limit ourselves to PM´s.

This I don't understand. Why wouldn't he be happy to play some lines he knows thoroughly and have almost zero chance the new player knows much about?

It seems like Kasparov also liked your idea against Deep Blue, but I didn't like it then and it didn't work.

D.

You know, in the match Kasparov lost the one game he won was in an offbeat opening where deep blue seemingly got confused. One of the games he lost was in a main line theoretic spanish. The other was in a mainline caro kann where kasparov somehow blundered away the game straight out of the opening.

As for this match, if you think a guy who's seriously rusty and was probably not much stronger than 2000 at his peak is going to stand a chance in a theoretic battle against a guy who has a year to prep for the match.. well... I'll just agree to disagree and would again happily wager a sidebet on this. Actually we're not even wagering on that, we're wagering on whether or not Lederer agrees with me on this (as his play will show) which is pretty much a parlay but I still feel extremely confident in it.

The importance of a coach is to maximize your learning in a finite amount of time (1 year). A good coach will help you with the ideas and important concepts in chess, also allowing you to recognize patterns faster. Without a coach, you can reach that same level, sure, just might take longer.

This really depends on how important winning the bet is. If important, a good coach is a must. Time is of the essence. Find a good player that lives near you and communicates well and play a classic game once a week and analyze that game thoroughly. That alone will give you an idea of what you need to work on and then a coach can guide you with materials and feedback.

If I lived near you I'd help you out. There are also some good training programs that are very structured and touch base on almost everything needed to be a complete player. You'll have to do some web searching for those, not easy to find.

Also, very important, I personally feel internet blitz games would hinder your development early on in a major way. Near the end of the year, could be helpful.

In Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379296/

Kasparov talks about how he played that caro kann sacrifice line on purpose in game 6, to "prove" that the computer had human assistance/override.

He said that he knew the evaluations of White's responses for the knight sacrifice beforehand. In the game the computer chose the 2nd or 3rd evaluation strength move (going forward with the Knight sacrifice), when Deep Blue is supposed to *always* pick the strongest evaluation move. This was proof enough to Kasparov that there was serious tampering with Deep Blue during the match.


However wikipedia claims this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Bl...,_1997,_Game_6

lol @ this thread. I'll bet my entire roll on Lederer

I'll go ahead and offer my current study plan for digestion. I start every day with two hours of tactics puzzles for breakfast. Right now I'm using Back to Basics: Tactics and Chess Tactics for Champions, both of which I've gone through once and will do a couple more times before moving on to a more advanced set. Usually I find time to sit down for another 2-3 hours and do more.

Midday I play at least one G/30-45 online game and dozen correspondence game moves and analyze my games for missed tactics (any move rated as -1 pawn or more by the computer). I also spend about 20min seeing where my opponent or I diverged in the opening and try to figure out why the book move is better.

For dinner, I spend spend at least an hour going through themed instructional material that features high level games. My current line up for that is Winning Chess Strategies -> The Art of Planning in Chess -> Reassess Your Chess -> Understanding Chess Move by Move. I'm going through each a couple times before moving on and am currently on my second reading of WCS.

Miscellaneously, I plan to play the weekly tournament at a local club every week and a large tournament once a month. I own Silman's endgame book and occasionally review it up to chapter C but probably won't start seriously with the endgame or openings for several months. I think I should get my general chess ability up there first. Programs such as ct-art have been recommended to me as more efficient but I just enjoy using books and I'm on the computer so much anyways so to hell with it. The bet is now 2 week old and I've started up seriously in chess for about 4 months. I'd say I've improved in that time such than I'd never lose to myself of four months ago.

Seems like your on the right track.

Are you planning on going to the Philadelphia Open?
The competition there should be good.
I was going to play in the Western Class but decided to go to Philly instead.

Why are you doing this?

...

Seriously bro, get a good coach. A coach will teach you how to study smarter and give you a solid opening repertoire. Howard Stern went from 1100 on ICC to 1800 standard rating in about a year under the guidance of a coach. I spent thousands of hours trying to learn on my own when I was younger and it wasn't till I got older and got a coach for a bit that I realized how completely inefficient my studying methods were. Best of luck.

Anybody have any Lederer games in their database?

I think it is time for me to step up and offer my coaching services.





if you can keep this up for an extended period of time, Lederer stands no chance. Good luck!

I just enjoy it and it makes it more fun to be working toward a specific goal. I still have time to play poker, golf, bike ride, go to the movies and fancy dinners. The day has lots of hours.

I certainly won't maintain that regimen after one year.

I think with the dedication you apparently have for this project, I´m sure you stand a good chance. Your study programm looks solid, but I repeat the advice me and others have already given: get some periodical feedback from a coach, he´ll be much better able than you to judge which areas you have to work on the most at any given time. And forget about quitting chess after a year, you´ll be hooked for life. I´m sure there is a market for sidebets on this forum....how much is your bet for? Also there are some forum tournies you could join, 2+2 Chess Championship II is about to finish (and I`m winning it haha, although Curtains (IM) and Dire are probably the strongest players.)

See that's what I don't get. He will never be better than the top 50,000 players and even the top 100 thirteen year olds. The world champion is a computer. And unlike sports or actually climbing a mountain, the pursuit of the subject won't give him much side benefits. It would the average person, but Allen is already smarter than almost all expert chess players and doesn't gain much from learning the peculiarities of chess thinking that he doesn't already know.