As you might have gleaned from the title, I have decided to study Artur Yusupov's series of award winning chess books. For those unfamiliar with Artur Yusupov or his books, I will list the series in order of progression, with one notable exception I’ll mention afterwards:
1. Build Up Your Chess: The Fundamentals.
2. Boost Your Chess: The Fundamentals.
3. Chess Evolution: The Fundamentals.
4. Build Up Your Chess: Beyond the Basics.
5. Boost Your Chess: Beyond the Basics.
6. Chess Evolution: Beyond the Basics.
7. Build Up Your Chess: Mastery.
8. Boost Your Chess: Mastery.
9. Chess Evolution: Mastery.
The notable exception is Revision & Exam: The Fundamentals, which belongs fourth on the list. There is no “Revision & Exam” for the other levels, nor does Artur have any plans to write such books, but you can use this one extant version either as the 4th book, as originally intended, or as the 10th book, as final exam to the whole series. As a matter of pedagogy, I'm not sure it matters much.
Artur Yusupov, in the way of a little background info, was born in Russia in the 60's, moved to Germany in the 90's, and was rated 3rd in the world from 1986 to 1992. He now mainly coaches, commentates, and authors chess literature. From an interview he did with Jacob Aagaard, I learned that the original German titles of his books were "How to become 1500", "How to become 1800," and "How to become 2100," or something to that effect. The point Aargaard made in bringing this up was that those estimates seem low given the level of difficulty of the books. I'm not sure Aargaard also intended to mean the books will take you to higher levels, but he did recount a story in which one his students who read the entire series went from 1500 to almost 2300. That's one example, of course, and the kid might be super talented, but it counts as a great testimonial. I'm not expecting similar results, as I'm old, lazy, and fall asleep reading. Sometimes I think it's why I read. I have all the "Fundamental" books in hand, while the others are in the mail as I type this. The one book I couldn't purchase was the elusive and currently expensive Build Up Your Chess: Mastery. So, instead of shelling out $60-$90 on eBay, I pre-ordered the new revised edition from Amazon, which is expected out in August of this year.
Back to me. As a perennial giver-upper, procrastinator, avid consumer, and chess fop, I have loads of chess books. By last count, I have slightly over 200 little beauties, all of which I’ve fondled but none of which I’ve impregnated. I'm not sure that metaphor works, but you get the point. Again, as a chess fop, I would very much like to be admired for my chess abilities, which we all know are correlated to one’s intelligence, so basically I want people to whisper audibly, “Wow, there goes that really smart guy,” as I saunter by at the chess club on my way to the bathroom. At fifty years of age, now, that’s my likely destination no matter where I am. So, this really smart guy wants the admiration owed to him. I figured the best way to prove my innate genius was to build up, boost, and then evolve my chess. This blog series will feature updates on my progress and thoughts on the efficacy of Artur's books. Don’t question my ability to judge the books. I just dropped “efficacy” on you. So, for all my avid readers – which would be zero at the moment – I will now give you the pertinent information needed to help you decide if this series of books is worth the coin or time.
To help you judge if my experience could be your experience, I'll share a little autobiographical info. I’m 50, male, rated 1900+ on lichess.org and 1600+ on chess.com in classical games, and I have no other ratings. I’ve been playing chess on and off most of my life, and perhaps I’m decent at tactics and nothing else. I suspect I'm the perennial low-intermediate player who never improves. We'll put that theory to the test. Next, a quick summary of Artur's advice on how to study his books.
How to study the lesson diagrams:
1. Set up each diagram on a board.
2. Study each diagram for roughly 5-10 minutes without moving the pieces. In other words, treat each diagram as a puzzle and calculate in your head only.
3. If you can't solve the position in your head after 10 minutes or so, try again, but this time you can move the pieces.
4. Only after you've gone through the preceding steps, having solved the position or not, should you now read through the lesson for that diagram, making sure to play through the solutions. Rinse and repeat for each diagram.
The emphasis is on you making a serious effort, thinking instead of just waiting to be told the solutions. If you have any chess acumen or latent ability, this is how you activate it. It's like in college: you read before the lesson so you will better understand the lesson, you come prepared with questions you've mulled over already so answers will be poignant. There's nothing novel in this approach, but chess students -- like yours truly -- spend an entire lifetime taking short-cuts. Artur is telling you that there are no short-cuts in chess.
How to study the quiz puzzles:
It's pretty much the same as above except you will also write down the variations you come up with so that, at the end of the 12 quiz puzzles, you can compare your answers with the book solutions. Knowing me, I'll probably not set up the quiz puzzles unless I'm stumped. Yeah, okay, not the ideal way to go about it, but I'd rather save a little time here than get discouraged by the tediousness of setting up 25 puzzles (13 chapter puzzles and 12 quiz puzzles) for each chapter, especially when I can solve some puzzles on the page in less than a minute. I will, though, set up all puzzles, lesson and quiz, that require at least two minutes of thought. I hope that's not too egregious a short-cut.
Chapter 1: Mating Motifs
Chapter 1 in Build Up Your Chess: The Fundamentals covers six mating motifs: (1) mate along open lines (rook + queen or two rooks), (2) Anastasia's mate (queen + rook + knight), (3) Arabian mate (rook + knight), (4) the queen-bishop battery (esp. on the b1-h7 diagonal), (5) the queen-rook battery, and (6) Boden's mate (queen + bishop). Each motif is supported by 2 or 3 diagrams (henceforth puzzles) with either black or white to move, clearly indicated by a black or white triangle.
I followed Artur's study advice to a tee for the first six of thirteen lesson puzzles. As the beginning lessons are relatively easy, which isn't to say they were easy, I found I could solve some puzzles without the board, so that's what I did for the final seven lesson puzzles. Of course I may have short-changed myself in doing so, but I did manage a perfect 16 out of 16 points on the quiz, so I didn't feel too guilty. Back to the point about the difficulty level.
This series is not a 'Learn Chess' series. You need to come in knowing the game, the nomenclature, and general tactics. I found the first chapter challenging but not overwhelming. There were maybe two lesson puzzles which I couldn't figure out and had to read the solutions for understanding. This is as it should be, as the text should be slightly challenging to you always. Artur rates each quiz puzzle by difficulty with stars, so a one-star puzzle is worth one point, a two-star puzzle is worth two points, and so on. The breakdown of the 12 quiz puzzles is one 3-stars, two 2-stars, and all the rest one-star. I think some of the lesson puzzles, as opposed to the quiz puzzles, are more difficult than three-stars, but I’m sure that was a pedagogical decision. Given my result on the quiz, I’d say it was a good decision, as it forced me to focus hard in trying to find the motif buried in the puzzle. When I finally read the solutions, I got that "Ah, I see now" sensation, which usually means you've learned the lesson well. So, after the first of 216 chapters (24 chapters x 9 books), I’m quite satisfied. Now let’s hope for a timely next entry….
....Yikes, did I just say 216 chapters? At roughly 2 hours per chapter, that's a lot of damn studying. Is it too soon to quit? Let's really hope for a timely next entry.
No comments:
Post a Comment