How to Manage People

Why can't you just memorize a book on "How to Manage People" and emerge a top-notch leader? Why is leadership such a daunting task? For starters, people come equipped with this pesky item commonly referred to as a "personality." Personalities are infuriating. Particularly when yours differs from mine. Once we get to know each other, yours can be intolerable even when it is quite similar to mine. Just to keep things jumping, I can hardly stand my own half the time. Much of the confusion and chaos lurking a millimeter beneath the surface of any well-functioning organization owes to the potentially cataclysmic clashes of personality. As a leader, there are endless variables that factor into how to manage most effectively, and these factors differ with every single person on your team. If that isn't an exhausting thought, I don't know what is. You cannot directly control other people, yet you are now mysteriously accountable for their output.

Smart managers

Managers who excel at working smart are enablers, not doers. They help others get work done by being facilitators, catalysts, coaches, influencers and developers of people. Smart managers position their coaching management style as being in the best interest of others rather than giving the impression that they are lazy. Being a smart manager means putting yourself into a position to resolve problems. You become the focal point of employees who have problems, questions or disputes. You want those employees who report to you to trust you, look to you for leadership, and for help when they need someone to turn to. If you simply "pass the buck" and don't take charge of those situations, you lose their respect and morale goes down. These also explains why there are far more not-smart managers than smart ones. This is because far too many managers are those who know how to impress their own bosses and achieve goals set for them, but lack any real experience managing people. So be careful as you move up and as you promote people or you can end up paying a hefty price.

Basic tasks of management

Perhaps the first thing you need to do is to figure out what you want your people to accomplish. A mission statement is a short document that tells your people, your customers (internal and external), and your suppliers what you are about. It makes it easier for everyone to pull together if everyone knows what the objective is. After you figure out where you are going and you write up your mission statement, you need to look at whether your organization supports that objective. If your organization does not support your objective, you need to change it so it does. When you have rearranged your organization so it does support your objective, you need to communicate that organization structure to everyone involved. This is done through an organization chart, an org chart for short. If anyone in your organization deals with the public, you should have a dress code for all employees. A dress code is a simple document that tells people in various functions what is appropriate work attire, and why.

Feel or Think

What works for one person may not for another. For example, a feeler will crave a lot of positive reinforcement while collaborating on a project. A thinker will want a clear schedule and guidelines. Feelers generally value an open-door style of management. Thinkers don't put much emphasis on that policy. If your routine as a Feeler manager is to "make the rounds" on your staff every morning, that could make the feelers feel cared for and the thinkers perceive you are "checking" on them. The same intention and behavior can have vastly different impact based on the recipient. It is important to discover a version of management you don't hate because it fits who you are. It is also important to learn how to adapt your style to customize how you manage and motivate your team for vastly improved results whether productivity (if you're a thinker) and morale (if you're a feeler).

Helping new stars

Stars need to shine. Managers are granted some amount of visibility into the larger organization (and often can work to obtain more), and it’s up to the manager to dole out some of that visibility down to their reports. While managers need to establish themselves, and manage peer and senior level politics, they also need to help establish the people on their team along with them. It’s a great thing for a manager to be seen helping new stars rise. People will say “who’s that smart woman over there?” And the answer will be “Oh, that’s Sally. She’s on John’s team”. When people see that somehow you’re able to cultivate and grow smart people, you win more acclaim than if you presented the ideas yourself. Great managers think if good ideas are in abundance, and the culture promotes and rewards their creation, there’s much less competition for credit for it.

Might not require creative thinking

Although it is fair to say that different kinds of organizations expect different things out of their managers and employees. Sometimes the work involved is more repetitive and cog like than not. The job might not require creative thinking, or expect people to make improvements to processes and approaches as part of their job. If that’s the case, then hopefully it’s been made clear to managers and employees before they are hired. Hierarchical models do make sense if the majority of work is in the domain of some kind of repetitive actions, rather than generating ideas, or dealing with new and complex situations. In the end, good managers know to use as little hierarchy and authority as needed for the group to be effective, regardless of the domain.

Not everyone is equally talented

Everyone is talented. Certainly not everyone is as talented as everyone else, but every individual has certain things they are good at, and certain things they suck at. Assuming you are a manager, your first task is to figure out what talents each of the people working for you have. This is not easy. It requires more than looking at their resume. Most of the important talents that people have live underneath the over processed job descriptions and functional roles most organizations have created for talented people to live in. Good managers must step back from the hierarchy, bureaucracy, and formalization, and actually see people not just for what they do, but for what they can do, that they currently are not. This includes things that they may never have had the chance to do, as well as talents that they may not have recognized themselves. A manager that treats his reports as cogs in a wheel is guaranteed to get the performance of a cog in a wheel. But a manager that develops and grows people into new strengths and abilities will always get more out of their team that their cog minded peers will of theirs.

Exemplary Grandmaster

The two aforementioned traits were found in great abundance in the late world champion Alexander Alekhine. A controversial figure off the board, Alekhine was an exemplary grandmaster: hard working and inquisitive, super competitive, and non-dogmatic (to say the least). In many of his games he was unsatisfied with conventional plans or principles, and searched for the original. His contributions to chess are far too numerous to list; suffice it to say that his games were a breeding ground for some of the world’s most exciting smorgasbord of unusual ideas, envious technique, hair-raising complications, and combinations. His self authored ‘My Best Games’ is a must-have treasure for everyone with appreciation for chess, as it has something for everyone, no matter one’s level or style. Lest we forget that en route for the world championship title, he overcame no less of an obstacle than Capablanca, whom you’d always find in the first row of the game’s all time greats. It’s no easy feat to beat such a player 6 times over the span of one match.

Intense Concentration Increases Alertness

Chess is an especially effective teaching tool.  It can equally challenge the minds of girls and boys, gifted and average, athletic and non-athletic, rich and poor.  It can teach children the importance of planning and the consequences of decisions.  It can further teach how to concentrate, how to win and lose gracefully, how to think logically and efficiently, and how to make tough and abstract decisions (Seymour and Norwood 1993).  At more advanced levels it can teach flexible planning since playing  well requires a coherent plan, yet not one that is rigidly followed regardless of the opponent’s response.  Chess can also build confidence and self-esteem without overinflating egos, as some losses are inevitable, even for world champions. Chess can potentially help teach underachieving gifted children how to study, perhaps even leaving them with a passion for learning.  Chess tournaments can, moreover, provide a natural setting for a gifted child to interact with other children of all ages, as many tournaments are not divided by age but by ability (unlike most school activities and many other sports).  It’s common to see a six-year-old playing a twelve-year-old, or a ten-year-old playing a seventeen-year-old.  Young players can also perform remarkably well in adult chess tournaments.  In 1999-2000 in Australia, for example, a thirteen-year-old won the New South Wales championship, a fourteen-year-old won the South Australian championship, a fifteen-year-old won the Queensland championship, and a thirteen-year-old tied for second in the Australian championship. Studying chess systematically has also been shown to raise students’ IQ scores, academic exam scores (Dullea 1982; Palm 1990; Ferguson 2000), as well as strengthen mathematical, language, and reading skills (Margulies 1991; Liptrap 1998; Ferguson 2000).  Tournament chess games, which involve clocks to limit the total time each player can use, are also a fun way to provide practice at making fast and accurate decisions under pressure, a skill that can help students cope with the similar pressures of school exams.  This is also a fun way to practise how to put the mind into high gear, where intense concentration increases alertness, efficiency of thought processes, and ultimately mental performance.

Solving Problems and Synthesising Information in a Globalising World

The internet, email, and computers are rapidly changing the skills essential to succeed at school and work.  As globalisation accelerates, information is pouring in faster and faster.  Information that took months to track down a few years ago can now spin off the internet in just minutes.  With such easy access and tremendous volumes, the ability to choose effectively among a wide variety of options is ever more vital. In this world students must increasingly be able to respond quickly, flexibly and critically.  They must be able to wade through and synthesise vast amounts of information, not just memorise chunks of it. They must learn to recognize what is relevant and what is irrelevant.  They also need to acquire the skills to be able to learn new technologies quickly as well as solve a continual stream of problems with these new technologies. This is where chess as a tool to develop our children’s minds appears to be especially powerful.  By its very nature chess presents an ever-changing set of problems.  Except for the very beginning of the game — where it’s possible to memorise the strongest lines — each move creates a new position.  For each of these a player tries to find the ‘best’ move by calculating ahead, evaluating these future possibilities using a set of theoretical principles.  Importantly, more than one ‘best’ move may exist, just as in the real world more than one best option may exist.  Players must learn to decide, even when the answer is ambiguous or difficult. These thinking skills are becoming ever more valuable for primary and secondary school students constantly confronted with new everyday problems.

