True, But Useless
We’ve all heard the saying, “No combination exists without a positional advantage.” I’ve struggled with implementing that for years, and I’ve given up. While the statement is quite probably true (at least I’m not going to dispute it) I’ve come to the conclusion it’s also quite useless as advice.
It’s a lot like the adage “there’s no smoke without fire.” The fire may not always be visible, so looking for it doesn’t help you find the smoke. And just as some fires burn without smoke, sometimes there are positional advantages without a combination available at the moment to exploit them.
This came home to me in a recent game, where I found a little tactical riff that raised my game from horrible to merely discouraging. I didn’t have an advantage; I’d long ago blundered away every expectation of that. In fact, the combination merely took advantage of my opponent’s unfortunate piece configuration (potential skewer) to eliminate one of my weaknesses. There’s no way I could be said to have had any sort of advantage.
It made me stop and consider after the game, and I think I’d actually rephrase it “No combination can exist without a weakness for it to exploit.” In other words, it doesn’t really matter one whit to a combination which side has an advantage, it only matters which side has the weakness.
So, what does that mean for your thinking process at the board? Look for the signs to a combination in every position. Keep on the lookout for pieces that can be forked, skewered, pinned, etc., on every move. And if you find them, then look around for a combination to exploit them. Think of them as the smoke that leads you to a burning weakness in your opponent’s position. If you can fan the flames a little, maybe you can bring the whole house down.
December 24th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
Arlen,
Happy Holidays, when will you post the next WI top 100 list.
Ashish
December 24th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
When I get around to it. (And if that’s not fast enough, feel free to start posting one yourself.) Won’t be long. I picked up the raw data for it already, now I just have to sort it, filter it, and code it. Probably before the end of the year. I’ve checked into the idea of doing it dynamically from the USCF data, but that’s not going to happen, so I’m left with doing it manually for now.
Later edit:
List as of 1 December is up.
December 25th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
If you want I can do it for you and just email it to you. You can just revise it, make corrections and post.
December 26th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
Ashish,
Have you looked at http://www.uschess.org/ratings/RatesSearch/StateSearch.php
Ivan
December 26th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
I created an updated list at:
http://gettingto2000.blogspot.com/2007/12/wisconsins-top-players.html
December 27th, 2007 at 11:29 am
Perhaps I wasn’t clear. As far as I’m concerned the latest list is up, and has been for days (before comment #3 was posted, if you’re curious). I’m not interested in posting another update to it until sometime in January. If I decided to do it more often that that, I wouldn’t get anything else done. I used to try and do it bimonthly, keeping up with the supplements, but even that gets onerous. If any of you would care to pay me for it, I might consider committing to a more frequent schedule, but until then it’s when I get around to it. Period. There are great chunks of my life that I value highly which have nothing to do with either websites or chess, and that’s not likely to change anytime soon, so deal with it.
After all, it’s not as if minor (less than 100 points) fluctuations in a rating are meaningful for anything except ego-boo. (I still remember Elo remarking wistfully that if he’d has his way, ratings would be two digits, not four, because rating differences less than 100 — and probably even 200 — points were within the range of human inconsistency, meaning it’s not at all unusual for a player to play up to 100 points or more above or below their rating simply because they’re human.)
Ivan, The USChess link you provide is useless for my purposes, as it includes players like Mike Wierzbicki, who won’t be playing OTB chess anytime soon (2 tournaments in the last decade, 10 since 1991). In fact, of the top 10 players on that list, only 5 played a rated game between 1 Dec 2006 and 1 Dec 2007, the period used by my current list. (While I’m reasonably certain 9 of the top 10 players in the USCF list are still alive, I haven’t heard anything from Dr. Angos, #9 on their list, for so long that it’s possible he isn’t. It took the USCF over a decade to catch up with the deaths of Marshall Rohland and Henry Meifert, for example.) It’s far simpler to just request a custom rating list from the USCF, get it by return email, and take that file into a local application for filtering, sorting, etc. Total process takes 1-2 hours; as I noted it’d be easier if automated, but USCF won’t let me write a custom query for the ratings DB, so manual it remains.
And I don’t include Erik on my list because technically he’s still a TX player (and will be until he notifies the USCF of the change). I take that stand in order to be fair; I know I can’t catch up with every player’s change of address myself, so I only acknowledge the “official” changes rather than including players I happen to know but not others whose only crime is to have avoided coming to my attention. A line has to be drawn somewhere, and since there are good arguments to be made in favor of both positions, I selfishly choose the one which requires less work.
