GM Grigoryan on the "Myth" of Solving Puzzles

Well that is simple to answer, i am only 1780 because i make tons of mistakes... however if u are looking for words from an actual GM who has been coaching for decades, i suggest taking the words of ben finegold. He has said that in a game between low rated players, both players play badly until one player makes the worst move of all times and then he loses.... it cannot be more accurate than that.

At my level or even at level till 2200, people will regularly make inaccuracies(positional inaccuracies) and it won't matter since the other person isn't good enough to notice and exploit it. The games are decided based on blunders, that's the end of it.  Just like in my last game i made inaccuracies and so did my opponent but it didn't matter before the big blunder he made. 

In short, just don't make blunders and the only way to avoid it is to practice visualization and calculation. Nothing else matters at this level, blunders are what decides games

... and who has the greater odds of making that critical blunder? The mid-rated player who is under serious pressure, or the mid-rated player who is applying pressure?

This idea that positional advantage is meaningless below GM level is, quite frankly, idiotic.

both people have the same odds, this is how low level chess is lol

the deeper & more accurately you are able to calculate, the further ahead you will be able to plan... all abstract strategical concepts can be useful guidelines to follow, but the goal should always be to replace generalities with concrete moves whenever possible.

isolated pawns are weak when they are tactically vulnerable & strong when they become mobile & threaten to push back the opponent's pieces & unleash your own.

all strategies are just anticipated future tactics... the elements of force, space, time, mobility & safety gauge the stronger army, but everything often gets decided by a single battle between the troops & the general that fails to anticipate unfolding events is doomed.

Planning requires nearly zero calculation. 

'advice on breaking the 2000 barrier'.

to me it sounds like he's pinpointing the most important consideration, rather than claiming it's the only thing to focus on.

not getting mated or dropping pieces seems like a solid foundation for success.  🙂

Like I said, that one guy asked for advice to getting to 1000. I give a organized presentation.

My opponent says 100% true. So I gave him a test for black . 1e4 e5 2 Qh5. He thinks about it. Then he makes his move 2...qf6. I shake my head, and give a small chuckle. I told him..."What did I say that made you come up with that move? " He said he wasnt paying attention. Just wanted to know a few moves. Theres a reason people listen to Ben Finegold.

But these forums are broken because posters rush to rescue everytime. Cant be bothered with google....because someone will respond.

Its like 'what is strategy then'? I answered it already. Which was probably one time too many.   

Yes, I doubt we can play random moves until something tactical (for us or our opponent) shows up, without losing hundreds of rating points. And we cannot calculate non forced variations very deeply, neither GMs can. I think llama47 is right: top players base their claims on their own personal experience, when they are FMs well before the age of 15. Strategy is harder to grasp than tactics for a kid, even for a chess genius, so for them it pays more to focus on tactics; but when they become older they need to study strategy more and to blend it with tactics (which is the most difficult part, imho), to reach their full potential. We should do the same, though most of us will never get the FM title (sad truth).

So you are saying that superior position means nothing in games of lower level players. Giving me strategical advantage against Magnus doesn't prove a thing. He is just a better player. You can give me a piece and I would still lose all games (unless I get lucky somehow).

I will give you something more concrete. I will compare myself to... myself. So 2 identical players. I've played 523 rated games in rapid.

With white I have 55% wins. With black I have 49% wins (with 2 % more draws as black). A difference of a single tempo. And most of the people will have slightly bigger win percentage with white, not all off course, it is just a single tempo, but it is usually enough for it to show in statistics for most of the people, for masters and non masters alike.

But anyway if what you say is true, it would mean that for me it is completely the same if I have a normal starting position or this starting position:

If you think that the result of the 100 games match between 2 equal opponents in the above position would roughly be 50-50, I don't know what more I can say to you.

Yes, I blunder, we all do, but when you have much better position, you are still more likely to come out on top than you are to blunder it away.

Ouch that hurts... but you are correct of course.

it might hurt and sound harsh but yes, if you give the above position to two low rated players then literally anyone can win it. Infact, i would ask you... if u were white in that position what would you do exactly if your opponent is just playing back and forth? what's your plan?

As i said, it might sound harsh to anyone who overestimates their chess skill but it is true.  Players below masters don't really know what to do with positional advantage at all... literally ALL of their games are decided by one move blunders and the person who blunders last loses.

Infact, learning strategical concepts maybe HARMFUL for people who are not good enough. For example in the game you posted your opponent played two big blunders which lose immediately. He tried being tricky with Nc3 but missed that Rxc3 Queen takes knight is not possible with Nf6+ coming winning the queen. He did not even attempt to defend his fragile square with Bg7 since he had a "good bishop" and did not want to trade it... I don't blame him since we have read that a fianchatoed bishop is of a greater value but he should have broken that "strategical rule" and instead traded his bishop since the f6 square was so weak.

There are many such examples. Following strategical concepts when u are missing moves is a big blunder. Strategy is really harmful when one's tactics are bad. I gave up on strategical concepts completely  and it has seemed to help me. I just try to play "alright" moves and not blunder anything and that seems to work the best. 

My plan if he keeps doing it?