Child’s Memory

To play chess well requires intense concentration.  Some of the world’s top players can undeniably look distracted, sometimes jumping up between moves to walk around.  A closer look, however, reveals that most of these players are actually in deep concentration, relying on strong visual recall to plan and calculate even when they are away from their game.  For young, inexperienced players, chess teaches the rewards of concentration as well as provides immediate penalties for lapses.  Few teaching tools provide such quick feedback.  One slip in concentration can lead to a simple blunder, perhaps even ending the game.  Only a focused, patient and persistent young chess player will maintain steady results – characteristics that are equally valuable for performing well at school, especially in school exams. Playing chess well involves a combination of aptitudes.  A 1973-74 study in Zaire by Dr Albert Frank (1974) found that good teenage chess players (16-18 years old) had strong spatial, numerical, administrative-directional, and paperwork abilities.  Dr Robert Ferguson (1995) notes that “This finding tends to show that ability in chess is not due to the presence in an individual of only one or two abilities but that a large number of aptitudes all work together in chess.”  Even more significantly Frank’s study found that learning chess, even as teenagers, strengthened both numerical and verbal aptitudes.  This occurred for the majority of students (not just the strong players) who took a chess course for two hours each week for one school year.  Other studies have added that playing chess can strengthen a child’s memory (Artise).

Powerful Educational Tools

Is chess an art? A science?  Some claim it’s both. Yet let’s be honest, it’s really just a game.  Fun, challenging, creative: but still a game, not much different from tennis, cricket, football, or golf. But there is one striking difference to these other popular games.  While learning to play almost any game can help build self-esteem and confidence, chess is one of the few that fully exercises our minds. Many of us could probably use this exercise, although it may be a bit late for some. It’s not, however, too late for our children. Chess is one of the most powerful educational tools available to strengthen a child’s mind.  It’s fairly easy to learn how to play.  Most six or seven year olds can follow the basic rules.  Some kids as young as four or five can play.  Like learning a language or music an early start can help a child become more proficient.  Whatever a child’s age, however, chess can enhance concentration, patience, and perseverance, as well as develop creativity, intuition, memory, and most importantly, the ability to analyse and deduce from a set of general principles, learning to make tough decisions and solve problems flexibly. This is undeniably a grand claim.

Learning never to give up

Great minds of history have appreciated the game of chess, among them, Goethe, Shakespeare, and Aristotle. In the words of Benjamin Franklin, "Chess teaches foresight, by having to plan ahead, vigilance, by having to keep watch over the whole chessboard, caution, by having to restrain ourselves from making hasty moves, and finally, we learn from chess the greatest maxim in life, that even when everything seems to be going badly for us we should not lose heart, but always hope for a change for the better, and steadfastly continue searching for the solutions to our problems. Some of the greatest games in history have been decided in the end game with only a single knight. Learning never to give up is a necessity in any problem-solving venture. If the true creative experience is to live an artful and successful life, then opening the mind to it's fullest extent would seem a necessary effort. Chess is an excellent opportunity to study yourself and how you relate the world. Are you cautious or fearless? Do you lead with your head or your heart? Can you move between both at will? Can you see the whole and where it's leading or are you stuck in the isolation of the moment? Can you forge through to the very end without ever giving up? These are the qualities a creative mind needs to cultivate. Take an interest in chess and you can exercise these qualities in a playful way.

Hidden Motivations of Geometric Way

The game of chess was consciously designed to represent the world of transformations on a restricted field of action. Each player utilizes the different forces of nature as well as the psychological motivations hidden within. Chess mirrors our relationship with the outer world, and allows us to reflect upon our inner self as we warp and weave our way to victory. Though the origins of chess are in dispute, it has been around in many guises for several thousand years. Some say it originated in India, some Persia, others in China, and the Chinese have their own version in use today. Regardless of its origins, to the enlightened mind it serves as a platform for creative transformation of the mind and spirit. The key to understanding the deeper significance of each piece is the geometric way it moves. Does the piece move in a straight line, diagonally along the hypotenuse of a triangle or both? A square move represents earthly action. A triangular move represents alignment with the divine within. The divine within is what inspires us to creative thought.Examining the chessboard, we see that it has 64 squares of alternating color. One interpretation indicates that the white squares represent the path of the intellect and the black represents the devotional path of the heart. The chess pieces represent the forces of nature, light and dark, good and evil, opposing forces which permit the manifestation of all things material. Each piece represents a different position, power and possibility in the game of life. How you use each piece and the kinds of risks and gambits you are willing to engage is a great reflection of your approach to life.

Chess is always teaching lessons

Games are like music, movies, and books. Most games enjoy a brief time in the world, and then quickly disappear for others to take their place. However, one game which has truly stood the test of time is chess. Few games have been around as long, and even fewer have been as popular. Chess teaches us how to become better gamers, whether you’re a hardcore fan of something or an elite bubbleshooter. It’s a relatively simple game, but one which carries a multitude of complications which force a player to work for the win. While there are many things which can be gleaned from this venerable game, here are four basic lessons which chess can teach us about becoming better gamers :

Chess teaches Patience
Chess teaches you how to be observant
Chess teaches finding a method to the madness
Chess teaches planning ahead

Studying chess tactics

Studying tactics is going to improve your chess game a whole lot faster than rote memorization of boatloads of opening variations. In fact, studying and practicing tactics will improve your chess a whole lot quicker than any other kind of chess study (although studying endgames runs a really close second). If you learn to recognize tactical opportunities as they present themselves, you're going to start racking up more wins. The next step, of course, is learning how to create those opportunites. But neither of these happy circumstances will occur if you don't even begin a program of tactical study. It doesn't even have to be anything elaborate or terrifically well-organized. Just solve five or so tactics problems every day. That's it. It's just like an "easy weight loss program" except that this actually works. Don't spend two hours every day solving dozens or scores of tactics problems - that just turns your brain to mud. Simply solve five (or ten, if you're feeling ambitious) tactics puzzles each day and, most important of all, take the time to understand the problems. Look at them and figure out why they work as they do.

Fearsome Counterexample

Chess has a third and unique characteristic that is particularly fatal. It is not just monomaniacal and abstract, but its arena is a playing field on which the other guy really is after you. The essence of the game is constant struggle against an adversary who, by whatever means of deception and disguise, is entirely, relentlessly, unfailingly dedicated to your destruction. It is only a board, but it is a field of dreams for paranoia. The game certainly has its pantheon of upstanding citizens. While ambassador to France, Benjamin Franklin preferred to eschew the Paris opera for chess, excellent choice. Napoleon played, although to judge by one of his games, a diagrammed and illustrated copy of which hangs in my office, he was a far better general. Nabokov was a fine player and renowned composer of chess problems. But then there is Fischer, the fearsome counterexample, sheltered in Iceland, the only place that appreciates his genius enough to take pity on his madness. So should you let your baby grow up to be a chess champion? Tough question. In his novel The Defense, Nabokov, who loved the game as much as you do, has the hero, the chess master Luzhin, go mad when he is struck by the realization of the "full horror and abysmal depths of chess."

Beating engines in the middlegame : A tip

For a chess computer the middle game begins as soon its opening database can no longer be used. In the middle game there are usually about 30 to 40 moves possible on each move. This is known as the branching factor and the larger this is then the larger the search needed. When the computer is searching for moves, it will therefore need to search about 1000 positions for one move from each player, 1000000 positions for two moves from each player, 1000000000 for three moves from each player and so on. The depth of the search that it can do depends on the speed of the computer and on the amount of time it has available to move. The search algorithm that most of the more modern chess computers use is called the Selective Iterative-Deepening Search. This searching algorithm searches all possible moves to a depth of one first, then all possible moves to a depth of two, then all possible moves to a depth of three and so on. If the computer calculates that there is a checkmate or a loss of its queen for example then it terminates that branch of the search. This means that the computer doesn't have to continue searching a large number of moves from that branch, so it can use its memory to search to a greater depth on other branches of the search tree. A tip is that if for example you sacrificed your queen knowing that in three moves time you could get checkmate using other pieces then that branch of the tree might get terminated by the computer before it realises that its just fell for a mate in 3 which it now can't avoid. Some computers might not fall for this however as the very best computers would have still continued searching that branch of the search.

Chess make you happy

Does playing chess make you happy?  Perhaps the answer might not be as obvious as it first appears.  When we win, then of course we are happy; but when we lose we are quite the opposite.  Chess can be bruising to the ego and for most of us there is always someone better than you who can give you a painful lesson. So is the joy of winning greater than the pain of losing?  Dan Heisman believes that the ability to tolerate losing "just right" is one of the three important attributes that it takes to become a good chessplayer. Tolerating losing "just right" means not caring so little about losing that you don’t care and keep making the same mistakes, but also not caring so much that you are paralyzed by losses.  The best is in-between: the ability to keep losing while simultaneously learning how not to repeat your mistakes. So do you think chess increases the net amount of joy in the world, or is every joyous winner balanced out by a miserable loser?

