My first reaction when I learned about the book Improve Your Chess at any Age was one of sheer jealousy: some club player writing a book about chess improvement?! How unfair! There must be thousands of club players around the world who’d want the exact same thing – including me.

This is the last part of a ‘triptych’ on recent chess improvement books – you can find the other two reviews here. I’ve written before that in my view there are really too much ‘improve your chess’ books on the market; fortunately, some of them are very good and you may be surprised to hear that I like Andres Hortillosa’s Improve Your Chess at any Age as well.

Actually, the book is every patzer’s childhood dream: an entire book (170 pages, beautifully published by Everyman Chess) dedicated to your own games, where you get to write about your thoughts on chess in general and during the games; your favourite style and your ideas on chess development theory! Too good to be true, right? Well, as we say in Dutch, chess publishers may be good, but they’re not crazy, and Hortillosa has a little more up his sleeve than just patzer analyses and ditto philosophies.

Yes, it’s true: Andres D. Hortillosa is a ‘mere’ 2199 FIDE player who just wrote a book on how he improved over the years at a, shall we say, riper age than most of us start to play chess. And yes, most of the games and game fragments are from Hortillosa’s own games. But why is that necessarily a bad thing? On the very first pages of the book, the author presents himself as a modest guy with good intentions, wisely anticipating some of his future critics but not bending over backwards to please them. He also says some pretty sensible, if not terribly spectacular, things about chess improvement targeting an audience of players with a rating below 2000. My first impression after reading the introduction was that perhaps this somewhat oddly-titled (and marketed) book deserved the benefit of the doubt.

This feeling was confirmed by some of the stuff in Chapter One, where Hortillosa paves the way for his theories on chess improvement and shows some of his past games. Again, note that his commentary, though not exactly grandmasterly, is certainly sensible, down-to-earth, and will definitely evoke a pang of recognition with most club players:

Hortillosa-Hartsook
Denver 1994
1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 e6 3.Bg5 h6 4.Bxf6 Qxf6 5.e4 Nc6 6.c3 g5
To my mind this move is a little committal, although a number of strong players have used this advance. Karpov played …g6 in one of his games, although that was without …Nc6.

Amateurs including myself tend to make inflexible moves. We tend to forget that pawns do not move backwards. And once they are fixed on a square, they are subject to attack and they tend to leave you with limited options.

This may not be a huge shocker to advanced chess players, but anyone who’s ever trained weaker players knows what it feels like to constantly have to remind your pupils to ‘keep your hands off these pawns already!’ It’s a very good point and one that shows Hortillosa may actually have something to offer club players that truly strong players often don’t: to speak to them in their own languages and with examples from their own level of play. I myself have often been frustrated by how strong players often take stuff like this ‘for granted’. Hortillosa, you can be sure, never does. Here’s another example from the same game after Black has played 13…e5 (and before White played 14.d5):

Amateurs, when confronted with situations like this one, tend to resolve tensions rather hastily. I guess amateur thinking dislikes complexity so there is a strong tendency to simplify at the first opportunity. So, it is either capture on e5 or advance to d5. I can opt to maintain the pawn on d4 with Ndb3, but it will invite Black to harass the knight on b3 with …a6-a5-a4. (…) In general, however, one must learn to play comfortably with contact-tension on the board. Keep the tension as long as tolerable. See if you can force your opponent to waste a tempo in resolving the tension. For example, avoid capturing defenceless pawns right away. Often, a developing or centralizing move is the better choice.

Again, I was impressed by how well Hortillosa points to something weak players often struggle with. I could quote countless examples from my own games where I incorrectly resolved the tension in the game (as well as, fortunately, examples where I successfully put the pressure on by increasing pawn tension!). This is good, useful stuff.

In Chapter Two, Hortillosa elaborates on his ideas on chess improvement and thinking, the sum of which he calls, with a clear undertone of self-mocking (thank God!), ‘The System’. His approach here is more theoretical, but fortunately, he never becomes too vague (or too pretentious) for comfort. Again, what Hortillosa writes won’t sound too novel to people who’ve already read their Rowson, Watson and other chess philosophers, but one of the charms of Improve Your Chess at any Age is that there’s a real sense of personal involvement of the author in much of what he claims:

After this reflection, I concluded that my chess was totally devoid of any semblance of a thinking process. (…) I am passionately drawn to fixing things including those that work to make them even better. It was not hard to see my chess requiring more than just cosmetic repair; it needed total replacement. Disgusted with the status quo, I formulated a chess thinking process inspired by the combined philosophies of Cleanroom Software Engineering and Six-Sigma, which are known for their strong emphasis on error prevention.

