Newsgroup: it.hobby.scacchi
Titolo: Scuole di pensiero negli scacchi

Ho bisogno di sapere quali sono le scuole di pensiero che si sono
susseguite negli scacchi da quella eclettica ai nostri giorni. Sapete
se c'è da qualche parte un indice di questo tipo? Grazie e ciao.

 se c'è da qualche parte un indice di questo tipo? Grazie e ciao.
Eclettica?

 Eclettica?
Si, detto in altri termini ipermoderna ;-)

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Se hai voglia, leggiti la sintesi seguente, tratta dall'Enciclopedia Britannica,
che ti darà un'idea generale dello sviluppo delle scuole teoriche.
Per il pensiero moderno, puoi anche vedere il sito seguente:
http://www.scuolaeclettica.blogspot.com/
Saluti
Ivo
Dall'articolo "Chess" - Enciclopedia Britannica:
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Development of Theory 
There are three recognized phases in a chess game: the opening, where piece development and control
of the centre predominate; the middlegame, where maneuvering in defense and attack against the
opponent's king or weaknesses occurs; and the endgame, where, generally after several piece
exchanges, pawn promotion becomes the dominant theme. Chess theory consists of opening knowledge,
tactics (or combinations), positional analysis (particularly pawn structures), strategy (the making
of long-range plans and goals), and endgame technique (including basic mates against the lone king).
Philidor and the birth of chess theory 
Early chess players recognized that a typical game could be divided into three parts, each with its
own character and priorities: the opening stage, when a player develops the pieces from their
starting squares; a middlegame stage, in which plans are conceived and carried out; and an endgame
stage, following several exchanges and captures, in which the player with the superior chances tries
to convert an advantage into victory. 
Books analyzing a few basic opening moves, elementary middlegame combinations, and simple elements
of endgame technique appeared as early as the 15th century. About 1620 an Italian master, Gioacchino
Greco, wrote an analysis of a series of composed games that illustrated two contrasting approaches
to chess. Those games pit a material-minded player, who attempts to win as many of the opponent's
pieces as possible, against an opponent who sacrifices material in pursuit of checkmate—and usually
wins. Greco, regarded as the first chess professional, emphasized tactics. His games were filled
with pretty combinations made possible by poor defensive play. They had considerable influence in
popularizing chess and in showing that there were different theories about how it should be played. 
The first coordinated explanation of how chess games are won came in the 18th century from
François-André Philidor of France. Philidor, a composer of music, was regarded as the world's best
chess player for nearly 50 years. In 1749 Philidor wrote and published L'Analyze des échecs (Chess
Analyzed), an enormously influential book that appeared in more than 100 editions. 
In 'Analyze' Philidor used apparently fictitious games to illustrate his principles for conducting a
strategic, rather than tactical, battle. His comments on certain 1 e4 e5 openings were copied for
decades by other masters, and his analysis of king, rook, and bishop against king and rook was the
first extensive examination of a particular endgame. But it was Philidor's middlegame advice that
was his greatest legacy. He emphasized the role of planning: Once all a player's pieces are
developed, that player should try to form an overall goal, such as kingside attack, that coordinates
the forces. Philidor also placed a premium on anticipating enemy threats rather than merely
concentrating on one's own attack. 
Greco and previous writers had explored the tactical interplay of two or three pieces. But Philidor
believed that the significance of the pawns had been overlooked and drew particular attention to
their weaknesses and strengths. His most famous comment that "pawns are the very life of the game”"
is often cited without his explanation of why they are important: because, he said, pawns alone form
the basis for attack. 
Philidor believed that a mobile mass of pawns is the most important positional factor in the
middlegame and that an attack will fail unless the pawns to sustain it are properly supported. (See
Game 1.) He warned against allowing pawns to be isolated from one another, doubled on the same file,
or made backward—that is, unguarded by another pawn and incapable of being safely advanced. He
linked the qualities of pawns to other pieces and was the first to emphasize how a bishop could be
bad or good depending on how restricted it was by a fixed pawn structure. He also advocated the
exchange of an f-pawn for an enemy e-pawn because it would partially open the file for a castled
rook at f1. While previous authors had shown how pawns or other pieces could be temporarily
sacrificed in checkmating or material-gaining combinations, Philidor illustrated the purely
positional sacrifice in which a player obtains compensation such as superior piece mobility or pawn
structure.