Chess cause and effect

Chess helps one separate "cause and effect" from extraneous information.  Even if you have a tendency to place your queen in the worst possible place in a game, when you see the result you have a tendency to be a little more careful in life, if not in chess!  That's how chess helps one live better even if one never really gets much better at chess.  Lose a game?  So what?  Lose your life?  A little more important.  Chess teaches that too.  And finally, chess teaches that you can still win a game after you've thrown your queen away in a stupid move. That may be chess most important contribution to all of us.

Chess Makes You Smarter

Did you know that a wooden chess set or an electronic chess set can actually make you smarter? Did you realize that participating in the "game of kings" could make you smarter, too? Playing chess makes people smarter, and observations as well as studies in academia, and life in general, prove this. It doesn't have to be played on a wooden chess set, either--it's just that a well-made wooden chess set lends a creative, artistic angle to the whole experience of playing this historically royal, aristocratic game. Whether chess is played on a traditional chess set or an electronic chess game it will make the consistent player of the game become smarter. Outlined by D. Calvin F. Deyermond, the Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction at the North Tonawanda City School District, "Chess develops cognitive, aesthetic, sporting, judgement, concentration, and persistency capabilities and not only is it mentally demanding, the game attracts not only intellectually-gifted students but also young people at all levels of learning. Many students who have experienced difficulties, especially in math and reading, will often demonstrate exceptional progress after learning chess." A wooden chess set or an electronic chess game, therefore, could be one of the best gifts you can give to your children. Sit down with them, play chess with them, and stimulate their minds. You, too, as an adult, can enhance your own cognitive powers and self-confidence with chess. This is why it's the game of kings.

Product Strategy

Industry competition requires your company to constantly present new and better products and services (positions, variations, puzzles, problems) to keep up with changes in consumer demand. Microsoft and Apple (Houdini and Rybka), both creators of computer operating systems, have been waging a tactical battle for consumer preferences ever since both companies came into existence. Microsoft's tactic was to be a software manufacturer and make its operating system available to computer manufacturers for use in their personal computer products, then sell the owners of PCs software to run on that operating system. Apple's tactic was to keep its operating system proprietary and manufacture its own brand of computers. Both companies have achieved their strategic goals of growing to become leaders in the Internet and computing industry but there are significant differences in their product strategies and tactics.

Pricing Strategy

Pricing strategy does not always mean employing low price (low rating) tactics to gain industry dominance, but that is the obvious route. Some companies maintain high prices (high rating) as a tactic, playing on our psychological tendencies to equate high quality with high prices. Other companies use low-price tactics presenting rebates, special sales and deep discounting. Other tactics that lower the price of purchase include inexpensive financing and delayed payment due dates from 30 days to as long as one year.

Marketing Strategy

Marketing strategy seeks to target specific consumers with messages that are most likely to draw their attention (excellent moves, novelty, unexpected plans). It involves seasonal advertising and special promotions as tactics to achieve market dominance. Other tactics that affect market position for a company are acquiring competing companies, becoming the exclusive distributor for popular brands and using pricing tactics to attract customers. Microsoft and Apple are, again, examples of marketing strategy and tactics. Microsoft dominated the market for word processing, spreadsheet, database and email software, making it the most useful to business needs. Apple dominated the graphic design market, which also gave Apple products an excellent reputation among the people who designed and produced graphic media, providing Apple products with an excellent word-of-mouth reputation. They also donated Apple computers and software to schools so children learned on Apple products and hopefully would buy them as adults.

Operational Strategy

The operational strategy of lowering costs (avoiding blunders) to produce greater profit includes lowering your operational costs by installing the latest computer equipment and enterprise resource planning software, hiring contract employees to avoid paying benefits, establishing several facilities close to your target customers, investing in improved plant and equipment, moving to less expensive quarters and altering the hours of operation to manufacture more or lower the costs of keeping the company open.

Financial Strategy

In running your business (or your games) you may develop a strategy that requires investment of money you don't have. This is when financial strategy comes into play. Tactics to achieve the strategy of enough money to finance growth may involve factoring or borrowing against your accounts receivable, obtaining payroll financing to be able to pay your employees during times when you have large outflows of money, finding investors or taking your company public.

Mirroring

Repeating the last words or main idea of other person's message is a very useful tactics of mirroring. This indicates interest and understanding. For example, a subject may say, "I'm sick and tired of being pushed around," to which a negotiator can respond, "Feel pushed, huh?" Mirroring can be especially helpful in the early stages of a crisis (or in the opening), as negotiators attempt to establish a nonconfrontational presence, gain initial intelligence and build rapport.

Effective Pauses or Important Waiting Moves

Any good interviewer knows the power of the long, awkward silence. People tend to speak to fill spaces in a conversation. Therefore, you should, on occasion, consciously create a space or void that will encourage the other person to speak and, in the process, provide additional information.

Making predictions

Making predictions is a tricky business, but it’s also a natural and necessary process. Reading the future is not a mystical exercise for soothsayers. We do it all the time. If you want to plan ahead in anything, you have to make some kind of judgement call about the future. Should you take an umbrella with you on your walk to the newsagents? Do you need to buy a pint of milk while you are there? The answers to those simple questions will be founded on current circumstances, previous experience, and educated guesswork. This is true on the macro level as well as the micro. As individuals, families, towns, nations, and as a species, living well in the present depends on us remembering the past and anticipating the future. The bigger the scale, the greater the consequences of getting it wrong. The biggest scale of all is predictions that affect the future of the planet. They carry the most serious consequences, and they’re the most complex and the most controversial. There’s no single body responsible for species-wide planning, but a patchwork of international institutions, government departments, think tanks, NGOs and research institutes. There are patterns of behaviour affecting our future, and being able to read them and respond is vital. Feeding the world, stewarding resources, protecting species, keeping the climate in balance, protecting human life and avoiding conflict – all of these depend on long range forecasting, identifying trends, and drawing up policy accordingly.

Prediction and Planning

Most players would argue that of all the soft skills which one requires in playing something, prediction and decision making are possibly the most important of them all. Prediction is the ability to foretell or predict what move your opponent is going to make and react accordingly to the situation. Being able to predict successfully often immediately puts a player into an advantageous situation and gives him crucial momentum. Planning is something all of us know about but we forget that it is extremely relevant in playing. Every good battler must plan and map out his battle like a chess game. Every plan should be followed up by a backup plan to ensure that your opponent can't really just foil your entire attempt to beat by packing a certain skill or adopting a specific battle style. Together, the twin concepts of prediction and planning make up general decision making which every battler should be versed in. While prediction is of universal use in almost any metagame, the art of prediction is especially relevant in longer time control where there is an abundance of candidate moves and strategic switches are made to gain the upper hand. All it takes is one smart switch at the right time to completely change the dynamic of a game.

Knowing what will happen next

If you go back over the years in terms of science fiction and fantasy you find many very brilliant simulations of futures that have occurred. The top method is simply to stay keenly attuned to trends in the laboratories and research centres around the world, taking note of even things that seem impractical or useless. You then ask yourself what if they found a way to do that thing ten thousand times as quickly/powerfully/well? What if someone weaponised it? Monopolised it? Or commercialised it, enabling millions of people to do this new thing, routinely? What would society look like, if everybody took this new thing for granted? Predictions, failed or successful, tell us as much about the time they were made as they do about the future. In the nuclear community in the years after World War II, they were pretty clear if we didn't eliminate nuclear weapons, if they didn't get it under control, there would inevitably be a nuclear war.

Predicting Any Moves (Bullet or 90m+30s)

If one is able to predict the next market move correctly 90% of the times, then it is exceedingly probable that the said person will stake much more of his capital than a person who is unsure of where the markets are headed. Let’s say you are on a road trip and you encounter a zigzag winding road. A person who is unfamiliar with the road will obviously slow down and be much more circumspect with his driving. Whereas, the one who has driven the same road a number of times will have a feeling of exaggerated confidence in his ability to traverse the road with a considerable amount of ease. So, the problem is that this person drives faster than he should and secondly he thinks that he knows where exactly the road will turn next. Both these actions of his will leave him in serious danger of harm because if he encounters one wrong turn, then he may not be able to negotiate it due to the speed and over confidence with which he is driving.

