Thursday, April 20, 2006

Question to the Knights: Any one hear of the Bangiev's Squares strategy?

I've come across a couple references made to the Bangiev's Squares strategy pertaining to a couple of training CDs from the IM Bangiev based on color complexes to help refine the search for candidate moves. Apparently, its a complete thinking process. Has anyone out there actually (a) heard of this or (b) even tried this?

A sort of review can be seen here:

http://www.chessbase.com/workshop2.asp?id=1965

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Yep. Bought the whole CD set and still haven't looked at it yet. . .

takchess said...

I have been intrigued by this as well. It sounds interesting.I have a bunch of books I want to delve deeper intoat first. Lev Alburt books, My System, Euwes books, Silman books. I am interested in what Jim will find once he studies them.

H.K. said...

Another review on the same site.

http://www.chessbase.com/shop/product.asp?pid=210

BlunderProne said...

Well... I have forced myself to not look at other methods of chess improvement until I finish "THE QUEST" which I am coming to a quick close being on level 90s.

What this meant was:

1) I vowed not learn any more openings ( stick with my repertoire and make minute adjustments per tournament game)

2) Only a small percentage of time on End game studies and strategy until I get through the circles

3) Don't look at other methods ...yet... put that book down... don't open that "other CD" ...and for crissakes... for once...please finish one thing you started before giving up and moving on.

( that last one is hard) ;) BP

King of the Spill said...

> it will definitely require most chessplayers to completely restructure their thinking

I don't doubt that :-).

Re: naming - I have been using DG's naming as he has been giving them out since the beginning, so that's why I went with "troubled" link.

Anonymous said...

I have been through Bangiev's work and have an ELO of 2161. It really helped me. The basic idea is very sound, but really badly written. Bangiev is right in saying that he has hit upon how strong players think - even if they don't realise it. A few words of warning - spend several days getting to understand his definitions its all a bit obtruse. Secondly it isn't enough on its own - the full grandmaster thinking process is more than this but it is a part of it. Bangiev work is valuable but should be seen as supplemental - again it is part of how strong players think - but only part of it. I would also recommend the Romanian International Chess School - their material is very good and good value. (but not the openings module) ICS is also written in tortured English but you can understand what they mean and the material is first rate (they provide a thinking process among other things).
After that you will still need an opening repertoire (Main lines please not this Bf4 nonsense). CT ART 3.0 for tactics (daily) and the Test Your Chess IQ books (just one test a week and put your heart and soul into it).
If you do all that in two years you will have all the essentials for ELO 2000+. Pay attention to this last part: The key to chess progress is not reading My System and Euwe's middle game book and then Silman's works. There is too much repetition here - wasted time. The thing to work on is the thinking process. Thats why we get 13 year old GM's. They have a prefect thinking process. Euwe's middle game books and Lipnitsky's Questions of Modern Theory and a collection of Capablanca's games teach you all the 'chess' you need. After that it is calculation, thinking process and opening repertoire that you understand deeply.