To be honest, I didn’t always find Hortillosa’s opinions on thinking processes too convincing. For instance, one of the things he claims is that chess tactics puzzles often miss their mark because they focus on the finding of the solution instead of creating a practical game-situation where a (tactical) resolution can be created (’Anyone can solve a puzzle, but can anyone play the moves leading to the puzzle?’). I think this is only partly true: sure, it’s important to know the ‘context’ of a tactic, but solving puzzles does sharpen the mind and it definitely creates a reservoir of ‘chess tactics knowledge’ in the brain which may be extremely useful in later games, as many chess prodigies have clearly demonstrated.

In a chapter called ‘Are Openings Really Important?’, Hortillosa makes some valid points on studying opening theory (’stronger players are better in confusing us with sidelines than we are at confusing them’) and he gives a couple of great (and often quite hilarious) examples of why having your opponent fall for an opening trap doesn’t always guarantee victory. The main part, however, is explained in ‘The System’, the author’s answer to the question ‘how we prevent these errors from cropping up?’ Hortillosa gives a checklist of eight points you should always be aware of during play. These include things like ‘2. Search for specific threats’ and ‘5. Search for candidate moves’ – good advice, to be sure, but surely Hortillosa doesn’t expect players to answer these eight questions at every move?

Indeed he doesn’t, and here again is the book’s charm: the author shows modesty and self-knowledge by condeding that, of course, ‘the system has some implicit assumptions. One such assumption is knowing when to invoke the system.’ He follows up naming the exceptions, and especially the moments in a game when it does make sense to invoke ‘the system’. (He also gets kudos for questioning ‘the viability of the system’ altogether, ’since evidence is severely lacking’.) The points he makes are useful all the same, and I liked the two examples that illustrate them – but disappointingly, the rest of the book hardly mentions the eight points again explicity and instead focuses on thorough and at times engaging analysis Hortillosa’s tournament games from 2008 and 2009.

The result of this is perhaps the book’s only real problem: it’s overlong; I’d say it’s at least 50 pages too long. Like all chess enthusiasts, Hortillosa just loves to talk about his own games and to describe the thoughts that went through his head during them – and he knows he’s pretty good at it – but it’s just too much. Sometimes the explanation of ten perfectly normal opening moves is spread out over two and a half pages, and we get comments like this:

MacIntyyre-Hortillosa
Pawtucket 2008
Position after 7…Nf6

I normally do not continue with …Nf6, especially when … e6 has been played. Looking at this game one week later, I could not remember what I was afraid of that led me to post the knight on f6 instead of following generally established wisdom, which dictates playing it to e7. I was probably mixing systems here, a known defect in amateur play. When … e6 is played, Black normally should follow through with … Nge7. These two moves are a natural pair.

You’d think this was already more than enough explanation for a very common opening manoeuvre in a game that will last 60 moves in total, but Hortillosa has only just started:

Most strong players including the late world champion Botvinnik would prefer …Ne7 even with the pawn on e5. The advantage of posting it on e7 is that the natural break f7-f5 is ready to go whereas in the position where the knight is on f6, Black has to waste a tempo before he can play …f5. (…) One data point on the board that rules out …Nf6 in favour of …Ne7 is White’s h2-h3…

And this isn’t even the end of it. I’m not saying Hortillosa doesn’t make some valuable observations along the way, but such lenghty commentary does appear a bit self-serving to me. More importantly, the games in this section, while entertaining, don’t very well explain how Hortillosa’s ’system’ got him the results he achieved. My impression is Hortillosa simply had a lot of time on his hand, studied a lot of chess, received professional training (from IMs and GMs) and made very deep analysis of his games. And lo and behold, he made considerable progress. No ’system’ needed at all!

With that in mind, the rest of Hortillosa’s book does ultimately become ‘just’ any amateur’s dream: a great way to show a lot of, at best, fairly interesting tournament games. They’re all very well analysed, they do contain a lot of useful prose, interesting digressions good advice, but in the end they’re still games played by a 2100 player with an interesting message. It’s an interesting experiment in the sense that this (modest) game level may actually be helpful to players of that level (if only because their mistakes are so recognizable). Personally, though, I prefer playing over games by the big guys, but there you go.