Effective models for prediction

Patterns exist throughout nature. We see them in seasons and tides as well as in animal and human behavior. Patterns are generally observed after the fact. To identify patterns in advance is the science and art of prediction. Predictions are probabilities or likelihoods, not absolutes. For instance, what is the likelihood that it will be sunny tomorrow? Or what is the chance (that is, probability) of rain? In order to predict patterns in nature, we create models. Models are representations of what we are studying or trying to predict. The better a model corresponds to the reality it represents, the more its predictive power. Effective models enable us to peer into the future.

World’s biggest casino

Modern business is beginning to awaken to the power of prediction. Take, for example, a major retailer. The task of the major retailer’s chief executives is to responsibly and consistently steer their organization toward sustainable growth and profitability—no easy task in today’s competitive landscape. Executives are often forced to guess what their customers want and hope that the market responds favorably to their offers. Millions of dollars are placed on these educated guesses every day in what might be called the world’s biggest casino: the commercial marketplace. Of course, executives at major brands don’t simply guess what their customers want. To make informed decisions, large brands conduct consumer and market research: surveys, focus groups, and so on. Some businesses, however, have too little information about their customers while other organizations have too much, leading to a sea of confusing statistics and averages. In any case, to make sense of the data, businesses need effective models.

Creative Thinking

Think about some of the leading companies that have changed and continue to change our everyday experience: Apple, Cisco, Yahoo, PayPal, Google, YouTube, LinkedIn, Jive etc. Connectivity and creative thinking were critical to their innovation, their delivery, the very fabric of what they are. But what of the new kids on the block? The emerging innovations from the creative technologists, designers and rule breakers of the startup world? We can explore the beautiful dynamic between connectivity and creativity and ask how technology and design entrepreneurs will continue to define our future experiences in this world with important information.

Seeing Patterns of Puzzles

Seeing a pattern in many puzzles helps chess players predict what's next. The ability to recognize and create patterns is essential in math, reading, and science. Working puzzles and playing games with repetitive rules and procedures provide a hands-on way for chess players to practice recognizing and remembering patterns. As they play, the solvers use what they know to anticipate what follows. Game rules and puzzle-solving strategies follow repetitive patterns. That repetition builds confidence, since training solvers know what to expect.

Problems are good for chess players

When you listen to how people use the word problem in conversation, you often hear a negative connotation.  Such statements as:  “We don’t want any problems here.  This could be a problem.  That’s your problem.” all seem to say that problems are something to be avoided at all costs. On the contrary, the successful solutions to problems move both the individual and the culture forward.  Inventions such as the wheel, light bulb and airplane flight all were solutions to problems, and each has contributed mightily to man’s advancement. So why do problems have such a bad reputation?  One answer is that relatively few people have ever been taught even rudimentary problem solving skills.  It is often stated that the by-product of such classes as science and math will give the student practice in “problem solving skills.”  Rarely are those skills spelled out.  Because problem solving is as much an art as it is a science, it has a hard time finding a home in either curriculum.

Problems of Puzzles

Puzzles are a special sort of problem.  Puzzles have a known solution, whereas most other problems do not.  Puzzles offer a complete problem solving experience from defining the goal, to determining the characteristics of the given, and finally the solution. By observing ourselves and others while we solve puzzles, we can learn about roadblocks to creative problem solving.  As we become aware of these roadblocks, we can practice going around them or avoiding them altogether.  Puzzling, it can be said, is practicing problem solving.  Here then, are a few problem solving roadblocks discovered while puzzling, that can be applied to problem solving in general. First, let’s look at what makes a puzzle a puzzle.  If a puzzle is immediately solved, then it could be said that the puzzle was not puzzling. It was a puzzle in name only.  If, however, one worked and worked at it, trying everything that one could think of and still had not discovered the solution, then it can be said that one is “puzzled.”  At this point, one is on the brink of forging onward or giving up.

Almost Impossible Puzzles

Many novice puzzlers give up.  They will say to themselves “I have tried everything I can think of, this puzzle is impossible.”  Impossible is an interesting concept.  It is a self-fulfilling prophesy.  If you think that something is impossible, that it can’t be done, how much time and energy will you apply to it?  Probably very little. What impossible really means in the puzzle context is that you simply haven’t figured out how to get to the solution yet. It does not mean that the puzzle cannot be solved; it means that you don’t know how to solve it.  With puzzles, we have an opportunity to conquer the impossible.  This is a great lesson that children can learn early in life by playing with puzzles.

Frustrating Puzzles

Another roadblock people experience when puzzled by a puzzle or stuck with some other sort of problem is frustration.  People who are frustrated can be seen pounding on a table top, swearing, stomping their feet, aggressively wadding up paper, throwing things or yelling.  Frustration is a mild form of anger.  As such, it invokes our primitive fight or flight mechanisms.  We no longer are capable of the higher forms of thought necessary for creative problem solving.  When we are frustrated, we need to stop being frustrated in order to proceed.  How do we stop being frustrated?  One way is to stop doing what we were doing when we became frustrated and do something completely different.  Take a walk, listen to some music, pull weeds in the garden, or take a shower. Anything that will change our perspective should work.

You Must Enjoy Solving Puzzles

Many puzzlers enjoy solving puzzles, because they often experience an Aha!  The Aha! experience happens when a person goes through a major shift in perception to achieve a solution to a problem (puzzle) that they couldn't find until they had this shift.  Often this sudden insight seems to come out of thin air.  It cannot be forced.  When someone experiences this sudden shift in perspective or insight, they may find themselves laughing out loud, throwing their arms in the air triumphantly, exclaiming “Yes!” or just feeling a little more alive.  Of course, there is also all the emotions that accompany accomplishment. The intensity of the Aha can be said to correlate directly to the amount of time and energy the puzzler has spent stumped by a particular puzzle.  The longer the time, the greater the energy applied, the greater the Aha! For most people, the Aha experience is a rarity.  By doing puzzles, one can experience what Archimedes and Einstein must have felt when they made their great breakthroughs.

Lateral Thinking Puzzles

Lateral thinking puzzles are great fun and a good way to stimulate a group of children or students and can help to boost your intellect but they are also used by innovators and inventors to create new ideas and products for companies. Lateral thinking puzzles, unlike most puzzles, are inexact. In a sense, they are a cross between puzzles and storytelling. In each puzzle, some clues to a scenario are given, but the clues don't tell the full story. Your job is to fill in the details and complete the story. Obviously, there is usually more than one answer to any given puzzle, but, in general, only one solution is truly satisfying. Solving lateral thinking puzzles is most fun as a group activity with people shouting out answers.

Tactics training

Tactics training is all about solving chess problems, and lots of them. Discussing various sources of these problems may take much time, but the important point is that tactics training revolves around one activity-doing chess problems. The key here is quantity. If you cannot solve a problem within a minute or two, look up the answer and move on. But, make sure to look at the problem again in a couple days; repetition helps. The point of solving these puzzles is to build pattern recognition. You're unlikely to see any of the positions you study in a tournament game, but once you've solved one to two hundred problems involving back-rank mate or clearance sacrifices, you'll quickly recognize those possibilities in your games.

Grandmaster's Evaluation

In any given position a GM will have ideas. He knows what has to be done. This is because of the vast experience and knowledge. First he will find the strengths and weakness in the position. This will include the pawn structure, piece position etc. Every opening will have its own game plan. So he will know what has to be done in that specific opening. He will know the important games in the opening he plays and also the problems the players faced in that game. Come chess trainers would again and again recommend you to study top GM games. Try to figure out the moves played by the GMs. Calculate and assess the positions yourself and compare it with the GM's analysis.

Planning and Calculation

First know the type of game you are playing. A tactical and open position or a safe and closed position. Figure out the ideal plan. It may be initiating an attack or exchanging a vital piece and others. It differs across different openings and different positions. The best way is to study top players' games extensively. The more and more games you study the more ideas you get, and when you come across similiar positions in tournament games you already know what you have to do. Every opening has different game plans and if you know them it will be much easier to play. So when you study openings, figure out the ideas that are to be executed in the middle game as well. Calculating ability can be developed by solving tactical problems. Analyze your tournament games without computers initially and note down the ideas. Calculate long variations and then check them with computers.

Middlegame tips

It is important to develop both positional and tactical skills of middlegames. Figure out your natural style first and select your openings accordingly. If you like to play more complex positions where you can create tactical combinations then just concentrate on that but don't ignore the other side of dangerous but simple one. Trainers would recommend you to solve as many problems as possible which will help you in improving your tactical skills. Study games of legends like Mikhail Tal, Fischer, Kasparov, Topalov, Karpov, Carlsen, Ivanchuk, Spassky, Petrosian, Radjabov, Anand and others. The more games you study and recognize the patterns, the sooner you will find yourself solving tactics effortlessly. With experience you will be able to find the tactics hidden in the position.

