Torr on Survey
Part 1. The Mission.
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[The survey form] [1. The Mission] [2. Use a Database !] [3. Devote Yourself !] [4. Sour Losers] [5. Flexible concentration] [6. Holistic Chess] [7. Why move at all ?] [8. The Tutorr's 15 Guidelines] [9. Feedback page] [10. Downloads]


Did you ever take on downhill skiing ?
Well, I did, and one of the most effective ways of improving my skiing turned out to be viewing pictures in a book ! Series of pictures taken of an excellent skiier dancing down a mountainside, detailled enough for the keen eye to spot the minute subtleties that constitute a perfect parallel turn. Study the pictures of the expert, memorize the supporting text and try the stuff yourself on your next trip to the Alps. It works !


This process is called modeling - for a skill you want to improve:
  1. Find an expert.
  2. Discover the experts' skills/strategy/approach/values/beliefs.
  3. Model it - copy the ways of the expert


The survey of chessplayers
The survey on chessplayers is about modeling. It has, to me, only one goal: To provide inspiration for how you can improve your chess. How you can improve your chess by modeling the patterns, behaviors and beliefs of the very strong chessplayers, the experts. This is The Mission, the grand purpose of the survey. I think you'll find it worth your while.

The results of the survey will be presented in parts in a series of linked consecutive articles. The full material of data will be made available in the last of these articles. If you want to attain valuable inspiration for improving your chess, or if you are just looking for tips on how to avoid all those damned blunders, you might consider to:

Read the survey articles - and improve your chess even more !

  



Copy the expert !
Off-piste skiing ?
....just copy the expert... !





Chessbase




Fig.1 Rating profile for the survey
Fig.1 Rating profile for the survey
1.sub-1600  2. 1600-1900
3. 1900-2100  4. 2100-2400  5. above 2400

Fritz5.32 from Chessbase.


Who are the experts ?
It's clearly debatable. Kasparov and Anand would probably find most people on the planet chess-ignorants (ok, Kramnik is around, Shirov is here...). However, in this forum we'll have those rated above 2400 as the experts and those rated between 2100-2400 as semi-experts. The experts constitute 5 % of the participants in the survey, the semi-experts 22 %. Semi-ignorants and worse, well, we constitute the last 63 %, as may be seen in Fig.1. The total number of participants was 1538.
Thank you all for your contribution !

Get to the point !
I will, indeed - in the next article. Why ? Because once again I want to stress the intention of the survey:

Model the experts - improve your chess !

It turns out that one of the things you might want to do is to use a database !  (Part 2).

Click here fore the next article on the survey results !



TWIC at The London Chess Centre
Disclaimer The data presented here and in the following articles can be analyzed and concluded upon in many ways (remember that the survey was scored on-line, and that the data may not be representative of all chessplayers alike). The conclusions presented here are mine entirely. Feel free to disagree, to have your own interpretations and to impove your chess in the manner that suits you. The full material of data will be published in the last article of this series. If you have questions prior to this, or other comments, feel free to mail me on torr@cybernet.dk

Copyright The contents on this page (graphical, textual) may not be reproduced without permission from the author. On citations or similar use, please credit the author Dr. Tor Rønnow, Denmark (mail: torr@cybernet.dk).