Hi there.
In this lecture, I want to talk about the notion of being over driven by principles and methods.
I remember when I first read my system by Nimzowitsch, I got carried away and I probably increased
my importance of making sure my pawn structure was good and the opponent had damaged pawn structures.
Funnily enough, I lost a series of games where I had terrible pawn structures, so the very thing I
was trying to avoid, I actually got I didn't know what on earth was going on.
Later I tried to internalize more and be a bit more cynical about what is actually working in my game
positions, what is actually an exploitable weakness.
The whole notion of an exploitable weakness I explored as opposed to a general weakness.
It doesn't matter if you've got double pawns.
Maybe there's upsides and the same in life.
Generally, it doesn't matter if something looks bad, maybe there's an upside.
You might have to walk to the shops instead of drive that.
Well, maybe there's an upside.
You get a bit of exercise.
So on the chessboard you might have terrible looking things.
You might be, it seems, playing a completely anti positional knight move like knight on the rim or
Knight into a corner.
But even Nimzowitsch did that.
Actually he demonstrated that sometimes paradoxically, you know, terrible looking moves, decentralizing
might actually be effective in given situations.
So even Nimzowitsch demonstrated that he often played what seems to be, you know, like mysterious
rook moves.
But they had an element of prevention where he'd move.
ROOK But if the opponent did this, the rook would open up, did something, and we have to be in the
driving seat in our own games and we're aware of the time limit, maybe the weaknesses of the opponent,
maybe the tournament situation demands that you have to win so you can bias things as well.
Like Emanuel Lasker.
He biased the whole theories and principles to try and make it into a formidable winning weapon, adaptable
to circumstances and the opponent, etc. If we remain in the driving seat, that is key.
So you'll get a lot of principles and we could call principles as first class methods which seem to
be universally accepted almost, you know, very well held beliefs, almost virtual laws of chess.
But you have a license, a creative license in your given positions to find what works in that particular
position and in the context that you're playing, you know, which opponent, the time, how much time
you've got left, etc..
So you've got a factual all that in.
You have to remain in the driving seat and take responsibility for what you're going to play.
Don't be overly driven by any principles or methods given in this course and even the small wins.
You've got to be cynical.
Are they really small wins?
What if you do get a pass pawn but it's easily blockaded?
What if you do get the bishop power?
But the knights of the opponents run rampant.
This is a big disclaimer, basically on all the advice in this course, whether we call them principles
or just methods, so not so alluring or we call them small wins or even gigantic wins, if there was
a section on gigantic wins like being several pieces up, even that, you know, you might deliberately
be several pieces down in a game because it's part of a force chap mate sequence you're going to make
the opponent.
So the key thing is you have to retain control over your decision making process, and that's a common
pitfall for reading chess books on the theory of the game rather than something concrete.
It's sometimes you see the theory as a hammer and everything else is nails and you just want to use
the hammer now in your games.
But you need to use the tool, the tools you pick up appropriately in the positions you have.
So you have to remain in control and be kind of cynical about what is actually exploitable or not.
I remember in my degree in computing in business, we were looking at functional languages and a lot
of high floated concepts and principles, you know, like carried functions, you know, polymorphism.
Some of those came to popularity today and are part of general languages, but some of them seems,
you know, a bit impractical and maybe haven't lasted the test of time so much.
So we get principles and advice in all sorts of domains and some of them might not actually be that
useful and some of them are.
And it really depends on your own circumstances as well.
Is it actually appropriate and effective in a particular circumstance?
So principles, they offer general guidance, but we in my view, have to be nerdy in our positions.
We have to take interest.
When I say nerdy, I mean taking a keen interest into particular nuances and down.
Sides of the opponent's position, which we might exploit in capsulize on in particular.
So I like that idea of being nerdy all the time.
It doesn't matter how many principles you take on board from this course, which seem really, really
amazing and almost like laws of chess explaining the way of how things work.
Just blockade the opponents pawns and everything.
Wonderfully.
Maybe not, you know, in your current position that you have so concrete moves you find might completely
run against principles like giving the opponent about counterplay deliberately, we say about not giving
the opponent any counterplay, but sometimes you might have to in your position, you might have to
give them something to play with to distract resources.
There's an upside.
You've got to find the upsides, basically, of whatever.
You investigate what actually works, what has upsides, what actually works in your position.
So I don't want you to fall into this big trap that I fell into that basically we need to be cynical
about what we learn.
You know, the big trap of nimzowitsch my system.
Like me, I just found I was overly driven basically by principles.
I expected them to win in my concrete game positions.
No, you have to win in your concrete game positions.
You are the driver, not some amazing principles, which might be great advice generally, but we're
talking generally.
So yes, the specifics of your position.
Are you?
They give you a creative license for you to take the decisions.
So a healthy cynicism for anything in this course or any other courses is useful.
You've got to actually play a concrete move in your games and it might match the circumstances of your
opponent, how much time you have, etc. There's no such thing in human chess is the best move.
And even computers can't find the best move they need sometimes a bit more time to examine deeper and
deeper.
You know, it's very difficult to find the best move sometimes in any case.
So be aware of that as well.
So Adams Michael Adams did this podcast interview, Perpetual podcast, and he talks about players that
seemingly, you know, they're too principled.
It's like they've been stifled by their positional courses that they might might have been on and they
miss out golden opportunities.
Like maybe they could have accepted double pawns because their pieces would have been great after,
you know, there's always these upsides.
You've got to make sure, are they actually there for you if you follow the principles or rebel against
principles?
Totally.
So be aware of that.
The principles are just that, a kind of first class methods.
You know, I could we could have just called everything methods and not touch the word principle, because
it seems to be set in stone that, you know, you you want to minimize the opponents counterplay.
