Takchess Chess Improvement

A Novice chessplayer works to get better at chess using an improvement program based upon the methods of Michael de la Maza and the teachings of Dan Heisman

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

5 X 5 Board -CT Art

I have also felt that it would be helpful if CT-ART had a Level that would be complete their simplified 5x5 boards which they give as a hint. I just realized that you can go immediately to the 5X5 board by a right mouse click.

Although it is somewhat of a roundabout way to get there. I think it would be interesting/helpful to do a circle of the 1200 5X5 problems. My belief is if I internalized these 5X5 I would greatly improve tactically.


Currently on my L30 2 circle at number 500. 100 problems to go.

Also I am becoming a believer in the idea of narating why the tactic works for understanding in addition to visualizing the solution to improve tactical recognition.

My ratings increases/decreases have been sporatic due to my inconsistant study program. They normally increase after I go through a period of tactical binging. I feel I am on the cusp again of increasing,

The signs I see are.

Winning Games I have no right to win (through a tactical shot)
Drawing more games which I use to never do
Better endgame play

updated note: started to do a circle of 5x5 did the first 330 fairly quickly although somewhat cumbersome.

posted by takchess @ 5:36 AM  

8 Comments:

  • At 1:32 AM, Blogger Blue Devil Knight said…

    Winning games I have no right to win. Man, I was on a streak of those last week. I beat a 1530 because he missed a mate in two :) My first 1500+ standard win.

    Those 5x5 boards are just so bloody awesome!!! They make CT-Art the gold standard of all tactics software. It would really be cool to do the circles with those. I wonder how much it would help with the full-fledged problems?

    Maybe I'll try it with level 20 problems.

     

  • At 1:45 AM, Blogger Blue Devil Knight said…

    I just did a few L20 and a L90 in the 5x5 and then normal mode. Amazing! The way they distill out the essence of the position into the 5 board, it must have taken forever. Extremely useful to get at the nugget essence of the position. It really helps me in the explanation/narrative/whatever construction for that position. First, do it for the 5 board, then go to the big board and see how this nugget fits into the larger context.

    I can't wait to be done with CTB!!!

     

  • At 5:34 PM, Blogger takchess said…

    i think the reason I had trouble getting into ctb was the interface not as nice as ct-art. It took a long time for me to grow into ct-art. I am feeling comfortable at last with L30. also,It took me 2 years to figure out the 5X5 trick. Alot of the 5 x5 came from the ART of Combination by Blokh which is hard and expensive to find. I ended up getting an interlibrary loan book and made flash cards of the 200 5X5. I know some problems share the same 5X5 in Ct-art. I wonder how many there are.

    Some of these tactic problems are very profound even at the 5 X5 level.

     

  • At 9:30 AM, Blogger Blue Devil Knight said…

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  • At 9:33 AM, Blogger Blue Devil Knight said…

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  • At 9:36 AM, Blogger Blue Devil Knight said…

    So there are only 200 different 5x5? That is extremely interesting, as it suggests Blockh may have thought this was a kind of kernel of tactical motifs. Learn those 200, and you have the kernel of CT-Art in your brain...

    I also think the 'counterplay' option is bloody awesome, and note that the counterplay positions also have a 5x5 associated with them!!!

    CTB is not as good interface-wise, but two years ago CT-Art was way out of my league. I needed to learn the basic tactics. Now I could handle CT-Art because of CTB.

    But also, I think it is a mistake to work on complicated stuff only, as I get dull in my ability to look for and see the basic motifs in games. I wish there were a program that generated random simple tactical problems with one move tactics that you had to see really quickly: it had en prise pieces, one-move forks, pins, skewers, mates in one.

    That is essentially CTB Phase 2, actually :)

    I want just a big set of really simple problems, bigger than Phase 2 of CTB, but at a similar level, to help me stay sharp in the fundamentals. Any ideas? Pandolfini's 'Beginning Chess' kind of has it, but the problems are too simple, not in terms of the motifs (that's what I want) but in all the puzzles there are like 4 pieces on the board so it doesn't challenge the visual system to really find them.

     

  • At 3:17 PM, Blogger takchess said…

    There are 200 5X5 in the book art of combination. There are many more than that in Ct-art. I believe some problems there may be multiple 5 X5 that may come up depending where in the problem one made a mistake. It is funny in that sometime a 5x5 pops up that feels very different from the problem. As for a group of simplified problems the Bain's Book Chess tactics for Students is hard to beat. My doing circles of how to beat your dad at chess was very helpful in Ct-art as well

     

  • At 3:18 PM, Blogger takchess said…

    There are 200 5X5 in the book art of combination. There are many more than that in Ct-art. I believe some problems there may be multiple 5 X5 that may come up depending where in the problem one made a mistake. It is funny in that sometime a 5x5 pops up that feels very different from the problem. As for a group of simplified problems the Bain's Book Chess tactics for Students is hard to beat. My doing circles of how to beat your dad at chess was very helpful in Ct-art as well

     

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