That said, Improve Your Chess at any Age may well offer a glimpse at the future of chess publishing 2.0: everyone has a chess engine these days, so why not publish a book with your own chess games? Andres Hortillosa, at least, has written a very sympathetic version of this new concept, and I think lots of club players will enjoy his writings and recognize (and improve upon) many well-known issues in it.
In the end, Hortillosa’s book should not make us jealous, but inspire us to analyse our own games even better and to formulate our thoughts and mental blockades more transparantly. Hortilossa has given us a pretty good example of how it can be done – at any age.

Links

• Get yourself a copy of Improve Your Chess at any Age
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No matter how much criticism Vladimir Nabokov’s posthumously published The Orginal of Laura recently received, I instantly bought the book – and liked it all the same. Some writers are just always worth reading. In contemporary chess literature, apart from the big stars such as Kasparov and Shirov, authors that are always worth buying and reading include Jonathan Rowson, John Watson and, as I discovered only a year ago, Lars Bo Hansen - I positively reviewed his book How Chess Games are Won and Lost last year. Now, Hansen has written an even more ambitious book.

My first impression of Improve your Chess, subtitled by Learning from the Champions (published by Gambit), was rather mixed. (By the way, I think it’s always a good sign if your first impression is mixed: it forces you to think harder about the book. The same happened to me in Nabokov’s case.) The chapter titles of Hansen’s latest work suggested to me a textbook concept that’s not exactly original: ‘The Romantic Era’, ‘The Scientific Era’, The Hypermodern Era’, etc. This is a way of looking at chess history that’s been tried numerous times. Even the final chapters of the book, on ‘universality’ and ‘creative concreteness’, suggested essays on chess development in the style of Watson’s modern classics Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy (1998) and Chess Strategy in Action (2003). Even some of Watson’s and Hansen’s basic viewpoints on modern chess development seemed rather similiar. In 2003, Watson wrote on the evolution of chess thought:

Probably the most important distinction that I should make is between (a) the belief that valid rules exist and (b) the idea that there are specific generalities that are losing relevance in today’s game because players don’t think in terms of them. (…) Of course, I am only describing an evolution of thought, not saying that older generations played largely by rules or that modern ones have abandoned them outright. (…) This and other evidence indicates to me that players are much more tolerant of ideas that used to be rejected ‘on principle’.  Such openness has been increasing throughout the last century; but recently it has accelerated, in part due to the availability of computer analysis.

I remember being fascinated by Watson’s ideas at the time, enabling a view into an entirely different chess universe, and I had no doubt he was right with regards to top grandmaster games - but at the same time I felt completely disconnected with his theories in my own games and the games of the people I saw around me, which seemed to be decided not so much because of this ‘openness’ of ideas but because of a lack of knowledge of these very ’principles’ that modern chess players, according to Watson, tended to reject! In other words, I found it difficult to apply Watson’s ideas in my own practice. Browsing through Lars Bo Hansen’s new book, it seemed to me I could expect roughly the same stuff, reading first about the old dogmas and then about the new ‘concreteness’ and ‘the era of transformation’. But I was in for a surprise.

In what almost seems like a direct answer to Watson, Hansen starts his introduction by saying that:

Some experts claim that nowadays the rules and principles formulated by former giants like Steinitz, Nimzowitsch or Capablanca are no longer useful – chess has evolved into a concrete, contextual game where each position must be evaluated in its own right. Even the best player of all time, Garry Kasparov, has hinted in this direction. In How Life Imitates Chess, he writes ‘the stringest ideological dogmas are behind us and so are many of the antiquated doctrines of the chessboard. Trends still come and go, but now the only real rule is the absence of rules.’

However, I don’t believe this is true. I agree that the old rules and principles are hidden and difficult to dissect when looking at complex grandmaster games (…). However, ‘hidden’ is not the same as ‘absent’. The old rules and principles are still present, but under the radar – they are implicit. Rather than being the lever that distinguishes strong players from less strong ones, they are now everyone’s property. Tarrasch, Alekhine and Capablanca could win games – even against strong opposition – mainly through a better grasp of the emerging strategic principles. That is rarely possible today, as all strong players (must) know and understand the principles. That’s why chess has become so concrete and complex – it’s the only way to play for a win at grandmaster level. It does not mean that the rules an principles have decreased in importance – on the contrary.

