Review on The Secret of Chess by Lyudmil Tsvetkov

by IM Herman Grooten

When I was reading and scrolling through this immense book of Lyudmil Tsvetkov I first was very

surprised about the topic of this book and the way the author present his theory. He has well thought

about what could be the essence of our beautiful and ancient Chess game. And although he says is,

relatively speaking, not so strong Chess player, he has interesting ideas of how the game could be

approached.

In this book he introduces several non-conformistic ideas, which are quite unusual. I like the way he

wants to estimate the value of several pieces in comparison to other pieces. And of course in

relationship to the pawnstructure which is, of course, very important. He introduced several ways to

give penalty to certain weaknesses of pieces or square. I understood that this is also a way

programmers of chess programs like to give parameters to assessments of positions. Of course the

difference between those parameters can decide the difference in strength of the chess engine.

This is what the author likes to show in my opinion: he thinks that chess programs sometimes do have

wrong parameters for certain positions and that is the explanation that they sometimes come up with

the wrong assessment. The author claims that hes beating the strongest engine at the moment,

Stockfish 8. Mr. Tsvetkov is beating (earlier versions of) this program several times and shows how he

as he says himself, relatively weak player can beat one of the strongest chess programs in the world.

This program is much stronger than most grandmasters on the planet, the latest version has at least a

higher rating than the World Champion, Magnus Carlsen.

Mr. Tsvetkov had come up in his book with a lot of interesting chess positions which he likes to evaluate

by the human eye in comparison with the brute force of the computer.

In my experience as a chess player and a chess trainer, I agree with him that some positions where a

long term plan is more important as the actual situation, can be misunderstood by the computer.

Because the computer is counting in pawns they never will get the right assessment.

While reading this book, I was wondering what Mr. Tsvetkov is trying to prove. What is the reason of

writing such a book? Is he trying to prove that strong engine doesnt understand strategy? Is he trying

to prove that his understanding of chess is much above is estimate rating? Or is he trying to prove that

an average player with good strategic understanding can beat the strongest engines on earth?

When this last phrase is the case, I think he has succeeded. Mr. Tsvetkov shows in his games that he

has a good understanding of strategic themes and plans, especially the long terms plans, on which

computer programs still prove that they have severe difficulties on implementing the right moves for

such plans. This observation was already done by GM John Nunn (England) many years ago. Just as him

I was competing in a tournament, held in The Hague in the Netherlands, where 50 computer programs

were playing 6 rounds against 50 human beings. The organization took care of the same strength

between players and computer programs. So, for instance, I was 2400 at that time was playing

computers with the same strength. The GMs Nunn and Seirawan were 2600+ and they got the

strongest programs at the time (in the 90). Nunn told that Kings Indian positions were perfect to beat

the computer. In a closed position on two sides of the pawn chain, the computer has no clue how to

put his piece. The human being will play his pieces to perfect squares and then open the position when

every pieces stands well.

In the year 2000 I competed in the Dutch Championship and as Public Relations stunt, the board of the

Federation had allowed a very strong computer program at the time to compete in this Championship.

There was a lot of opposition about it, two players (GM Van der Sterren and IM Bosboom) refused to

play against it. So the PR worked, because it was mentioned in all News Papers.

This program was running on 4 PCs parallel connected. It was called FritzSSS* and its programmer, Mr.

Frans Morsch (a Dutch engineer) was behind the keyboard. Most of the players lost to this program,

sometimes a draw. When I was playing the program I listened to the words of John Nunn and went for

a closed position. The computer made several ugly mistakes. It had no clue because of the pawn chain.

The grandmasters Piket and Van Wely were laughing during the game when they saw the moves of the

machine. But instead of bringing my king in safety first to reach the time control, in time trouble I

decided that my position was so good that I could open the position already. I was proven too

optimistic, because some tactical tricks landed on my head and I lost.

In the round after it, my former pupil GM Van Wely, proved me right as h did almost the same with

the machine as I did, but he only sacrificed a piece in a closed position when the computer was already

running out of good moves (I enclosed those games in the pgn, comments are in Dutch, but you might

understand the moves and variations).