Morphy and the theory of attack 
From 1750 to 1769 a group of masters from Modena, Italy—Ercole del Rio, Giambattista Lolli, and
Domenico Ponziani—criticized Philidor's ideas. They believed that he had exaggerated the importance
of the pawns at the expense of the other pieces and had minimized the power of a direct attack on
the enemy king. By analyzing the play of 16th-century Italian masters, the Modena school showed that
games could be won in fewer than 20 moves through speedy piece mobilization, compared with
Philidor's slow-developing pawn marches. 
There followed a proliferation of speculative pawn sacrifices in the opening, called gambits, in
order to achieve rapid mobilization and open lines for an attack. Checkmating attacks, often with
startling sacrifices in concluding combinations, became the hallmark of many players of the 19th
century. These leading masters were described as members of the Romantic school of chess. See Game 4
for one of the most celebrated examples of Romanticism. 
The ideas of the Modena school were not fully appreciated until they appeared, in slightly different
form, in the games of Paul Morphy, the first American recognized as the world's best player.
Morphy's chess career lasted less than three years and consisted of fewer than 75 serious games. In
1858–59 he defeated all the leading European players, with the disappointing exception of Howard
Staunton, who evaded all attempts to arrange a match. At the age of 22 Morphy retired from serious
chess. Morphy remains the only great chess thinker who left no written legacy. 
Morphy's contemporaries knew as much about the openings as he did, and some of them could calculate
combinations as well as he. But Morphy understood how and when to attack better than anyone else.
This enabled him not only to win favourable positions but also to avoid loss in inferior positions.
After he defeated Adolf Anderssen, the greatest of the Romantics, by a lopsided score of 7–2, a
supporter asked Anderssen why he had not sacrificed his pieces brilliantly against the American, as
he had against other masters. “Morphy won't let me,” Anderssen is reputed to have replied. 
Morphy appreciated that superior development—getting pieces onto good squares in the first 10 to 15
moves—was relatively unimportant in the semiclosed, blocked pawn structures that Philidor had
embraced. But, as the centre or kingside became more open, an advantage in development increased in
value. In Morphy's best-known games, pawns and knights played minor roles. Pawns were often
sacrificed so that the queen, rooks, and bishops could join the attack as soon as possible. The
first priority for Morphy was the initiative, the ability to force matters. Superior development in
a position with few centre pawns conferred the initiative on one player. In the games of lesser
players the initiative might pass back and forth as players err. But Morphy rarely failed to bring
an initiative to fruition. (See Game 5.)
Steinitz and the theory of equilibrium 
Morphy's eventual successor, Wilhelm Steinitz, reigned as world champion until 1894, when he was 58.
The Prague-born Steinitz managed to retain his superiority for so long because he developed new
principles of the middlegame, particularly in closed or semiclosed positions, that only his
successor, Emanuel Lasker, and Lasker's contemporaries fully appreciated. Steinitz said his “modern
school” was guided by two premises: first, that the natural outcome of a game is a draw because of
the inherent balance between the forces of White and Black and, second, that checkmate is the
ultimate but not the first objective of the game. 
Steinitz began his career as a tactical, combinational player in the Morphy style. But in his late
thirties he developed insight into subtle positional characteristics that take precedence in
positions in which the centre is fully or partially blocked by immobile pawns. Steinitz tried to
answer the mystery of why some attacks succeed, regardless of how skillful the defender, while
others fail, regardless of how talented the attacker. A failed attack, he added, often results in
defeat for the attacker, whose forces suddenly become poorly coordinated in the face of a
counterattack. 
