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Hi!

The work that we do in preparing, playing, analysing, introspecting, training, writing and discussing chess is ultimately to make us better disciples of the game, i.e.: to further our understanding of the game and make us more competent in whichever areas of chess we wish to specialise and hopefully excel. I can only speak for myself, but I'm sure that many chess-players will feel the same way about this.

Earlier today I was reading a blog post by one of chesscom's coaches. In this blog he was debating which analysis is better for your development: the Engine or the Grandmaster. I love the topic at hand, and I had many more thoughts on the subject than I was able to put forth in my reaction to his post, and as such I've decided to use my own Daily to elaborate a bit further on my thoughts regarding this subject.

The goal of chess

The game of chess poses us with a simple task: to find in every possible position the best move. But simple as the task might be, it has been an incredibly difficult task to fulfil. The reason for this is twofold: how can we determine what the best move is, and how can we find this move?

The first question is defined by the objective of the game: checkmate the opponent's king. From this objective follows the objective not to be checkmated. If we can't win, we have to not-lose. The best move brings us closer to our objective and/or makes it harder for the opponent to do so.

This gives rise to two different views on the best move: the theoretical perspective and the practical perspective. The difference between these two perspectives can be summed up in the quote below, attributed to Yogi Berra:

Man vs Machine

When Kasparov had lost his 1997 match against Deep Blue (as touched upon in more detail by this BC-S8 submission), it put to rest the question which skill was more important. Between calculation and the grandmaster's positional feel, the battle had clearly been decided in favour of the former, and the generations of chess engines that have seen the light of day since then have confirmed this over and over again.

All that matters on the chessboard is good moves.

- Bobby Fischer

First and foremost, a game of chess is decided by the moves being played, to a much larger extent than the thoughts behind them. (This means that it is entirely possible for an ostrich egg with two googly eyes to guess the correct moves 75 times in a row and outplay the reigning world champion. Fortunately for Gukesh D, the chances for this to happen are infinitesimally slim.) The objective quality of a move has a lot to do with the chances it generates for its side, and engines are much better at finding these best moves than humans will likely ever be.

As humans we're ill-equipped to brute-force our way through every position, and we don't have nearly enough clock time to fulfil the task during our own endeavours behind the board. We can try to parrot the engine moves to the best of our abilities, and sometimes we can win a game against an unprepared opponent, but we human beings can't rely on being able to perform this memory test indefinitely. Some try, and when you analyse your game with them you'll find them impossible to talk to. It's like talking to an empty shell with no personality: "This line of the French is +1 here, but if you follow the top engine move for five more moves then it says that it's -5."

Small gif from Limitless (2010).

So if we want to have any competitive edge at all, we have to resort to different methods to better enable us to find good moves.

The "right" method

The vast and ever-growing total volume of chess-related literature suggests that there is no consensus as to what the best method is. That can hardly be surprising: each person is unique and has a different way of digesting information. As such, the method that works with one person can be a complete mismatch with the next person. So what the best method is, is subjective to a very high degree, and it's up to each of us apprentices to determine whether the method that we follow produces the results that we desire. It has to be right for us.

Many different ways of analysing games have been suggested; a recent example that I've gotten acquainted with that deserves mentioning is the KIMPLODES method of breaking down a game and its moves.

It would be foolish and naive to imagine that the engine is useless. As indicated above, it is very good at approximating the position and coming up with strings of moves that best suit the objectively best pursuit of the goal of the game. I've been using the engine myself as well to check and falsify my own thoughts during the game, and the reason why I do it only at the end is because after my preliminary work I have an entire set of relevant questions that require answering.

One thing that is not in dispute is that it's worth understanding why some moves are better than others. RoaringPawn's blog nicely puts the Grandmaster's explanation and the engine's lines in opposition and concludes that while the engine may be correct on all its best moves, it fails to shed light on these why-questions adequately to the human player. Any understanding of what is really going on in a game and why some moves need to be played is invariably lost when the only measurement is the engine assessment.

So, great as the engine might be, it still requires a human interpretation to make sense of what our silicon BFF comes up with. A Grandmaster perspective, as RoaringPawn suggests, would be very nice indeed. But does it necessarily have to be a Grandmaster?

Didactic qualities

Just because a player is competent in competitive chess doesn't mean that they're capable of explaining the material clearly. For example, I find Daniel Naroditsky's Mastering Positional Chess almost impossible to read because of how often he uses the word "obviously" without any explanation. I'll cut him some slack because the book was published in 2010 and the author was 14 at the time, but in terms of competitive competence: he was already a strong FM, about to become an IM the next year. On the other hand, the authors Raf Mesotten and Nikolaos Ntirlis are very popular with their respective fanbase, yet neither has peaked above 2000 FIDE. The two skills aren't necessarily related.

Moreover, it's astounding how often high-rated players either forget or neglect the needs of their target audience. This is a bit of a pet peeve of mine: sometimes a lack of educational talents can be evident even in books that are supposed to be written for beginners. A good treatment of the Caro-Kann for beginners should start with the main point behind the first move, and the reason why black usually takes on e4 on the third move. Likewise, the reason why black plays 3...c5 in the Advance French can be easily explained, but it's quite telling that I hardly ever see this being done. Yet it's so easy:

It's also quite telling that I learned by far the most about the essence of the strategical battle in the Sicilian not by Starting Out: The Sicilian by John Emms, or Mastering the Chess Openings Vol.1 by John Watson (two books that I love reading very much, by the way), but by this introductory line of text on the Scandinavian:

A basic tenet of combating 1.e4 is that if Black can play ...d5 without a drawback, he has equalized.

- Alburt, Dzindzichashvili & Perelshteyn, Chess Openings for White, Explained (2005)

Connecting the dots, I figured that this is the key strategic element in the Sicilian: black's perpetual positional threat is to contest white's e-pawn with ...d5. Everything else that happens in any Sicilian from either side relates to this strategic aspect of the game: the d5-square.

On a similar note: in pawn chain structures such as the Advance French or the Closed Tarrasch, the key positional feature is white's control over the dark squares, most critically the e5-square.

These few simple, easily digestible lines of text will teach you more about the strategic battle in these opening lines than any contemporary engine analysis will be able to tell you.

The week in chess

I spent so much time on the rest of this post that I barely have time to talk about my own chess achievements anymore. It's congruent with my lack of analysis for this week, and it's not a sign that I like, to be perfectly honest.

One thing I want to share with you is this:

I hope to be able to add a 2000 rapid icon next week, but we'll see how it goes.

My current scores:

- Rapid rating: 1997 (+6)
- Blitz rating: 2301 (+151)
- Bullet rating: 2500 (=)
- Survival: 59 (=)
- Puzzle Battle: 1660 (+37)
- Puzzles: 3542 (-35)
- Repertoire: 4063 3987 moves (+76)

Blogs:

https://www.chess.com/blog/nova-stone/nova-daily-2-march-2025-recap-week-8 
https://www.chess.com/blog/nova-stone/nova-daily-3-march-2025 
https://www.chess.com/blog/nova-stone/nova-daily-4-march-2025 
https://www.chess.com/blog/nova-stone/nova-daily-5-march-2025 
https://www.chess.com/blog/nova-stone/nova-daily-6-march-2025 
https://www.chess.com/blog/nova-stone/nova-daily-7-march-2025 
https://www.chess.com/blog/nova-stone/nova-daily-8-march-2025