When Mr. Tsvetkov want to prove that he is a much better player than his estimate rating, he should

compete in tournaments and strong competition. I dont know why he is afraid to do so, because I

think with his understanding he might have good results.

When I was reading this book and tried to give comments to it, there was the sensational appearance

of Alpha Zero, the A.I. program by Google, that is not based on the above mentioned factors. Its pure

Artificial Intelligence (big data!) and learning by itself. So, we have to wait what this programs thinks

from most of the positions in this book!

In the following lines I had made kind of summary of interesting elements I found in this book. I made

my own remarks to it.

Herman Grooten, The Netherlands 23-1-2018.

A lot of diagrams are schematic. Which means, only the relevant pieces and pawns are given.

But because with all of them the kings (on g1 and g8) are placed, this will cause

misunderstandings. I would suggest to present the diagram with no kings! Because a reader

might think that sometimes in the text there is an explanation about a pawn-ending, which in

most of the examples is not the case.

But when a position is from an actual game or some middlegame-example, of course the

position of the kings might be relevant. With Chessbase 13 + 14, those illegal position can be

made.

I was attracted to this position on page 49. I fully agree with the assessment that this position

is winning for white because black has three pieces on the queens wing which will never can

get out of their blocked position.

On page 30 I found a rather strange counting. Of course a knight can be superior over a bishop

when pawns are blocked. But it would be in favour of the knight when pawns are blocked on

the colour of the bishop. In this case the pawns on a5 and h4 can become weak in my opinion,

because they are blocked on the right colour for the bishop. In this particular case, white is

much better because of the nice square on d5 and the bad pawns on c7 and f6.

The comment to the next diagram on page 31 are not totally the feeling I have when I look to

this position. Its true that the black bishop pair is helpless. But I have the impression that the

white bishop on c2 is certainly a good piece. It can help with an attack on blacks kings position,

later in the game. Im quite convinced that this bishop can play a key role on this kind of attack.

In the chapter about double pawns. I not always agree with the assessment of the author.

Maybe I didnt read carefully, but in the diagramposition, given on page 93 I would like a

double pawn with white in the middlegame. There are several holes (on the squares c6 and

e6) which I can use for my pieces and this pawnstructure cannot easily be destroyed by black,

I would say. But of course everything would depend on how the position in a real game would

be. I dont think that its assessment is possible in general, it depends on an actual position in

a game.

On page 103 the author permits himself to a quite bold phrase. He claims that black has fully

equalised this position. I think he overestimates blacks changes and I think that ex-world

champion Tigran Petrosian very much would like to play the white pieces. And he will be not

the only one! Thats because of his nice pawn on d5, which gives him a huge space advantage

for a big part of the game. Whites plan in this kind of position would be to play Rb1, later a2-

a3, b2-b4 and then on the right moment bxc5, just to take the b-file. Petrosian also would like

his pawns on f2, g4 and h5, just to block the kingside as a kind of prophylaxis. I once won some

game with this sort of structure. I will attach one fragment of a game I played against the

former Hungarian and Dutch Women Champion Erika Sziva. Just to show how such a space

advantage can be transferred into a win (its taken from my book Chess Strategy for Club

Players, comments are in Dutch language)

Page 107 and 108. I fully agree with the conclusion that a lot of engines play exd5, which gives

away the opening advantage. How can we trust these engines is a very good conclusion!

On page 108. Again a bold remark: Black would have a winning position. I agree that black is

fine (his piece coordination is much nicer), but winning? Looks to me a little premature. A

whole game has to be played first.

On page 115. I had a good laugh after this remark. But the famous GM Bent Larsen used to say

in a Sicilian that 3.d4 is bad because of 3 cxd4. Black is exchanging a semi-center pawn against

a real center pawn! Strategically speaking he is right. But as a matter of fact the English opening

is quite popular among World Class Players. Maybe because they think that after 1. c4 e5,

White is playing Sicilian with a tempo more. But the strange thing is that under those Top

players, a lot of them consider 1.c4 e5 as the best option for Black and in most games between

Top players, Black has reasonable results. My conclusion is that its not so simple as its looks.

Sometimes a tempo more might cause new problems! Fischer once said about a position of

the Symmetrical English opening, where it was White to move, that Black was better, because

White was in a kind of Zugzwangsituation