Steinitz concluded that in a typical position each side has certain small advantages which tend to
balance one another. For example, a player may have weakened the opponent's pawns but at the expense
of trading a bishop for a slightly less valuable knight. An attack is justified only when the
balance has been upset, either by the player's mistakes or the opponent's good moves. Morphy's
advantage in development was one way of upsetting the balance. But by the 1870s, after Morphy's
games became familiar to all masters, it became harder and harder to obtain a lead in development
against an unwilling opponent. 
Steinitz realized that the way to justify a decisive attack in the post-Morphy era was to accumulate
small, often subtle, advantages—for example, having two bishops when one's opponent has two knights,
having an entrenched knight at a fortified outpost, or having greater maneuvering space. In his
games Steinitz showed how slow-evolving maneuvers in the opening, particularly with knights, paid
dividends in the middlegame if the centre was closed. (See Game 6.) He originated the term “hole” to
mean a vulnerable square that has lost its pawn protection and can be occupied favourably by an
enemy piece. 
While a lead in development may be transient, other advantages, such as a superior pawn structure,
could be nurtured into the endgame, Steinitz said. Structural weaknesses generally involve pawns
that are difficult to defend or squares (especially in the centre or around the king) that enemy
pieces can occupy without being dislodged by pawn attacks. The following common pawn weaknesses are
disadvantageous in direct proportion to their exploitability, which tends to increase as pieces are
exchanged. A pawn with no friendly pawns on adjoining files is called an isolated pawn; isolated
pawns may confer middlegame compensation through control of important squares (if located in the
centre) or by giving rooks adjoining open files along which to attack. A pawn on an open file whose
advance is restrained by an enemy pawn on an adjoining file and that is unguardable by any other
pawn is termed a backward pawn. Two pawns that occupy the same file (through captures) are called
doubled pawns. 
The small advantages could be converted at an appropriate moment to material by means of attack. He
added that a player who does not attack when in a position advantageous enough to justify it will
lose the advantage. Unlike the Romantics, who relentlessly aimed for the enemy king, Steinitz argued
that the nature of the position dictated whether to target the kingside or queenside. The win of a
mere pawn was in the large majority of cases fatal among first-class masters. 
Some subtle advantages do not become significant until the endgame, Steinitz found. For example,
after routine pawn captures and recaptures, a player is often left with three pawns each on the
kingside and queenside, while the opponent has four on the kingside and two on the queenside. The
kingside pawns are often held back near or on their original squares for king protection. But,
advancing on the queenside where the player has a majority of the pawns, referred to as a queenside
majority, can create a powerful passed pawn that may prove decisive in the late middlegame or
endgame. On the other hand, one of Steinitz' students, Harry Nelson Pillsbury, popularized the
“minority attack,” in which the player with fewer queenside pawns advances them in certain positions
in order to weaken his opponent's pawns. 
Steinitz was also the first master of defensive play. Even when playing the White pieces, he often
invited his opponent to open the centre by exchanging pawns or to be the first to cross the fourth
rank. He reasoned that such attacks must be premature if the equilibrium was in balance and so could
be punished after patient defensive play. 
While Philidor was known for his writings and Morphy for his games, Steinitz left a legacy of both.
In match play he consistently defeated the leading Romantics—Adolf Anderssen, Joseph Blackburne,
Johann Zukertort, and Mikhail Chigorin. He is regarded as the first player to take a scientific
approach to chess.
The classical era 
Among Steinitz' greatest followers were two Germans, Emanuel Lasker and Siegbert Tarrasch. Lasker
dethroned Steinitz as world champion in 1894 and refined his theory of defensive play. He showed
that even cramped positions yielded strong counterattacking chances. Also, he was the first player
to appreciate the psychological nature of chess and found that, by accepting allegedly bad positions
or ones with merely inferior pawn structures, he placed a psychological burden on many of his
opponents by encouraging their optimism. (See Games 7, 8, 9, and 10.) His practical approach to the
game enabled Lasker to hold the world championship title until 1921. But, as a later world champion,
Max Euwe, said of him, “It is not possible to learn much from him; one can only stand and wonder.” 