Improving by Online Rapid Chess

Playing rapid chess on the internet is certainly good. You can use your knowledge in those games. If you want to practice an opening you prepared or just to keep in shape then playing longer time controls will be much more useful as in rapid games you will find yourself in time trouble very soon. Here you will have more time to calculate and play your middle game and endgame. Correspondence chess can be really helpful, the only important point to remember here is “don’t move the pieces when you are analyzing.” You have all the time in the world to calculate and play, so calculate without moving the pieces. It will help you improve your calculation.

Secrets of a Successful Defence

Every now and then, we ordinary players, face positions in which we need to defend and only defend effectively. In that kind of positions, no counter attack or active play would get us out of trouble and that’s why it’s so important to know the principles of successful defense in chess. You must learn and discover the secrets of successful defense and by secrets its means all of these defensive techniques that may sound ineffective and counter-intuitive to the average player. Then you will understand and can explain why backwards moves may sometimes be useful and how you can find the most precise moves to defend your inferior positions of some strong tournaments successfully. For this, you have to select very instructive examples and make it your skill and recall it when facing similar positions in your chess online tournment career and others. You should study many games of the great positional player, Karpov, who managed to defend his many positions and exploit his opponents' desires to attack when all their attacking chances were suddenly eliminated.

The Ultimate Strategy : Improving the Pieces

Maybe the most important ingredient of a successful middlegame strategy is to know when and how to improve the position of your pieces, making them both active and effective participants in your major plan on the board. Oftentimes, this step requires the recognition of the worst placed piece and the creativity to come up with the most efficient way to improve its inferior position relative to its opposite-colored counterpart. Look at some grandmasters' games. They sometimes demonstrate their creativity and precision when it comes to the middlegame, crushing their opponent in positions where even Rybka, Houdini, Stockfish, Fritz and other types of high-level chess players would feel helpless.

Developing own chess website

When one has limited resources (one-man operation), you need to cooperate with others. For example, create partnerships with other websites and agree on allowing each other to re-publish materials. E.g. you may contact a few GMs (or amateurs, as long as they are good bloggers) and ask them if they would allow you to re-post their blog posts. If they agree, you will have a few “columnists” at your website, thus benefitting both the readers and the authors.

Hate endgame or hate middlegame

If you are good at endgames and see a way of simplifying into an ending with a clear advantage, you may want to do that. Of maybe you are short on time and want to avoid blundering this way. On the contrary, if you don’t like endgames that much and have enough time, you may want to try to take your chances in the middlegame. However, one shouldn’t go against the nature of the position: if an endgame is called for, you should go for it. Anyway, one should aim at becoming a well-rounded universal player, and that requires playing endgames well.

Chess sponsorship offers

Chess is not a mainstream sport, it is not broadcasted on TV. The general public keeps thinking Garry Kasparov is the world champion and doesn’t know much about what’s going on. Therefore, a typical chess player doesn’t get many sponsorship offers or business proposals.

Men or Women in Chess Games

Chess is considered a men’s game: chess-playing girls are often discriminated against at clubs, neglected by trainers, and discouraged by parents. Other notable factors are lower earnings of girls and different priorities. 15 and 16 is too early, but if we talk about age 20+, many women become mothers and leave competitive chess.

Becoming a chess Master

Playing a lot in events that are slightly above his strength is one of the training method a chess player should use for becoming a master. Analyzing one’s games carefully is also important. Find a good coach. Most important is to love chess itself, i.e. enjoy playing, not only cherish your rating, titles and achievements.

Chess Improvement Secret Revealed

Love for chess and loyalty to the game for years is one of the secrets to your chess improvement. Of course, there are some special methods of preparation, but it’s not like you can find out a secret and become a grandmaster in a year. Chess is one of the most competitive activities in the world, and one needs at least 10 years of hard work in order to start thinking about becoming a pro.

Chess time study

The stronger the player, the more study is required. For beginners and club players the ratio should be about 80% play, 20% study. For CM-FM level it’s about 50%-50%, while top GMs may have to spend 80% of their time preparing and 20% – playing. Please keep it in mind and don’t try to imitate the training routine of elite players.

How to Become a Chess Grandmaster

When you can be called a chess grandmaster, you have reached the pinnacle of the competitive chess world. The road to this is paved with thousands of games won and lost, years of study and a true passion for the game of chess. In order to become a grandmaster, you must follow certain protocols that have been set in place by the Federation International des Esches (or FIDE), which is the governing body that awards the honor. To become a grandmaster, one thing you should do is to study the works of previous grandmasters. There are a wealth of books and other materials that offer play-by-play coverage of the best games of champions. Their techniques can be incorporated into your game and help you become a better chess player. Then you should play often of games of long time control such as 90m+30s or other FIDE time control. Not only will you fail to improve if you do not, but you will not acquire the required ratings if you do not participate in FIDE tournaments. You should also learn and follow the rules and regulations of the game and of the FIDE organization so that your efforts are rewarded. There are specific guidelines for various tournaments, as well as information that can assist you on your journey to become a grandmaster that can be found on the FIDE website.

Surprising Opening

If your opponent's choice of opening is not the one you expected, then a lot depends on the flexibility of your opening repertoire. If you have a very narrow repertoire (i.e. only one line against everything) then generally it's best to just stick to what you know. It's true your opponent might have something specific lined up against this, but you can rely upon your greater general understanding of the positions - something that will increase in importance once any preparation from your opponent runs out. If you do have a wider repertoire it might be a good practical choice to use this. This could negate all or most of your opponent's preparation, and still lead to positions in which you generally have more
experience.

Too young grandmasters

A lot of players become Chess Grandmasters at a very young age such as Magnus Carlsen, Judith Polgar and many more. GM Anand Viswanathan even said “Nowadays, when you're not a grandmaster at 14, you can forget about it.” The question is is there any special training pattern and program that these kids use that enable them become grandmasters in a few years. What is the training process and how is it done? It is known that they have chess trainers, but what is the training process like, the curriculum and what one needs to know to become a very strong chess player, grandmaster stregnth? Not sure if there are common denominators to training programs but as far as the environment is conerned, you would commonly see a combination of exceptional natural talent coupled with a disciplined yet nurturing environment of "eat-sleep-breath" chess.

Different Chess

Chess can be different things to different people. Some search for perfection and truth in each position. Some get addicted to competition and strive to win. Some enjoy the mental exercise involved. Some like to play a friend occasionally. Some like to follow the exploits of the grandmasters of the game. Some like to delve into the theory of the game. Whatever our take on chess, it is a game that has fascinated people for nearly 1,500 years and continues to fascinate people world wide today.

Marketing is Like Chess

If you think that developing the moving pieces of a strategic marketing plan is something only big, fancy corporations need to do, think again.  You need one, too. It’ll help you better understand your business, your customers and your strategy for success. Most people fall into the trap of thinking that “marketing” just means advertising, PR or promotion.  But marketing and a marketing plan is so much more than that, and includes everything from understanding the market to which you’ll sell your products and services, to choosing specific tactics you’ll use to reach that market (which is actually where things like advertising come into play – they’re tactics).

Marketing strategy – your specific business revenue goals, as well as a strategy for tackling the market opportunities you identified in the situation analysis

Marketing tactics – your action plan for executing on the strategy you outlined in the previous section

Marketing budget and timeline – the projected costs and timeline related to your marketing tactics

Online chess

The internet has been a great boon for the world of chess. Now, players can find opponents from around the world anytime they like, and there’s always a game to be played. Not only are the many sites where you can play online chess a lot of fun, but they can also be good for your chess; you can drill new openings in blitz games, learn to better analyze positions by playing correspondence chess, or play in long time-control leagues to help you prepare for tournaments. Online chess isn’t just for club players either: on the Internet Chess Club and other chess servers, you’ll regularly find some of the world’s best players battling it out in blitz and bullet games.

Enjoying chess

Chess players enjoy chess. Some of them have played throughot their life but never really risen to the "serious" level; they are more just a crappy novice who can hold his own against other very casual players. It would be really cool to be super good at chess, and play other brainiacs in big intense games. They are trying to get better though, gotta set up those fork moves. What about you? Do you like chess?

Invisible Defender

It is a piece that defends another piece indirectly. Or another way to look at it is you can move your piece to a square that looks unprotected, however if your opponent decides to capture it you will either win material or checkmate. Thus the piece looks undefended but in reality there is an invisible defender. When attempting this tactic you must be sure to have a solid threat or plan. Putting a piece on a square because you hope your opponent will take it is not a good idea. You will be just setting yourself up for a bad fall. Invisible defenders enable your pieces to navigate onto seemingly undefended squares, carrying your attack into enemy territory and they can be utilized to drag your opponent's pieces onto "bad" squares or away from key squares.

