Chess - Adding Positives & Subtracting Negatives

NM Dan Heisman talks about improving by "adding positives" & "subtracting negatives" with emphasis on the latter. For example, one could get rid of a misconception about developing queens "too early" or moving pawns in front of a castled king, or leaning too heavily on the Reinfeld values 1-3-3-5-9
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NM Dan Heisman has been a full-time chess instructor since 1996 and is the author of 13 chess books, the TV show "Q&A with Coach Heisman" on Chess.com and the radio show "Ask the Renaissance Man" on the Internet Chess Club. Radio personality Howard Stern was one of Dan's students. Dan tries to answer comments on UA-cam but for a quicker, more comprehensive answer (or questions about lessons), contact Dan via email, skype, or phone via Dan's website www.danheisman.com. His Chess Tip of the Day is @danheisman on Twitter, which won the award for "Best Twitter Feed" in 2021 from the Chess Journalists of America. #Chess #ImproveChess #ChessInstruction #ChessThinking #ChessThoughtProcess #ChessLesson #LearnChess #ChessImprove #ChessMisconceptions #ChessNegatives

[@danheismanchess]

Thanks for watching! Pass the word on my channel ua-cam.com/users/danheismanchess, thanks! You might also enjoy my 2021 award-winning video How to Make Better Chess Moves ua-cam.com/video/JnA-5qPDq7s/v-deo.html

[@shanastroskyphazer8172]

great lesson Dan thanks ! I like looking at weird, tricky, and impossible moves if I have time during the game etc. I think chess instincts are very interesting, often misconceptions of chess principals, over ride our instincts often but not always, the first move that pops into my head is often the best, but analyses is still required to see is it safe or if there is something better. put your first instinct in your pocket, you can always come back to it, is a new habit that I try to apply in my games but sometimes get into time trouble.

[@danheismanchess]

Thanks! If the first move that pops into your head is often the best, you must be a very strong player! :)

[@jimmccann3856]

Am I under a misconception, not about the Reinfeld Values, but about the Kaufman Values? (3.5 +3.5) - (5.25 +1) should be be only a .75 edge but Stockfish says 2.1? How to reconcile the difference? Presumably, pawns and rooks usually come into their own later in the game, whereas knights can be quite potent early, but fade badly in endgames. The magnitude of this (temporal) explanation, if correct, is startling: 2.1 - .75 is a 1.35 swing between early middle game and endgame. Who would have thought it?

[@danheismanchess]

Yes, the phase of the game has a lot to do with it (as would the specific position). Larry's article talks about the effect of the number of pawns on the values of the pieces, especially rooks and knights: www.danheisman.com/evaluation-of-material-imbalances.html

[@dabssssallday3111]

Awesome video thank u

[@danheismanchess]

Thanks, much appreciated :)

[@edl5731]

May I suggest a different paradigm regarding "misconceptions" The tone of the video is somewhat accusatory towards lower level players who have "misconceptions" that they shouldn't have. The student that thinks a rook and pawn equals and knight and bishop didn't come up that, it was what he was taught. Telling him he is *wrong* for believing/following an earlier teacher will in some cases could cause animosity that limits the students reception to what you are teaching. (Many students accept as fact what their first teacher told them if later contradicted by a later teacher, particularly true if the new teacher is a stranger and the original teacher is a beloved grandfather) Rather you might want approach it that the heuristics you were taught aren't wrong, they just aren't nuanced. Fundamentally it is a good idea to have a pawn wall in front of your king, you were taught correctly, however the full principle is you shouldn't move the pawns in front of the king unless you get some compensation for moving those pawns. And this case winning a knight is more than enough compensation. What you learned isn't wrong or a misconception but rather it wasn't complete or nuanced. It is kinda like in math class when you first learned subtraction: the teacher told you, you couldn't subtract a larger number from a smaller number and then a few years later you learned about negative numbers. And when you first learned about square roots you were told you couldn't take the square root of a negative number but a few years later you learned about imaginary and complex numbers. Likewise the Reinfeld numbers were useful when you were first learning and you didn't know if it was a good idea to trade a rook for a knight, but it is not the complete story.
Just my two sense. But as a student I am always somewhat bugged when a teacher tells me I am wrong for doing what another teacher taught me.
Other than that framing issue, you are a great teacher and one of the best chess creators on youtube. It is a shame that folks like you and Andras Toth have such small viewer bases while others who peddle traps and chess entertainment rather than education are the first ones that youtube recommends.

[@danheismanchess]

Thanks for your thoughtful note. If I have a good relationship with a long-time student, he/she knows that if I use the phrasing that something is "wrong" I am not criticizing them personally; I am alerting them that I can help them with whatever it is that needs correcting. When my son was young I told him "If I ever say what you did was dumb I am not calling you dumb; I am simply referring to your action". I am a fairly intelligent person who does a lot of dumb things every day but most are somewhat innocuous; when you try to do a lot of things every day, not every action or word you use is going to be as intelligent as you would like. Just as I am ignorant of what someone had for breakfast in China this morning, it is likely a beginning chess player will not know (or mis-learn) many things on his way to becoming a better player. And yes, if I have a new student, I have to be very careful how I say things until I can (or hope to) establish a good chemistry. When I taught Howard Stern, he never took any of my constructive criticisms the wrong way - he always knew I was trying to help him the best I could. By the way, having taught over 1,000 students one-on-one privately, I have a pretty good idea what misconceptions are prevalent but, as you correctly state, a teacher needs to be careful how to help each student even if a similar "fix" is eventually indicated.