Tarrasch took Steinitz' principles in a different direction. He regarded the control of space and
mobility of pieces as much more important than Steinitz believed and felt that these qualities would
compensate for structural pawn weaknesses. He was the champion of a particular pawn structure
featuring an isolated d-pawn. Steinitz saw such a pawn as a liability that could be advantageously
blockaded by an enemy knight and eventually captured. But Tarrasch noted that the same pawn could
support one or two of his own knights on more advanced squares, and this often outweighed the
apparent weakness. His games show a relentless effort to get all his pieces on their best squares
and to gain control of more space. This led Tarrasch to original attitudes toward material, such as
stating that two bishops and a rook were roughly equivalent to two rooks and a knight. He hated the
cramped positions that Lasker mastered and relished. Tarrasch preferred to use a superior centre to
attack on both wings of the board at the same time. As the world's foremost chess author for more
than three decades, Tarrasch popularized Steinitz' findings, often by reducing them to simple rules
such as "develop knights before bishops” or “don't move your queen early in the game."
Lasker was finally dethroned by Capablanca, who added little that was new to the theory of the game
but showed how the teachings of Steinitz and Tarrasch could be molded into a nearly unbeatable
formula. Capablanca perfected the skill that players call technique, the nurturing of tiny
advantages until they become decisive. Capablanca paid little attention to the opening and played
both 1 e4, the favourite of masters until about 1910, and 1 d4, a move more likely to keep the
centre closed. He preferred middlegames with clear-cut plans. But he argued that each move, even in
the opening, should further that goal, a contrast with Morphy, who appeared to develop pieces for
the sake of development. 
Capablanca created a style of play that allowed him to minimize risk; he went a record eight years,
from 1916 to 1924, without losing a tournament or match game. (See Games 10, 11, and 14.) Other
leading players, among them Akiba Rubinstein and Carl Schlechter, developed their own minimum-risk
techniques as they tried to perfect the ideas of Steinitz. Material advantage became a high
priority. Sacrifices declined in frequency and gambits almost disappeared at the master level. The
absence of new ideas in chess was reflected in the appearance of agreed draws in fewer than 20
moves, ironically called 'grandmaster draws', in the first two decades of the 20th century.
Hypermodernism 
A major school of chess sprang up after World War I with an assault by central European masters on
Steinitz' approach to the centre and the dogmatic rules set down by Tarrasch. The Hypermoderns, as
they were known, delighted in showing how the guidelines of the previous generation could be
violated profitably. In one of his favourite openings, Aron Nimzowitsch began with three pawn
advances followed by a move by his queen. His colleague Richard Réti wrote that the new generation
was interested not in rules but in exceptions. 
The most important exceptions concerned the centre squares, chiefly e4, e5, d4, and d5. The
Hypermoderns believed that the central pawn structure that had been a goal since Philidor could be a
liability because it provides the opponent with a target. It was not the occupation of the centre
that was desirable but rather its control, they argued. Gyula Breyer, one of the Hypermoderns,
summed up their approach when he joked, "After the first move 1 e4 White's game is in the last
throes."
At the heart of Hypermodernism was a new approach to the opening. The two leading members of the new
school, Réti and Nimzowitsch, attacked Tarrasch's emphasis on building a solid centre in the first
dozen moves, starting with 1 e4 or 1 d4. Réti often began a game with 1 Nf3 and did not advance more
than one pawn past the third before the middlegame had begun. Instead, he and the other Hypermoderns
rediscovered the fianchetto, or development of a bishop on its longest diagonal—i.e., b2 and g2 for
White, b7 and g7 for Black. Fianchettoed bishops had been a favourite of Howard Staunton in the
1830s but fell out of favour after Morphy popularized open centres. Réti's idea was to attack the
centre with pieces posted on the wings. (See Game 12.) In one of his most controversial maneuvers,
he shifted his queen to a1 to emphasize the power of his bishop at b2. 
The Hypermoderns invited their opponents to advance pawns in the centre and in some cases tried to
provoke them. For example, Alexander Alekhine, a future world champion who explored Hypermodern
ideas in the 1920s, developed an opening that consisted of meeting 1 e4 with 1 . . . Nf6 in order to
tempt White to advance to e5, where the pawn might later come under fire. 