Chess lesson : brilliant but unncessary

Grandmasters make a living finding clever moves when it looks like they are about even, but in fact they have some genius idea that shows that they really are winning. So if you are rated 2300+ and want to win with a flashy combintation to show everyone how good you are, we trust you can do it without much risk. But if you are already way ahead, then you have to be very careful that if you play something tricky, the one who will be tricked is not you! If you are not that good, you are taking a big risk by making "brilliant" but unncessary moves that raise the chances that you can miscalculate and throw it all way. When you have more to gain, that's when you want to be more careful, so the more ahead you are, the more careful you should be. Note that this is not to say the opposite, that when you are way ahead you should play very defensively and passively - that's not usually good either. But the "normal" middle ground should be sufficient.

Engine Analysis

Good chess analysis goes broad before it goes deep, considering carefully at each stage the possible alternatives and the objective demands of the position. Never take the "We are too deep!" advice for granted. When one decides to follow a certain path, one should keep in mind what the alternative, unexplored paths looked like based on one's preliminary judgments. One should generally abandon, provisionally, exploration of a path as soon as it looks worse than an earlier, as-yet-unexplored alternative. If one has the self-discipline, it is best to proceed only a limited distance down any given analytical path, form a preliminary judgment or simply suspend one's judgment, then go back and follow another path a similarly short distance. When one has surveyed many paths in this limited way, it may be time to go deeper along some or all of them, but by a similar process of halting and retracing. One will thus avoid a great deal of wasted time that comes from too much consideration of excessively deep positions. A benefit of working in this way is that parallel themes and motifs will be seen in different variations, and these will inform each other.

Chess Engines : Strong Trainers

The use of chess engines to help analyze sharp variations is one of many ways computers have made a big impact on chess. Some trainers believe that virtually every strong player who is doing independent openings research is using a chess engine to help sort out tactical issues. The principal service that a chess engine provides is that it sees tactical possibilities extremely quickly. A strong player, studying a position, will sooner or later see the same tactical shots the computer sees, but the time he takes to recognize the possibilities impedes the progress of his or her analysis. Since chess analysis almost invariably requires consideration of many lines and sub-lines, the time taken to see tactics can be a significant impediment to productivity. Thus, much more can be done using computers than can be done without them. And the results will be free of rank blunders, which the analysis even of strong players not always is. The increase in productivity conferred by using a computer, if the trainers reasoning is correct, diminishes as one's tactical abilities increase. IMs and even GMs benefit from using chess engines to help with their researches.

Avoiding blunders

Sometimes a horrible blunder can ruin not just a game or a tournament, but a whole chess career. Remember that a false sense of security usually leads to blunders. You should not think that premature relaxation happens only when you have a winning position.  Sometimes when your game looks like a "dead draw" you start thinking that the game is already over while it is still in progress. As long as the game is still in progress, it doesn't matter if the position is 'completely winning' or a 'dead draw'.  Once you start waiting for your opponent to resign in his lost position or offer a draw in a drawn position, you are almost doomed to commit some stupid blunder. The funny saying "it ain't over till it's over" should be the first thing on your mind whenever you get a winning position.

Obtaining material advantages

One of the most crucial skills you need for success in chess improvement is the ability to win once you have obtained a large material advantage. What good is knowledge of forks, pins, and skewers if you cannot win once you are up a queen? So, this is what made some trainers decide to create outstanding lessons on winning with a large material advantage. The first lesson may be showing how to win a basic ending with an extra queen; the second  with an extra rook; and the third with an extra minor piece. Remember : never take very simple to the most difficult puzzles for granted.

Cheap complications

Suppose you are ahead a knight and can create complications where it is certain someone will lose a knight, but it is 50-50 whether it will be you or your opponent. Then winning a knight to put you ahead two knights just goes from winning easily to winning more easily, while if your opponent wins the knight he goes from losing badly to even, so he has a lot more to gain. Even if it's not 50-50, if you're winning, you still have a lot more to lose then he does.

Understanding Another Zugzwang

To win a game, if the players are allowed to skip as many moves as they want, would require a huge difference in the level of the players. Basically it means that if Anand and Carlsen play each other, probably nobody is ever going to win. It is  suspected that it would even be tough for either of them to beat a 2300 under such rules. It has been thought a little artificial that so many positions are decided by just this – that a player is forced to move, even if he doesn’t want to, per the rules. In a real battle, you can stand still. You can wait for your enemy to come, or refuse to relinquish your position. In chess, there are positions where a player loses because his king has to step back and forth, Kg8-h8-g8-h8, etc; when he would rather just sit there. So does this make something in our game a little artificial?

Chess player has to make a move

In life, many problems could be solved if one could stand still at some point. You pause yourself when you are young and things are going well, the wrinkles haven’t started to appear. You often hear people talk about better times in their lives. So the question arises - why didn't they just keep things that way? But that would not be life, that would be death. In chess it would be a draw death. The chess player has to make a move, just as there are forces making the world keep changing and forcing people to act, whether for good or bad. Physical aging, as well as the constant need for food and water and other needs, prevent one from reaching an ideal “position” and then standing still.

Chess loving

The first thing to do if you love chess is play chess. Get a set and find a friend who plays or teach a friend to play. Teach your daughter to play. Teach your son. Join a club. Play online. Play the computer. Play by yourself while reading a chess book. Play via the mail. The second thing that some coaches recommend you do if you love chess is to write about it. Write about games you play, and friends you made. Write about thoughts you had when you saw another game. Write about the way you felt when you won a game you should have lost (or drew a game you should have won). Write about a book you read, or a video you loved. And then when you are done writing about it, publish it. Share it with the world. Get it out there and get feedback. And let the world know, you love this game

How the top players think

You should read chess books of strong grandmasters or outstanding trainers all the time so you can understand how the top players think when they are playing serious games. Sometimes you have to pick them up and feel that you can't put them down. It is truly amazing to see how creative the top chess minds can be, and how they can find the one solution to multiple problems. You can train yourself by reading the books that are written from a personal perspective and will give you a glimpse into a GM's (Grandmaster's) way of thinking. Some trainers highly recommend the books that Yasser Seirawan wrote where he explored many excellent chess games (both his own and the games of others), in extreme depth, so that you can get a glimpse into the mind of the GM.

Some favorite chess site

www.chessworld.net
ChessFriends.com
chess.emrald.net
www.chess.com
RedHotPawn.com
ChessBomb.com
www.uschess.org
www.chessclub.com

Loses a pawn or Sacrifice it

If chess is a vast jungle – deep, relatively unexplored and slow to yield its myriad secrets – computers are the chainsaws in a giant environmentally insensitive logging company. If our beloved game is not to be reduced to a glorified noughts and crosses – an arid computational desert – then, like a beautiful and intelligent woman, it must retain an element of mystery. Perhaps the most romantic of all openings is the King's Gambit (1. e4 e5 2. f4!). White sacrifices a fairly unimportant wing pawn to open lines and accelerate his development. This was not necessarily to say that it was many grandamsters' preferred method of starting the game, but at least they could understand the rationale behind it. In contrast, the King's Gambit, however, was for some other strong grandmasters totally incomprehensible: it loses a pawn and weakens the kingside, for all they could see.

Chess960 Opening

Opening "theory" took hundreds of years to accrue for the traditional setup. But with today's legions of sophisticated grandmasters, all equipped with chess engines that crush the World Chess Champion, we could observe the growth of virgin opening theory in relative real time. It would be facinating. Until we have substantial opening theory accrued for a second start setup, we cannot reliably judge our assumptions that are currently based on only the one traditional body of opening theory. For instance, Reuben Fine said it is unwise to move develop your queen too early. But we are confident that such advice is bad in some chess960 start setups.

Thinking of chess improvement

What's the best way to improve at chess?  We've all asked ourselves that question a thousand times.  If it were any other subject besides chess, we'd probably already know the answer : follow the path to wisdom in that field that has been blazed by others.  For some reason though, the vast majority of us approach studying and improving in chess in the most haphazard and inefficient manner possible, trying everything except the tried and true methods that more experienced players advise, and the methods that are applied in almost every other field of knowledge. With chess, most of us skip around.  For example, we start studying a particular part of the game and then jump to something else.  Or we read the first three chapters of a book, and then start a different book.  We also study material that's far too advanced for us at that time.  For example, we spend months studying an advanced opening monograph when we haven't mastered basic opening theory.  Or we read My System when we haven't studied basic positional play first.  Or we read The Art of the Attack when we haven't studied basic tactics first.

Reduce Your Over-the-Board Errors.