Ng5 Ng8 Bf7#. There you go. That would be my plan. But he wouldn't do it, he would see that it is a suicide.

I am not doubting that anyone CAN win it. Yes, I can lose this to a completely equal opponent. I am saying that I would win this against my clone more often than not.

I mean, Nakamura have beaten 2 700+ rated player with Bongcloud. So even in super GM games there are people messing up better positions.

The question was is this position completely the same as the starting position for sub master player? It isn't. Would I win more games in that position than lose? The answer is of course yes, I would win many more games on average against equally good/bad opponents, even though I would mess it up from time to time. It would be more random than in master games, but it would matter for sure.

The position is the same because lower rated players can't figure out the correct plan and execute it correctly in that position and the same for any position. In my opinion the goal for sub master players should be just to double check and make sure to not blunder anything.

Bringing the queen out early? fine if it gets attacked and you have to retreat. Opponent gains a tempo sure but so what? at lower levels it doesn't matter. I think in longer time controls as long as the player makes sure to not hang things he will be absolutely fine. At our ratings the opponent can't win with a strategical masterpiece.

When was the last time you won a game or your opponent won a game by converting a long term strategical advantage? i bet it has never happened... it hasn't happened for me atleast. We just don't understand chess good enough to make such moves. Infact i am having a hard time understanding why the engine says one of the moves is better than the other, i am surely missing something in that position. I am not good enough to understand it.

I already showed the game that was decided by a positional mistake at the start of the topic just a few days ago, there are more games like that where positional mistake leads to more serious stuff, even in my games. Here you go again.

I know you will not admit it, but e6 move is what shifted the game completely. It made the position much more difficult for him. Imagine if I was playing a video game on easy mode from that point on, and he was playing on hard mode. Yes he could still draw, but in practice he lost the game in a few more moves. Could I still mess it up. Yes, but even this I would win more often than not.

So you are basically saying that If you would be somehow able to play against a clone of yourself, the result of 100 games in the starting position where he plays Nf6-Ng8 would roughly be 50-50. Ok, fair enough, I don't agree.

One important thing, most of the times just "seeing" threats, moves and combinations can help you a lot in choosing the correct moves. For example in a starting position if the opponent is pinning my knight to my queen while our pawns in the center are in tension then if i "see" that his threat is to take the knight with his bishop, driving my queen away to recapture(thus removing two protectors of my central pawn) and then he will capture my pawn.....  knowing that he has that threat alone is helpful in me selecting the right way to parry it(maybe i push the pawn or maybe i defend it)... for example in your game if your opponent just saw that Nc3 doesn't work he would have tried doing something else to defend against the fork threat....   Qc6 was also bad since he missed Rc1 which threatens the queen and threatens fork and he can't defend both. Had he seen Rc1 he would have defended better. The move e6 didn't win, his big bludners with Qc6 and Nc3 were the ones which lsot him the game

I think that's why being able to "see" small tactics present in every position is the soul of chess and unless it becomes second nature to a player, he should not even bother with strategy. Tactics don't have to be elaborate queen sacrifices, you need to have a tactical eye to spot small tactics from your opponent too.... unless you can spot things how can you play the correct moves? i am horrible at this and i am trying to just make sure to spot things for now, it seems to work well.

The fact is, after e6 it was very difficult for him to play. I had an easy plan, to try to exploit that square. It is a long term weakness that is going nowhere. Even if he defended better, he is bound to crack more often than not sooner or later.

The fact that we are lower rated makes us defend such a position in a worse way. Yes we will not execute attacking plans perfectly, but we defend in a worse way as well, it cuts both ways. You can argue that some other blunder cost him the game, and in a sense that is correct.

But it is also correct that he wouldn't be in a situation where he has to find such defenses in the first place if he didn't play e6. And he wouldn't be in any danger whatsoever, he would have a safe game where it would be easier to play.

But we will not reach common ground on this. It is just the way it is. I wish you a good day.

proper assessment of an unfolding game requires massive analysis of alternatives.

how do you determine if your knight will be able to safely maneuver to that outpost?  is it even going to be useful there, or will it just be missed on the kingside as the opponent finally launches a pawn storm against your king?

will your center stand firm & spatially crush your opponent, or should you dissolve it to take advantage of your lead in development & avoid a weak pawn that you're about to be saddled with?  are you about to miss a knight fork from your opponent while concentrating on hunting that bishop pair?

questions such as these cannot be answered without exact calculation of concrete moves, especially when the position becomes rife with tension & complexity.

exactly, well said

they absolutely are irrelevant simply since games in that rating are decided by tactics, it's simple

@kartikeya_tiwari

I hope this will not sound as a provocation, but you can prove your claim. You can play as Black several (the more the better) rapid (blitz is of course more chaotic) games against players below 2000, after playing (by agreement) the moves nklristic posted. Then we can calculate your expected total score, based on ratings, and compare it with your actual total score. From that, we can see how much you are right or wrong. Seeking objectivity, players should not prepare to play that position and since ratings can vary a lot, we should use a rough estimation of the actual players' rating, like the mean between their highest and lowest value. You could make this challenge open to everyone, in a new thread.