You don't want to have unprotected pieces, for example, etc..
You pick up a lot of principles from all sorts of courses.
So just be aware that sometimes you do want to leave pieces unprotected.
It really depends on the situation you have.
So, okay, we're basically acting like the hyper modernist.
The hyper modernist for established theory of the game found the useful exceptions, and those useful
exceptions were fed back into the theory to extend the theory.
So that's why they influenced opening theory.
We have ideas of controlling the center from afar, etc. All these dynamic ideas be more and more entertained.
So chess is a very in context game.
It's a very concrete game as my friend Costas carry on.
And as mentioned, it's a concrete game.
So any principles you have, just remember to be cynical, not be overdriven in your own games.
You are the driver.
Just remember that you are the driver in your own games.
You need to find what works, what is actually a real weakness from what seems to be seven different
wings of the opponent's position from an actual one might only be one and only if you wait a bit that's
actually more even more exploitable.
So just bear and bear that in mind.
Don't be overexcited by all of these apparent downsides.
You've got to find the exploitable ones.
So night on the rim might be good.
Having double pawns of back pawns might be good.
Investigate concretely, find what is truly exploitable in context.
Chances of concrete game.
Now here just to show you this this game we see later on in the course, but I'll take you to a particular
position Adams here with black against Grandmaster Gordon.
So Steven Gordon, this is in the 2010 British Championship.
Adams had just played Bishop Essex and we see F4 and it seems as though isn't why gaining space you
know Rook had a and now isn't why also getting a kind of positional combination to double Adams's pawns
Adams just retreats the bishop so pawns don't go backwards.
That is a kind of universal law, but sometimes that could be good as well.
If you can make use of the pawn advantage.
Advances, you can see that the dark squares have been slightly weakened, this diagonal has been slightly
weakened.
So there are downsides creeping in in White's own play, but it seems to be designed for Knight G for
with the excitement of damaging Adams's pawn structure with F6.
So why does Adams entertain this?
Well, this is class to entertain this because we look at the resulting position.
And so what if black's got double pawns?
Is it actually exploitable?
In other words, in this given context, are these pieces relevant for exploiting the double pawns?
Is there another knight on E free which makes 95 winning the Queen or something?
No, there's a bishop protecting F5 in this particular context.
We need to see what's working and what's not.
Why did just extinguish the five square, which could have been a useful outpost square?
But there's nothing else much to do here.
Unless White wants to lose a piece 94, we just stamp it off.
So 95 check.
Bishop takes that five, E takes Black's king.
Safety seems to be quite good.
Black's control of the dark square seems to be quite good.
In other words, if we're upside centric, we see that, oh, there are upsides here.
And this bishop's still blunted by the pawn on C six, Adams plays Rook for gaining authority over a
file.
That's a great upside.
Why?
It doesn't really want to lose two rooks for a queen.
So we see a pair of rooks coming off here and now Rook have one.
And now rook d4 preparing actually to dominate the default.
What a great upside here is what is extinguished.
Rook F4 is a threat of wanting to entertain Rook f4 Black's can entertain rook dd too soon we have be
free and now 97 and another upside emerging here you know this this sinful apparently accepting double
pawns.
What about this knight coming to E5 and in fact Rook d one here is played.
And guess what Adams plays here which.
Is really quite crushing, which causes resignation basically.
Can you see blacks plan win?
This was a terrible mistake.
Because now Quincy five and all of a sudden White has to resign.
If if Queen takes the five, Rook takes, the one is check.
And then we're taking on C5.
If Rook takes DD four, we're taking on C two.
And this is easily winning off the check.
The queen is too much for the rook and bishop.
Yeah, it's just a.
Terrible.
And you know what else you know, Rook?
See one?
There's rook dd one, and that's a double check and a mate as an example.
So, yeah, it shows.
Sometimes you've got to investigate further.
Concretely, in your own games remain as the driver.
Doesn't matter what principles methods small wins.
Even if there was a section absolutely gigantic positional wins.
What if in your position.
You know, it didn't quite win.
There were upsides to the opponent.
And apparently, you know what, Slade was, you know, part SPAWN'S on the sixth rank.
You know, they're worth their weight in gold, as many books say, You know, But what if you get checkmated?
You've got to make sure that your advantages are exploitable or the opponent's apparent advantages are
actually exploitable.
What upsides are you giving to the opponent?
What upsides do you get?
Be upside centric, be in control.
So don't be overly principled.
And it's another thing, just like this advice.
There's terrible advice through chess history.
Like a bad plan is better than no plan.
Another one is we hear these commenters say, Oh, this is a principled move.
Oh, this is a principled move.
And you get the idea that if you're not, what are these principles?
So you look them up and you kind of get driven by principles.
Well, sometimes playing unprincipled moves is the way to go.
It's like this allure of having to always have a plan or always having to play in a principled way.
No, you've got to have a dynamic view of the game.
Chess is a concrete game, a very concrete game.
You just have to look at the engine competitions to see Stockfish playing what seems to be absolutely
ridiculous stuff with treble pawns and bad pieces.
But you know, it wins in the end.
It's worked it all out.
You know, it's got the cohesion to work it all out.
We've got to be like that.
We've got to be striving to take control of our positions.
But the role of principles in general, they are useful guidance to check out.
In the first case, if the principle says, you know, centralize pieces, that generally is good,
for example, or having a nice support structure in general.
In the general case, it's often valuable advice in general, but you need to do the investigations,
the concrete investigations to make sure of what is working and what's not okay.
So I hope this is inspirational, inspirational to you and don't be overdriven by principles, methods,
etc..
Okay, So much.