Probably the single biggest reason that amateur players (and perhaps even some Masters!?) lose games is that they make careless mistakes.  If you can learn to play in a careful and systematic manner, you’ll already be head-and-shoulders above most amateur players.

Practice important and significant tactics

As the saying goes, "Chess is 99% tactics."  Practicing tactics is probably the single best way to improve your practical results.  Try to spend at least a little time everyday solving tactical exercises, even if you only have time for a few.  Ideally, spend about a half an hour or so per day.  The way many trainers see it, tactical skill involves at least two things: pattern recognition and calculation skill.  You can develop your ability to recognize tactical patterns by regularly reviewing the same small set of tactical examples; to that end, some USA trainers recommend that you re-read Seirawan’s Winning Chess Tactics on a regular basis.  You can develop your skill at calculating by regularly tackling a wider variety of new and diverse exercises; to that end, it is recommended that you get one or more collections of tactics and combinations.

Years of Improvement

People find it very hard to improve from year to year. Chess is such a vast game, and people sometimes hit limits on their grade beyond which they cannot seem to improve. The evolving advice presented in this paragraph is centred around possible methods of improvement. You may not reach the playing standards of a Karpov or Kasparov, but it is hope that you can improve your game to be the best player in your performance. Study masters' games and never take it for granted.

Unhappy game

Even if you lose the game, analyse it with the opponent afterwards. This is psychologically hard to do because you may feel upset. However, if you want to improve in the long run, you must try to use this opportunity to gain deeper insight into chess. Even if you feel that your opponent is a complete hacker with no positional understanding, you may extend your grip on practical techniques relevant to the winning process.

Another unhappy result

If you lose in a certain way, try to recognise this, and other game instances where you have lost in that particular way. Draw conclusions from your wins and losses. They maybe the wrong conclusions, but at least you are making attempts to draw conclusions which can be tested in further practice. Improvement is only possible through the process of learning and abstraction. Each game should be treated as an example, and not just treated on its own. Ideally you should be trying to improve your game fundamentally with each game, not just gaining insight into another opening variation. You may for example have misplayed against the opponents isolated queens pawn. Look over the game, and see methods which could be better. Try and apply these methods to future games.

Opening Variations

People can spend many hours learning opening variations. However if you are a more resourceful player than your opponent, it does not matter if they get a better position out of the opening than you. You may be able to outplay them from the resulting position,    tactically and positionally. If their opening knowledge is strongly linked with middle game plans and tactical motifs, then you should be a little more worried! However in general, if one is better tactically and positionally than the opponent, then one is more likely to win in practice, than by knowing more opening variations than the opponent. Opening variations become more important as one increases in strength.

Lessons of a Position

In this position, it is Black to play. Should he continue with ...Nf5? Maybe White response after that strange developing move is g4 to gain a tempo but this seems only temporary because the move is only weakening the White kingside pawn structure and making the king more vunerable to tactical blows and brutal attacks. If White chooses another response such as e4 then maybe Black gets a very strong outpost at the d4 square. Try engine analysis and wait and see the better or best reply.

Lessons of a Position

In this position, it is White to play. How he should continue? How should it be evaluated?  The pawn-structure is symmetrical, with the isolated queenside pawns of both colours constituting a key factor.  Who is usually able to profit from such mutual weaknesses?  In the most general sense, the answer is simple and natural: the presence of weaknesses on both sides can be more effectively exploited by the side that is more active.  This very formula points to the connection between static and dynamic elements of the position, and tells us clearly that these elements should always be considered as a whole.  A practical conclusion follows.  White’s advantage consists of two elements: the insecure placing of the black knight (a temporary factor, under the heading of dynamics) and the potential superiority of bishop over knight in certain endgame situations (this is to some extent a long-term factor; it falls to some extent within statics).  In order not to forfeit this advantage, White must act vigorously.  A simple developing move like Rad1 would not be energetic enough here because after ...Qa5! the game would level out.

Lessons of a Position

In this position, it is White to play. If you were playing as White in this game and when you reached this position, would you feel really uncomfortable and had no idea of what to do? Are you concerned by Black's b4 pawn and by the fact that Black can easily defend any threat against c5 and e7? Can you help White to assess the position and find a plan for both sides? In the position a player played a5, not knowing what to do and decided to deprive Black's knight of b6. The plan was then to build pressure on c5 and e7. Maybe placing the queen rook on one of the half open files. Are you considering also the probably too slow manoeuvre Be3-f2-h4, when Black can just take the Knight on d5 and push e7-e6 (but perhaps the bishops pair would be better for white in this open position).

Lessons of a Position

In this position, it is Black to play. The e5 square seems locked down by White, which is important for black. The d5 pawn via en passant currently makes the e5 push not viable, yet this is a fundamental way for Black to equalize. Without a knight on c5 the e5 pawn push isn’t viable. White obviously plans to exchange off Black’s dark squared bishop with the queen and bishop battery. If Black plays an eventual …e5 then they’d have to be careful for tactics along the long light diagonal because the d5 pawn no longer obstructs the bishop. Black’s g7 bishop is quite valuable and active compared to White’s a1 rook, but rooks are objectively more powerful and maybe recognized later in the game.

Lessons of a Position

In this position, it is White to play. He has come this far and is not sure what to do further in the game. He has been doing some maneuvering here but it seemed quite disoriented. What is a good plan that will help White win? Black is really weak on the dark squares as his central pawns are fixed on the light squares and he has no dark-square bishop. White would first improve the placement of his strongest piece by playing 1. Qf4 with an eye towards penetrating along the dark squares -- e5 and d6 are both really nice squares for the queen. If Black defends passively, then White would also play Kd2, e3 to free his bishop as well.

Lessons of a Position

In this position, it is Black to play. The position happened in a very recent blitz game of some players. The play wasn't the finest, but eventually they reached a position like this. Black would probably favor White only because Black's pawns aren't far advanced enough and the piece (in this case the three pawns versus Bishop) usually is better for White, but Black is not sure about it. Meaning to say that White's king position could become compromised if he isn't careful.

Lessons of a Position

In this position, it is White to play. The position shows an example of Philidor's position. The important characteristics of the position are (from the point of view of the defender) :

1) The defending king (White in this diagram) is on the queening square of the pawn (or adjacent to it). The pawn can be on any file.

2) The opposing pawn has not yet reached the defender's third rank (its sixth rank).

3) The opposing king is beyond the defender's third rank.

4) The defender's rook is on the third rank, keeping the opposing king off that rank.

Black would like to get his king to the e3-square and threaten checkmate to force the White king away from the queening square of the pawn, e1. The White rook on the third rank prevents that. If Black checks with the rook from the side, White simply keeps the king in front of the pawn by alternating between squares e1 and e2. If Black offers an exchange of rooks White should take it, since the resulting king and pawn endgame is drawn (see King and pawn versus king endgame examples). Here is a possible continuation : 1. ...Rb2 2. Rc3 Ra2 3. Rb3 e3.

Chess Legend : Capablanca

Capablanca is widely regarded as one of the all-time great chess players, and possibly the greatest natural chess genius in history. His games were the greatest influence on modern great world champions Bobby Fischer and Anatoly Karpov. Mikhail Botvinnik (three times world champ) also related how much he learned from Capablanca, and even pointed out that Alekhine received much schooling from him in positional play, before the struggle for the world title made them bitter foes.

Weakness in the opponent's position

Failing an opportunity for direct attack, one must attempt to increase whatever weakness there may be in the opponent's position; or, if there is none, one or more must be created. It is always an advantage to threaten something, but such threats must be carried into effect only if something is to be gained immediately. For, holding the threat in hand, forces the opponent to provide against its execution and to keep material in readiness to meet it. Thus he may more easily overlook, or be unable to parry, a thrust at another point. But once the threat is carried into effect, it exists no longer, and your opponent can devote his attention to his own schemes.

Keep harassing the enemy

Sometimes you have to force him to use his big pieces to defend pawns. If he has a weak point, try to make it weaker, or create another weakness somewhere else and his position will collapse sooner or later. If he has a weakness, and he can get rid of it, make sure that you create another weakness somewhere else.

Another improvement tips

You can improve your chess skills by watching a daily short free chess video podcast, presented by well-known teaching grandmasters. Each of them will cover some chess positions, either from the opening, the middle game or the endgame. You will be given a chance to think about the positions, after which the grandmasters will run you through the solution, explaining all the right moves. Watching this podcast regularly, you will improve your chess skills, guaranteed.

Bishop, Knight and Rook

Living with and being the play toy of three men is more rewarding than some grandmasters could have imagined. Bishop, Knight and Rook each have their own way of loving on grandmasters. In Bishop they find a work-out partner, friendship, and good solid lovemaking. They are not sure what to make of Knight, but they cam be  brilliant artists and there are worse things than being Knight’s subject for their latest series of trainings.

