Giuseppe Tarascio says:

Come esempio personale benché ho una categoriaed un elo superiore alle 2N non mi vergogno di dire che …

Sig. Paolo Masoni,
non mi sento assolutamente oggetto di critiche. Lei ha elencato una serie di frasi (sul ruolo dell’apertura; sullo studio del mediogioco; sui tempi biblici necessari per lo studio dei finali) che non necessitano nemmeno di una risposta, da parte mia.
Però, devo sottolineare 3 punti:
1) In fase di registrazione Lei ha dato “Paolo Masoni” come nome e cognome. Ora Lei scrive che ha un “ELO superiore alle Seconde Nazionali”. Ma negli archivi FSI non esiste alcun Paolo Masoni, nemmeno Non Classificato. Già questa scoperta (se veritiera: può sempre indicare il numero ID della sua tessera FSI, e sarò lieto di rettificare) toglie ogni valore alle sue argomentazioni.

2) Lei ha scritto che discorda dalle idee del “maestro cinese”. Evidentemente non sa che, per consuetudine, i Maestri Internazionali (come Wenzhe) ed i Grandi Maestri Internazionali vengono SEMPRE citati con la maiuscola, in segno di RISPETTO.

3) Last but not least. Lei ha citato Capablanca, che ha operato nel mondo scacchistico quasi un secolo fa, in qualità di massimo esponente di una delle 4 scuole scacchistiche del secolo scorso. Evidentemente, Lei, non essendo uno scacchista, non conosce la storia del movimento scacchistico. Allora, lascio la parola direttamente al M.I. Liu Wenzhe con un copia-incolla di alcuni frammenti del Suo libro. Troverà anche la risposta alla sua opinione sulle aperture.

Estratto da Wenzhe Liu – The Chinese School of Chess (2002) ed. Batsford
Pag.17-18
(…)
A so-called chess of school means a body of players sharing a common viewpoint in the theory of the game, who apply their theory in practice and achieve outstanding results. (This definition is taken from the Soviet Dictionary of chess.) There are been four main “schools” in previous chess history.
The first is the Italian School. It appeared in the sixteenth or seventeenth century. The school saw chess as art. Its style of play is filled with romantic colour. It sought to demonstrate the marvels of the game and its inexhaustible potential for tactical combination. Its main contribution to chess is its treatment of Open Games and its research on endings.
The second is the “Classical” School, with its origins dating from the middle of the eighteenth century. Philidor is the forerunner; Steinitz is its founder. This school emphasized the scientific nature of chess and the scientific methodology of its study. Steinitz clearly stated, “Position is the basis of planning”. The school dominated the chess world for 150 years. Its main contribution lies in closed types of games and the principles of positional theory.
The third of the chess “schools” is the Hypermodern School. It established itself in the early twentieth century –more exactly, between about 1910 and 1920. It challenged the long-standing dominance of the Classical School. It ostentatiously criticized the dogmatism of Tarrasch, the Classical School’s theoretical leader, and emphasized chess as a competitive activity. The Hypermodern School pursued strategic complexity and valued non-rational factors. The main representative works are Nimzowitsch’s My System and The praxis of My Sistem. Its main contribution is in the theory of strategy and semi-closed openings. Although this school had a short life in dominating the chess world, its theory, viewpoint and method exerted a very profound influence on chess theoretical circles.
The fourth “school” is the Soviet School. Its most representative figure was World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik. He thought that chess was the fine combination of science, art and sport. It was the art of athletics. Since Soviet players contributed so much to the theory of chess and registered such great achievements in practice, the school has supplied the mainstream influence on the chess world over the past sixty years. Its characteristic may be summarized as “solving competitive and artistic questions by scientific methods”. It made a special contribution to opening theory in its treatment of semi-open games. In 1972 the American Bobby Fischer defeated his Soviet opponent and gained the title of World Champion. This epoch-making event altered the attitude of the Soviet School. Whereas before it vigorously propagated its theory, it began to adjust to an attitude of “pragmatism”.
Throughout the history of the main schools of chess, we can observe that the establishment and development of any school are bound up with three factors.
(1) The school presents an integrated theoretical system. (2) Great achievements results from practicing the theory. (3) The school’s characteristics are strikingly representative of its era.
(…)
Pag.20
(…)
The Chinese School has its distinctive understanding of the opening. In the past, although the various schools differed in their approach to the openings, they all insisted on two principles: fast development and occupying the centre as soon as possible. The Chinese School criticizes the principles used by the other four schools. It thinks that their so-called “theory of the centre”, “theory of development” and “theory of tempo” are all based on an inadequate understanding of chess. The Chinese opening principles—strategy, structure and space- all begin with the letter “s”, so they can be called the “three S” principles.
(…)
The theory of training is an important part of the Chinese School of chess. (…) In order to focus on middlegames, the national team has not given its players any lectures on openings. Can it be said that the Chinese players’ openings are weak because of this? Things are not so simple. We have not heard any negative comments from foreign opponents. From the games played by Chinese players in the last five Olympiads – about 500 games in all – we find that about equal numbers have been won and lost on the basis of the opening. The national team insists on the principle that we should study ourselves above all, and the consequence of this is that when the results of the opening are dubious , the player at least have a “programme of repairs”.(…) When they know they are weaker in the opening than their opponents, they don’t spend too much time on it but concentrate their energies on the middlegame.
Pag.33
I know some famous foreign grandmasters, including some theoreticians, for example Vladimir Tukmakov, an authority on the openings, who now lives in the Ukraine. I once asked him what he thought of the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings. Surprisingly, he told me that the book was written for children. From this example we can see that foreigners don’t take the book all that seriously.

In questo modo, ho dato al Maestro Wenzhe la possibilità di difendersi!! Divertente l’aneddoto con Tukmakov, che reputava l’Enciclopedia delle Aperture un libro per …bambini! In effetti, lo studio delle aperture è simile ad una malattia infantile, come il morbillo! 😆

Infine, mi faccia una cortesia: non guardi più i miei video. Mi farebbe una cosa molto gradita, glieLo assicuro.
Se desidera, invece, legga la autobiografia della allieva più famosa di Wenzhe: Xie Jun – Chess Champion From China (1998). Lo prenda in versione cartacea e lo metta nel salotto: così, quando qualcuno lo vedrà, potrà tranquillamente affermare:”Paolo, ma tu sai giocare a Scacchi!!”.

Giuseppe Tarascio says:

Gentile sig. Kasparov,
scopro con piacere che Lei si è registrato sul mio sito sotto mentite spoglie.
Non sapevo che conoscesse la lingua italiana, ma dimenticavo che Lei è diplomato in Lingue.
Purtroppo, nonostante il Suo titolo di ex-Campione del Mondo, sono spiacente di informarLa che, in segno di rispetto verso tante Seconde Nazionali, che hanno conseguito il loro titolo con onore ed a prezzo di tanti sacrifici (partecipare ad un torneo a tavolino è stressante), da ora in poi CANCELLERO’ ogni Suo intervento, in quanto non gradito.
P.S. Avevo detto “comprare” il libro di Xie Jun per poi usarlo a mò di soprammobile; non ho detto di “leggerlo”: non pretendevo tanto!
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