Nimzowitsch also played originally in the opening. Previously, masters almost automatically answered
1 d4 with 1 . . . d5 so as not to allow White to dominate the centre with 2 e4. Nimzowitsch,
however, played 1 . . . Nf6 with the idea of controlling the crucial e4 square with minor pieces, a
bishop pin of a White knight at c3 and/or a fianchettoed bishop at b7. (See Game 13.) His systems,
known as the Queen's Indian Defense and Nimzo-Indian Defense, remain among the most popular in
competitive play. 
Nimzowitsch's exploration of openings that had been previously explored and found wanting led him to
another Hypermodern tenet: the voluntary surrender of the centre. Steinitz had claimed to have
originated this idea (see Game 6), but Nimzowitsch elaborated on it in several games and in his
writings. For example, a common pawn chain occurs in the centre, when White pawns occupy d4 and e5
and Black pawns occupy d5 and e6. Tarrasch had shown how Black obtains counterchances by attacking
the enemy centre by advancing the c-pawn to c5 and f-pawn to f6. Tarrasch's opponents tried to
maintain the chain of White pawns on their squares. But Nimzowitsch tried to find the right time to
exchange White's pawns (dxc5 and, after . . . f6, then exf6). His goal was to occupy the deserted
squares at d4 and e5 with his minor pieces—i.e., bishops and knights. 
Nimzowitsch was also influential in the development of defensive ideas of prophylaxis—the
anticipation, prevention, and restraint of the opponent's play.
The Soviet school 
By the late 1920s the new approach to the centre had been quickly assimilated. Most of the world's
leading masters, even Capablanca and Tarrasch, had tried Hypermodern openings. The next generation,
which emerged in the 1930s and, after the interval of World War II, the late 1940s, sought to find
exceptions to other rules. The leaders of the next generation came from the Soviet Union, whose
players dominated the world championship from 1948 to 1972. 
The Soviets were distinguished by the high priority they placed on gaining the initiative, a
willingness to accept pawn structures even Lasker had considered bad, a new appreciation of
differences in material, and a concentrated approach to pregame preparation. 
The Soviets valued the initiative (the ability to force matters) more than most positional
considerations. While the Hypermoderns and Lasker often challenged their opponents to make the first
aggressive moves, the Soviets regarded the initiative as vitally important. When defending, they
rejected the solid if passive approach of Steinitz and Tarrasch and tried to generate a
counterattack. (See Game 16.) 
The striving for the initiative led the Soviets to modify Hypermodern ideas about the centre by
analyzing openings to find dynamic, tactical play regardless of pawn coordination or centre control.
For example, David Bronstein and Isaac Boleslavsky showed in the King's Indian Defense how White
could be allowed a free rein to occupy the centre by advancing the c-, d-, e-, and even f-pawns. But
Black could obtain counterplay by advancing the e-pawn to e5 and exchanging it on d4 - a surrender
of the centre that had been anathema to Tarrasch. (See Game 18.) 
Since the Hypermoderns had demonstrated that Black did not have to meet 1 e4 with 1 . . . e5, the
Soviets devoted enormous attention to the most aggressive alternative, the Sicilian Defense (1 . . .
c5), which also involves a surrender of the centre. Although White gains more space and mobility,
Boleslavsky showed how Black could find equalizing counterchances by advancing the d-pawn one square
and the e-pawn two squares. This creates a hole at d5 and makes the d-pawn backward but enables
Black to maximize use of the c-file and attack the White e-pawn. 
The Soviets sought unstable positions, in which each player had several pluses and minuses. Mikhail
Botvinnik, the first Soviet master to win the world championship, popularized a variation of the
French Defense in which Black exchanges a good bishop in order to ruin White's pawn structure.
Botvinnik accepted several weak squares because of the absence of the bishop and was often forced to
castle queenside, rather than kingside. But his games revealed rich resources for counterplay on
kingside or queenside. 
Another means of obtaining the instability cherished by the Soviets was by material sacrifices.