Basic middlegame concepts

Presenting basic concepts of middle game play systematically and logically is very valuable skill. Every significant idea can be illustrated by excerpts from master play, including games by Alekhine, Capablanca, Lasker, Reshevsky, Botvinnik, Marshall, Pillsbury, and other prominent players. Many illustrations are must.

Strategical and tactical vision

It is right that people may consider a chess plan, a plan choise during the unfolding of a chess game, as an evident part of chess strategy and tactics. In fact many agree that it is impossible to realize a correct and efficient chess plan without both a clear strategical and tactical vision. But, on the other hand, many chess players used more or less correctly the impressive theoretical arsenal, today at their disposal, without, in thesame time, being able to conceptualize elaborate an accurat plan. This usual deficiency is the main reason for which some trainers focus  all attention on this crucial feature of the modern chess theory view point.

Middlegame training #10021

Black to play

Middlegame training #10020

Black to play

Middlegame training #10019

Black to play

Middlegame training #10018

Black to play

Middlegame training #10017

Black to play

Middlegame training #10016

Black to play

Middlegame training #10015

Black to play

Starting middlegame

The middlegame starts when development is done and the trading process has begun (at least that’s how many players see it).  Assuming both players have an equal footing during the opening moves, the middle gameplay is all about trading pieces to gain positional advantage.  The middlegame can be short and be done with one trading sequence, or drag out the entire game. This part of the game may be the hardest to see the next best move since the board is covered with pieces and in order to plan ahead, you would have to take into account each piece.  Moving a certain piece may open opportunities for other pieces to move so it may be more likely for people to make mistakes because they have a hard time keeping track of every piece.

A billionaire use chess concepts

Chess is a contained universe: there are only 32 pieces on the board and 64 squares those pieces can occupy. But starting up a company takes much more than raw intellectual ability; it requires what the billionaire calls “The Mechanics of Mafia,” or the understanding of complex human dynamics. Linking the two worlds is the billionaire’s passion. Here are some of the chess concepts he highlighted :

Know the relative value of your pieces
Know how your pieces work best together
Know the phases of the game and have a plan
Talent matters; there is more to success than luck
Chess is a brutal mental game : make your moves carefully.

Tips

Some chess tips for the improving player give practical advice for club players who want to take the next step towards chess mastery. Some trainers look at life from an unusual angle. Their approach is sometimes far more creative than merely offering the usual tips such as “develop your pieces” and “control the centre”. Instead of repeating clichés seen before in countless books, the outstanding trainers should scrutinize a huge number of chess positions, asking themselves, ‘What can be learned from them?’. The student can benefit something from these.

Chess trainers can train with many positions

Many trainers' selection of illustrative material is highly informative, particularly in their methodical illustration of different types of middlegame tactics and endgame categories (though how often the trainers' illustrative positions are likely to come up in over-the-board play remains an open question).   We should appreciate their use of multiple move-by-move diagrams to illustrate especially pertinent or seminal positions, such as B-and-N checkmates, some basic K-and-P endgames, and particularly fascinating middlegame positions, such as those involving Queen sacrifices.  Considering the vast quantity of possible examples they could have chosen, many chess trainers have done fair justice to middlegames and endgames at the introductory to highest level.

Some chess questions about improvement

Why do so many chess players only draw winning positions, or lose drawing ones? Why do many continually slip into time trouble, despite vowing after every game to move more quickly? How can a player perform like a grandmaster on one day and a complete novice the next? What's the best way to beat a lower rated player and what gives you the best chance against a higher rated one? Maybe they need more training and great amount of knowledge about the three important phases : opening, middlegame and endgame!

Chess Legend : Boris Spassky

Boris Spassky is a true chess legend, a World Champion who, thanks to his monumental battles with Bobby Fischer, raised the popularity of the game to a level that had never been seen before. Although at the height of his powers many saw Spassky as a complete and universal player, adept at outplaying his opponents in any type of position, it is no secret that from an early age he thrived on sharp, attacking play. He was a superb practical player, and with the initiative at his hands he could conjure up wonderful combinations and deadly attacks.

Consolidation moves

Some players tend to lose a good amount of games in which they have obtained a clear advantage. What usually happens is that they sometimes low on time and miss more or less immediate threats posed by their opponent. To avoid such frustrating losses, some trainers suggested that the studying players make general consolidation moves avoiding blunders before pressing the advantage with dangerous attacking moves.

Unhappy middlegame

The opening coils the spring, putting the pieces in positions to release their energies. In the middle game come the explosions. It is this inevitable clash of forces, the attack and counter attack, the constantly changing dynamics, that make chess the unique, fascinating and instructive game that it is. And this is where, in the lessons of the battlefield, we find so much of its imitation by life. It is rare to be exactly where you want to be after the opening phase has ended, and it’s almost impossible for both players to be happy.

Middlegame opponent

Your opponent is always countering, interfering with your plans, and vice versa. This means fresh evaluations of middlegame or other stage of the game are always required. You must constantly process new reports from the front. Even if you have been in this exact position in another game, it is critical to evaluate it a new, especially since your opponent is also aware you’ve been here before and may have prepared something nasty. The thing that worked last time may not work this time, precisely because it worked last time. Survey the landscape, examine the imbalances and formulate a strategy for the middlegame that you encounter or other opening and endgame generally.

Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats

Analysis in middlegame situation is similar to what those in the corporate world call SWOT reports, which stand for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats. The difference in chess is that your opponent’s every move, decision and action are right there before you, all the time. Still, you must simultaneously analyse both positions (his and yours) before you can formulate and execute your strategy. You must also be aware of any immediate need for action. Do you need to put deeper strategic concerns on hold and respond to immediate danger? Can you create a threat that will force your opponent on the defensive and out of his game plan? If there aren’t any immediate tactical considerations, you can continue developing your strategy and pushing toward your intermediate objectives : the process you began in the opening.

Middlegame alertness of younger players

General advice on how to deal with the middle game should provide a valuable guide particularly to younger players who are prone to launch premature, poorly-planned and uncoordinated attacks that are, almost invariably, doomed to failure. Still, more than anything else, the middlegame rewards action over reaction. This is supposed to be the attacking phase of the game in which the fight for the initiative is paramount. The middlegame requires alertness in general and alertness to patterns in particular. These are general rules that anyone can learn with practice; the more you play, the better you become at recognising the patterns and applying the solutions. PLAY MORE LEARN MORE.

Repeating middlegame

Finding similarities to positions you have seen before and then to recall what worked (or what didn’t work) in that situation is another important skill. But even in this process of linkage there is still potential for great creativity, if you are able to relate known patterns to new positions to find the unique solution; the best move. For example from the business world : A company enters the middle game as soon as a product is launched into the market. Preparation is over and now it’s time to manoeuvre with advertising and price points. How is this product similar to previous ones? How is it different? What has worked before and how can this campaign improve on past efforts?

Decisions of middlegame phases

Every decision in middlegame phase is largely based on our ability to find parallels. The touch of genius comes in extending them beyond what others believed possible. The opening only serves to establish the outlines of the middle game, so it can be useful, even essential, to push your study of the opening phase into the ‘real world’ of middle game action. This is why it is so important to study complete chess games, not just look at the opening moves. This is why business schools have largely switched to the case study method instead of focusing on theory. All the study and preparation in the world can’t show you what it’s going to be like in the wild. Observing typical plans in action, mistakes and accidents included, is vastly superior to ivory-tower planning.

Middlegame triangulation

Triangulation is a tactic used in chess to put one's opponent in zugzwang. That is, it gets to the same position with the other player to move, when it is a disadvantage for that player to move, he has to give up a blockade and let the other player penetrate his position. Triangulation is also called losing a tempo or losing a move. Triangulation occurs most commonly in endgames with only kings and pawns when one king can maneuver on three adjacent squares in the shape of a triangle and maintain the basic position while the opposing king only has two such squares. Thus, if one king triangulates by using three moves to return to the original square and the opposing king cannot do the same, he has lost a crucial tempo and reached the same position with the other player to move. Triangulation can occur in other endgames and even in some middlegames.

Improving your middlegame

For a chess player who want to improve his middlegame, of course, the most important are games that contain many interesting middlegame positions, so, most of the material you have to study are high quality ANNOTATED GAMES by grandmasters or supergrandmasters. The games that will be studied are selected according to several criteria: The first and most important criteria is the quality of games so study a large number of games played by the greatest players (Kasparov, Karpov, Anand, Kramnik, Carlsen, Topalov and others) from around the world.