As we shall see, in most contemporary grandmaster games, the old rules and principles still form the basis from which the concrete action flows. Few top games are completely ‘random’. Knowing these principles may not lead to a ‘competitive advantage’ over the opponent, but it is necessary to maintain ‘competitive parity’. And you cannot hope to learn how to break the rules if you don’t know them. I like to say that you cannot win games only by following Steinitz’s or Nimzowitsch’s principles, but you will certainly lose games if you don’t know these principles!

This promises a completely different book that Watson’s. Most importantly, Hansen’s point of view is more practical and less philosophically-inclined. To be fair to Watson, his intention isn’t (I assume) to make his readers better practical players so comparing the two authors is like comparing apples and pears. But Hansen also suggests to me that he thinks Watson and Kasparov are wrong in principle: the advance in complexity and the increase of rule-independency isn’t so much a theoretical development as it is a practical ‘trick’ by strong players to get a competitive edge over their opponents. In general, I agree Watson’s look on chess is a bit too theoretical: he seems to think chess develops by philosphical ideas, almost in the Platonic sense of the word, whereas Hansen seems to regard chess development more like a ’survival of the fittest’ kind of principle: whatever works comes out on top.  

Okay, I do not want to delve too deeply into this matter, and I’m sure all sorts of objections can be raised against the above characterizations. All this philosophizing is very interesting, but the good thing about Hansen’s book is that it contains a lot of great chess – from historical games, from modern super grandmasters, and from Hansen’s own practice. This last element again confirms the author’s down-to-earth approach: he constantly links theory to practice in a very insightful way. After explaining Nimzowitsch concept of ‘overprotection’ in the chapter ‘The Hypermodern Era’ at some length, here’s how he illustrates it:

L.B. Hansen-Hellers
Hinnerup 1995

Now White faces a tough choice. Black is close to destroy the white centre, and initially I was pessimistic about my position. However, then I came up with an idea based on overprotection. Since Black has succesfully managed to undermine the chain’s base pawn – exactly as Nimzowitsch prescribes – White’s attention shifts to e5, which must be overprotected. Therefore I played…

15.Rde1!

If White can hold on to the e5-pawn for a few moves, he has time to build up play on the kingside. In the game this plan works wonderfully.

Hansen’s way of writing is not only down-to-earth, it’s also very personal and honest. After showing the great game Topalov-Kramnik, Wijk aan Zee 2008 (remember 12.Nxf7!!), he makes the following confesstion:

A brilliant game. That is how top chess is played these days: detailed computer-aided home preparation followed by forceful creative play over the board. Looking back at my career, I cannot help wondering whether my natural reluctance towards the nitty-gritty work of finding novelties in the midst of complicated opening variations was one of the reasons why I never managed to break the 2600 Elo barrier (2586 being my highest). I guess we shall never know, as I have always preferred the conceptual over the detailed, and thus have never been inclined to drive opening theory forward. That I leave to others. In that respect I am more of a follower than a researcher, to use the distinction made decades ago by Botvinnik. Only once in my career did I (intentionally) prepare a novelty with analysis running to move 30.

Elsewhere, he writes of his own changing preferences, suggesting that in the end, despite all the philosophical and scientific progress, chess is often also a game of simple taste:

At this point in my career I was very fond of the Hedgehog structure – pawns on a6, b6, d6 and e6. Its flexibility and dynamic counterattacking prospecs – …b5 and …d5 – appealed to me. In recent years, however, I have come to appreciate White’s superior space more, and so I have tended to prefer the white side of such positions. This is an interesting scenario: that over time a player may alter his understanding and evaluation of certain type of positions. It has nothing to do with specific variations in the Hedgehog: rather the change is grounded in general considerations regarding space vs dynamism. I have noticed a similar development in my perception of positions with an isolated d-pawn but here the trend is opposite. (…) I guess that as your experience grows, your perception of chess changes.