Ivan, the only real differences between your table and the one I had already posted are the inclusion of Joynt and Santarius (Joynt will be in my next list, as he played after 12/1, and I’ve already explained Santarius) my inclusion of A. Vayserberg, which you don’t for some reason, my inclusion of Burton, because of his Action chess activity which you apparently don’t count, your inclusion of Thet (who again played after my list’s cutoff) my erroneous inclusion of Jerry Jones (I hurried the process and missed one, it appears) and your inclusion of Yusim and Colak (I don’t include provisional ratings, but perhaps I should). A total of seven differences out of 71 players, two of which are because of time frame, and four more because of different standards for who should (or shouldn’t) make the list. Leaving out the ones caused by different standards, a total of three changes out of 71 is hardly big enough to warrant the work of putting out a new list.
This “top player” list doesn’t change as often as you and Ashish seem to think it does. There weren’t all that many changes between this list and the previous list, dated August, even. I don’t understand why you seem to think it should be updated weekly or daily or hourly or whatever. It’s a pretty static list. It’s possible I’m the most volatile player on it, going from somewhere around #50 on the previous one to #89 on the current one to an expectation of #60, give or take a little, on the next one (I’ll know more when I get the final data for it).
I’m not likely to be as detailed in a comment again for a long while. The time it’s taken to address this issue (which has nothing whatsoever to do with the post it’s attached to) means that at least two other posts to this site will not get written for a while, if ever, because I’ve used up their time to research and write this.
December 27th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
I didn’t include VAYSERBERG A, because he was not active in 2007. The criteria I used was, at least 1 regular rated game in the last 12 months.
December 28th, 2007 at 10:13 am
OK. My criteria (I misstated it in an earlier comment, but his is probably the only entry where the distinction makes a difference) was an update to published rating in the 12 month period from 12/1/2006 to 12/1/2007, so that’s it. December 2006 was the last time his published rating was updated. That adds Vayserberg to Thet and Joynt as differences due simply to different time frames for the sample. If nothing changes Aleksander Vayserberg will fall off my next list while Thet and Joynt go on. I still haven’t decided if my next list will include provisional ratings, though. Probably not. There’s something about the volatility of provisionals that makes me leery of rewarding them with a place on the list.
Interesting that Joynt is playing again. Looking forward to seeing him again; it’s been a long time since we’ve played. I wonder if he’s changed much?
December 28th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
Actually 12752453: ALEKSANDR VAYSERBERG last played in November 2006
2006-11-26 200611265331 NATIONAL CHESS CONGRESS (PA) 1: NCCPR 2063 => 2069
December 28th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
OK, Ivan, so I went back and double-checked the publication date. It wasn’t the Dec 06 but rather the Feb 07 Supplement that is the date of publication for his last official rating, which means he’ll stay on my list until 02/08. Sorry about the inaccuracy. It’s what happens when I type fast. Last time I just assumed that because the event was Nov the rating made the December 06 supplement. Apparently it didn’t.
I don’t use the unofficial ratings because they are generally susceptible to frequent rerating, making the number dependent upon the precise moment I request the data. The official rating is less susceptible to rerates.
December 30th, 2007 at 12:59 am
ashish, congratulations on becoming a master…you’re a wonderful player. .you had a great run of wins at your club championship and then at the chicago open over the summer in the open section you played well (considering that you just blew out everyone in hales corner 7-0)…even drawing the 2600+ Areskulov in chicago not to mention your tie for 1st in a strong tournament in okc (tying your partner in crime betaneli) its been a long time coming this achievement for you. some of us lesser players are watching and wish you continued success
January 2nd, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Mike, thanks for the kind words. I hope that the NM title is only the begining and have hopes for attaining a lot more.
Again, thanks for the support! It really keeps me going when I am down or have a rough patch.
January 16th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Arlen,
Can you give some infomation on the “Milwaukee City Champion”
Is this a rated event?
When and where is it held?
January 16th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Milwaukee City Championship was rechristened after the passing of a former champion. It is now known as the Cedric Thompson City Challenge and is held the first weekend in May every year, though the venue changes.
We’ll be announcing the details of the upcoming 2008 event soon. It’ll be on milwaukeechess.org if I can keep enough interruptions at bay to finish the redesign there. (I’ve been having to clean up a lot of crap from a group of West African spammers/script kiddies lately, so I’m farther behind than usual on my pro bono projects.)