Comments on: Week 6 of CCC

By: tommyg

tommyg — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 00:08:39 +0000

I see this same sort of thing in the music world. Certain teachers get a rep as being “sexy” and others get a rep for being “unsexy”. Pedagogical merit seems to have nothing to do with it. In ches even Chernev gets ripped by people and he is an expert at explanations. Meanwhile books like the First Book of Morphy which have little or no pedagogical merit are considered “great”.

Heck, even John Watson is lauded as a “genius” for suggesting that the position in front of us is more important then the rules or principles. Chernev says that same exact thing Logical Chess quite a few times. (I don’t mean to bag on Watson..I LOVE his book Play The French! It is arguably one of the best reference books on any subject I have ever seen.)

It is all in the marketing I think. (and let’s face it Alburt could have not picked a WORSE picture for the Pocket Training Book!)

By: wang

wang — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 16:16:24 +0000

Chesstiger:
Yeah, I think I’m going to end up selling this one on Ebay or something, I like it but it’s completely useless to me.

BDK:
Yeah I normally get home between 3 – 4 AM. I usually try to be in bed by 5AM. Things just didn’t work out that way that day.

Tommyg:
Yeah that book rocks! Although the cover art leaves something to be desired. I also agree that he is underrated, but I have no idea why.

By: tommyg

tommyg — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 04:33:37 +0000

So I am really digging the Alburt Pocket Training book. (with brown bag so no one can see the cover in public!)

I am using to do the long look tactics study my coach gave me to do. I am only looking at 1 or 2 positions a day. They are great positions. What is cool is that by really looking at a position and trying to see as much as I can see, even when i don’t see it all, I still remember the lesson better because I did look at it for so long at the board.

I think Alburt is under rated in the chess improvement world. I still dig his endgame book. It and Silman’s are a great 1-2 punch!

By: Blue Devil Knight

Blue Devil Knight — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:20:49 +0000

Good to see the training updates.

It is really annoying to have a gorgeous set with an obvious flaw. My set the black pieces match the black of the black squares so closely it is literally sometimes hard to see the black pieces on the board! They become invisible.

Impressive performance.

Man, staying up until 7AM that’s crazy!!! The first time I played through the game Oblivion I did that and boy was that depressing.

By: chesstiger

chesstiger — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 22:36:50 +0000

I think i had such other set like you descriped with the frosted glass pieces that suppose to be the black once. I won it at a tournament. I have given it a few years back to my brother for his new year.

I hope the accounting goes well so that you can really enjoy your summer!