Hansen has a remarkable ability to make connections and switches between past and present, practical and theoretical,  personal and objective without ever losing the thread of his story. And he manages to make surprising choices in achieving his goals: the chapter on the Steinitz era of scientific chess, for example, contains mostly modern games rather than ancient ones. The chapter ‘Steinitz versus Lasker’ starts out rather scholarly, but then makes a surprise turn towards the most recent era in chess: instead of quoting one of the classic encounters from the First and the Second world champions, Hansen gives us the current champ:

One of the points where Lasker differed from Steinitz was in the perception of weaknesses vs targets. The Scientific School was very concerned not to create any ‘weaknesses’ in its own camp, and for some (weaker) players from that school it almost became an obsession not to weaken the position, so that they ended up playing too passively. However, Steinitz’s notion of weaknesses was rather abstract and general. In contrast, Lasker looked for specific targets in the concrete position. If a weakness could not be targeted, Lasker didn’t care much about it. This battle between the general strategic characteristics (Steinitz) and the specific features (Lasker) of a position is an ongoing debate even in contemporary top-level chess. A very good example is this one, which in a sense decided the World Championship in 2007:

Anand-Morozevich
Mexico City 2007

Here we go. Black has a backward pawn on d6 and consequently White has a great square on d5, so I am sure the Scientific School would on general grounds prefer White here. However, as we shall see, things are far from clear.

17.Nd5 Forcing Black to give up one of his bishops.

17…Bxd5 18.Rxd5 f5! Black seeks counterplay down the f-file.

19.gxf6 Rxf6 20.Qe2

An excellent position to illustrate the difference between a general Steinitzian and a specific Laskerian approach to chess. When I followed this game live on the Internet, I instinctively thought that White was better and that Black’s next move was a mistake. Trained as I am in the Scientific and Hypermodern traditions, I envisaged a white knight on d5, a bad black bishop and a weak backward pawn on d6. However, this (Steinitzian) evaluation is superficial. This line of thought is too general. While White certainly does dream of repositioning the knight to d5 (and eventually actually manages to do it), the d6-pawn is currently securely defended by the ‘bad’ bishop on e7. It is only a weakness in the long-term abstract sense, not in the short-term concrete sense. Black, on the other hand, has a specific and easily accessible target at f3. He simply intends to batter up against White’s f3-pawn, which in the short run – as long as White has not has time to execute his knight manoeuvre to d5 – is at least as vulnerable as the d6-pawn. A more balanced evaluation of the position is therefore that both sides have their plans and trumps, and the position is close to a dynamic equilibrium.

Hansen concludes his detailed analysis of this great game, which was won in the end by White, with the following sympathetic remark: ‘In 1894 and 1896 Lasker beat Steinitz in matches for the World Championship. In a way the present game can provide Steinitz some comfort – here ‘his approach’ turned out victorious!’

Apart from showing entertaining and instructive chess, Hansen also has interesting things to say about chess psychology. Again, he manages to combine insightful remarks with attractive present-day examples to bring home his points:

First and foremost, competitive chess is about defeating the opponent, and to do that you sometimes have to ‘play the man’ – exploit your strengths and pound on your opponent’s weaknesses. (…) The matches Kasparov-Kramnik and Anand-Kramnik are testimony that the objective approach sometimes succumbs to the subjective approach even at the highest level. (…) One young player who exhibited shrewd psychological alertness from an early age is Magnus Carlsen. (…) Just take a look at how easily he disposes of one of the strongest and best-prepared players in the world, Veselin Topalov.

Topalov-Carlsen
Morelia/Linares 2008
1.e4 Nf6!

Alekhine’s Defence – a rare guest on the highest level. However, it is a clever choice by Magnus against Topalov. The Bulgarian is one of the best-prepared players in the world (…) but Magnus had noticed that he mainly focuses on the most fashionable and topical variations. It is probably a while ago that he last seriously analysed the old Alekhine! While Carlsen had occasionally played this opening in the past, I am sure that it was a surprise for Topalov. (…)

11.Re1?! Black’s opening gamble pays off! Topalov drops his guard and plays an unfortunate ‘natural move’ without delving sufficiently into the position. With the immediate 11.c3 White could claim an edge – now he has to fight for equality.

11…Bg4! Suddenly White has problems with his d4-pawn.

12.c3 c5!

