Jan 3 • Questions
What do you think of Vladimir Kramnik?
I ask because he has a course on Chessable: Thinking in Chess, a How to Guide. It was named Best Strategy Course and Course of the Year in 2021. But I don't know what criteria is used for that. RobRam has said he admires his playing. I've seen it said elsewhere that he tends to have boring, drawish games, somewhat like Petrosian. Of course, either Kramnik or Petrosian are orders of magnitude beyond me, so why am I apprehensive?
There are a couple other courses on chess middlegames that together aren't much more than the Kramnik course: Winning Chess Middlegames by Ivan Sokolov (that apparently drills deep down on pawns: doubled, isolated, hanging, and pawn majorities in the center); and Mastering Chess Middlegames by Brian Tillis, based on a book by Alexander Panchenko (which seems to cover many topics.) I definitely need to improve my middlegame.
I went through a free sample lesson from Kramnik's course, and it was okay. I'm not sure if the course is worth $35 (after all the discounts.) It was basically a bit of advice followed by an example game where he exercised that advice:
- Do I have anything direct? Is there a very concrete and advantageous tactical idea available at my disposal? More often than not, the answer is no, but if there is a way to checkmate your opponent's king or to capture a piece, you shouldn't bother yourself too much with positional considerations.
- Does my opponent have any concrete threats? If your position is threatened by immediate danger, it is required to ignore the positional considerations and do something to deal with the threat. Although here too the answer is more often no than yes.
- What is the idea/plan of my opponent? What are they going to do next? If you are not sure about it, it may be helpful to imagine it is your opponent's move. It is a strange concept, but it may help in situations where it is not entirely clear to you what your opponent is aiming to do in the given position.
There is the fourth scenario when you can proceed with your own plan and improvement of your own pieces. It occurs when the answer to all the three previously mentioned questions is 'No' or “There is no plan”...
the third question is the most relevant one. [Then my question would be: why is it third?] It is very important to detect what your opponent wants to do and take the necessary measures to prevent it...
In my experience, even top players miss moves and tactics much more often because they disregard their opponent's ideas in favor of their own.
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What do you think of Vladimir Kramnik?
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