Oops – it was probably only here that Topalov noticed the small trick 13.dxc5 Nxc3! 14.bxc3 Bxc3. Now we see why 11.Re1 was inaccurate: the rook is hanging on this square. Still, White should have entered this line – he could bail out to a draw by 15.Bh6! (…) I am sure that a more defensively inclined player would have chosen this option. However, here we see a minor psychological weakness of activists: the willingness to take risks sometimes backfires. Even when he has been tricked in the opening, Topalov prefers to keep the game going. A reflector, on the other hand, would presumably have chosen to bail out with a draw. As I pointed out in Foundations of Chess Strategy, reflectors are sometimes accused of playing too many draws, but these draws sometimes occur because reflectors possess a keenly developed sense of danger, which helps them sense when it is time to bail out.

As you’ve probably noticed, I like this book so much that I can’t help quoting more and more from it. What I perhaps like best of the above description is that it’s completely recognizable to me: on my local club, too, there are players who are typical ‘activists’, prone to mistakes as the one Hansen describes. It’s such a delight to read about Topalov as someone who plays like the local dudes at my club! However, while I was copying this quote I also noticed a minor flaw: Hansen sometimes has a tendency to repeat himself a bit. The phrase ‘to bail out’, for instance, occurs no less than three times in this last paragraph, and if you scroll up to the fragment and Lasker and Steinitz, perhaps you’ll see what I mean if you pay attention to the words ‘weakness’ and ‘target’. Well, to be honest these were about the only points of criticism I could find in his book, so you know I had to mention them…

With Improve Your Chess, Lars Bo Hansen has produced yet another wonderful book which is both extremely valuable to the practical player and very interesting for the philosophers among us. By explaining relevant chess games and theories from the classics, his own practice and recent super grandmaster tournaments, without ever sounding pompous or over-ambitious, the Danish grandmaster has stumbled upon the winning (if not entirely original) formula of modern chess books which is sure to inspire more works in the future – all of which will be worth your attention. 

This was the last book review of 2009. I hope you enjoy your Christmas holidays with some good chess books and I wish you a very successful 2010!

Links

• Get yourself a copy of Improve Your Chess
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One Child’s Chess Experience
By Laura Sherman

The room is silent. You can literally hear the people breathing around you while you study the sixty-four checkered squares in front of you. Glancing over at the chess clock you see you have plenty of time left in your game. A move cries out to be made, but you bide your time and check for others. You know that a move made in haste could cost your dearly. Finally, confident that your initial idea is sound, you reach out a hand and grasp your knight, hopping it to its intended destination. There is an audible gasp from a few behind you.

You hit your clock signaling your opponent’s turn. Only then do you steal a glance at him. He meets your eyes with a look that speaks defeat. You see that he knows it is just a matter of time. He shakes his head and stares at the hopeless position. You lean back in your chair and watch him study the board for possible flaws to your plan. There are none. It is hard to stifle the grin that threatens to spread across your face.

You glance around at your spectators. Some recognize your opponent’s fate, while others wear puzzled expressions. Two whisper to each other and finally nod their heads in understanding. One winks at you in admiration and turns to observe a game with a less determined outcome.

The fact that you are only ten years old, playing in an adult tournament, might have intimidated some, but not you. No, you know that your dedicated study and eagerness to learn the game has paid off. You continue to improve each time you play. Your teachers at school notice a difference, writing glowing praise home to your parents on a regular basis now. You know that you can do whatever you put your mind to do and it shows in various aspects of your life.

Your opponent shakes his head, stops the clock and reaches out his hand to you, signaling his resignation. You shake his hand, smile and offer to analyze the game with him, a ritual amongst players. He returns your smile and nods. You know he doesn't care about your age, because he knows your analysis will help him improve. How many activities are there where an adult would be eager to hear the thoughts of a child? As you set up in the next room to go over the game you notice other adults have followed. They too want to hear what you have to say. There is no better feeling.

Laura Sherman founded Your Chess Coach (www.YourChessCoach.com) with her husband, Dan Sherman. Together they teach children to play chess through various schools in Pinellas County, Florida, as well as privately in students’ homes and online.

Why Chess Should Be a Part of Every Child’s Education

By Laura Sherman

Imagine a world where people all have excellent problem solving skills, where they are patient and respectful of each other on a daily basis. A society where citizens live for the future and plan long term, thinking of where their children’s children will be, following through, seeing each goal to its conclusion with ease. Now add to that an indefinable quality of artistic imagination, dreaming for more than can be reasonably expected, reaching beyond the status quo.

Chess can teach our next generation all these skills and more!

I learned the game when I was young and to this day I see the world as a giant chess game where any barrier can be conquered and any victory can be achieved. No goal is impossible and when I have a target in sight there is no stopping me. The same glint I had in my eye when I faced an opponent at a chess tournament still exists today when I face a challenge, along with the insouciant grin that comes from the pure joy of the experience.

Intuitively most would agree that chess improves a student’s grades and ability to study. Numerous studies have been done over the years throughout the world that show this to be the case. IQ increases, reading test results improve as do math and science scores. However there are so many other skills children pick up naturally from learning and becoming good at chess.

Imagination is a must in chess. You cannot form strategies and tactical plans without being able to envision your goals. It is impossible to win a game without first imagining the victory. You are the one to make the pieces dance to the rhythm you choose. Without the player the pieces just sit dormant on a dusty board.

A child’s self confidence soars as the victories pile up, especially when that child can routinely trounce adults. Allow that child to teach other children or perhaps even the adults and he or she will master the game quickly. Nothing helps someone learn faster than teaching others and nothing does more for one’s pride than to see someone improve under one’s tutelage.

In order to achieve a victory one must consistently play well throughout the game. You can make forty excellent moves and one thoughtless blunder and lose the game instantly. As a result you quickly learn to be thorough in your analysis and patient with your moves. Imagine if we all applied this little lesson to our daily lives. Thoughtless comments, heat of the moment bursts of anger, crimes of passion might just become things of the past to be studied as a part of a history lesson.

If every parent initiated regular family chess nights and if every school taught chess as part of their daily lesson plan imagine where our country could be. Children naturally are drawn to chess. If you don’t believe me try an easy experiment. Go to an area populated with children, put out a chess set and see what happens. I promise you they will flock to the board and become immersed in a game. We all have the power to fuel our children’s existing passion for learning and help our next generation soar. Let’s make a difference!

Laura Sherman founded Your Chess Coach (www.YourChessCoach.com) with her husband, Dan Sherman. Together they teach children to play chess through various schools in Pinellas County, Florida, as well as privately in students’ homes and online.

It's surprising then that one recent post -- Chess Engines Don't Always Get It -- received two comments, both of them spam. Both comments at least had something to do with chess, and are in the category of what I call 'good spam', so I left them alone. A comment that has nothing to do with chess, like selling furniture (which I once received), gets deleted as soon as I see it. The URLs which the two comments were intended to promote were...

2009 U.S. Championship Information
http://www.saintlouischessclub.org/US-Championship-2009

YourChess.net
http://www.yourchess.net

...The first is the official site for the U.S. Championship and the second is a portal of RSS feeds. Both links are definitely worth a visit. Having said that, it's hard to believe that the time taken to post either of these comments will result in any sort of comparable return.

With the exception of total page views per day, I don't track stats on this blog, and I have no intention of doing so. Looking at the stats for other blogs, I reckon that most individual posts get no more than a few dozen page views total. Only a page view on the post itself displays the comment. Views of the blog's home page or of a particular category show that there are comments against the blog, when the visitor has to click through the link to see the comments. I never do this and I doubt that many other people do.

The comment promoting YourChess.net also requested a reciprocal link. I used to accept reciprocal links for my World Championship site -- and when I first started the site I even asked for a few links -- but I quickly discovered that they aren't worth the trouble. They result in a trickle of visitors, have no measurable impact on the search engines, and require regular attention to determine that the linked site is still active. Site owners have pestered me for months requesting a link, but no one has ever informed me that their site is no longer active. A broken link is a nuisance for me and for my visitors, not for the owner of the site that disappeared.

My policy is simple -- no reciprocal links -- blogs or otherwise. If I really like the site or the blog, I'll either link it without being asked or I'll mention it in a post. If it doesn't do anything special for me, I won't link it, and no amount of pestering will change that.

... The first Web Chess Portal, entièrement configurable, vous permet d'accéder immédiatement aux fils d'actualités de vos sites préférés, de jouer en ligne, ou encore de consulter la base de données du portail, qui s'enrichit de jour en jour. Et plein de choses encore...

Mis en oeuvre par Valerio Tirri, ce concept vous permet de modeler votre page quotidienne d'actualités, pour votre plus grand plaisir. C'est à essayer ! Vous trouverez désormais Your Chess dans notre rubrique "Best of Web".