Russian masters from the 1930s to the '50s were especially fond of trading a rook for a bishop or
knight. Such sacrifices had been used since the Romantic era as part of a kingside attack. But the
Soviets used it instead to obtain positional compensation, such as to ruin an opponent's pawn
structure or improve their own or to eliminate a powerful enemy bishop or knight. 
Botvinnik's major contributions included finding an optimal way of preparing for a game. He studied
the strengths and weaknesses of opponents he was likely to meet in the near future. He analyzed the
amount of time he had spent on particular moves in order to think more efficiently. He played
training games to test his nerves and concentration skills under conditions simulating tournament
play—even encouraging an opponent to smoke cigarettes. 
But most of all Botvinnik developed highly complex opening systems, in openings such as the Queen's
Gambit Declined, English Opening, French Defense, and Nimzo-Indian Defense. (See Games 16, 17, and
19.) Instead of discovering a new opening move that might win a single game and then become useless,
Botvinnik tried to work out complicated systems that would last for years. For example, his analysis
of the Queen's Gambit Declined in the late 1930s won games for him nearly 10 years later. Typically,
the Botvinnik Variation of the Queen's Gambit Declined leads to a highly unbalanced middlegame in
which Black sacrifices a pawn and ruins his kingside pawn structure but obtains excellent chances on
the queenside, where Black has four pawns to White's two. (See Game 16.) His approach to the opening
had a great influence during the 1950s and '60s as leading masters tried to analyze openings as far
as the 20th or 25th move.
The pragmatists 
The most important changes in chess thinking after 1970 concerned a more practical approach to
competition. The Soviets maintained that by unbalancing a position they placed an onus on each
player to find the best moves. In quieter positions, second-best moves could be permitted. But in
sharp positions, the Soviets said, failing to find the correct move would often mean losing the
initiative or turning an advantage into a disadvantage. 
A new attitude became evident in the games of Fischer (see Game 20) and his successor as world
champion, Karpov, in the 1970s. The pragmatist approach holds that games are decided not by
brilliant moves but by bad ones made under the influence of a shortage of time. (See Game 21.) There
are only a few times during a game when a player must find the best move, the pragmatists believed.
The Soviets' perfectionism led to an increase in games ending in middlegame victories. The
pragmatists shifted the emphasis slightly toward the endgame. 
There were also some subtle changes in thinking from the 1970s through the '90s about conducting the
late opening and early middlegame stages of a game. Among them was a depreciation of the bishop: The
Hypermoderns had attacked Tarrasch's high opinion of an unobstructed bishop and said a bishop could
profitably be traded for a knight. The post-Soviet players often traded bishop for knight for
minimal compensation. They also often exchanged their good bishop, the one less encumbered by pawns,
and retained their bad one for slight positional compensation.
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Ciao Ivo, grazie per la sintesi tratta dall'enciclopedia. Per il blog
che hai segnalato.... è quello che gestisco io ;-)
Come hai potuto vedere ho appena finito il periodo 1600 -> ipemoderni
e dal momento che mi manca un testo unico sto cercando di stilare una
lista in ordine cronologico delle scuole di pensiero del XX secolo per
poter continuare la rubrica "le scuole di pensiero" senza saltare
qualcosa di importante.


che hai segnalato.... è quello che gestisco io ;-)
GRANDE!
Mi piace parecchio, complimenti!
Ivo

 Ivo
Beh ti ringrazio, i complimenti fan sempre piacere :-)

 qualcosa di importante.
Secondo me trovi tutto sui libri di Kasparov (i Suoi grandi
predecessori) :-)
Se non ricordo male, presentando i vari campioni del mondo e i
migliori giocatori delle varie epoche li "inquadra" come stile di
gioco, formazione e "scuola di pensiero"
(a proposito: ma la scuola di Botvinnik può essere una "scuola di
pensiero"?)
saludos
lordste

 lordste
Mmmmh più che scuola di botvinnik si dovrebbe parlare di scuola
sovietica, che di fatto tiene il monopolio fino all'ascesa di Fischer.
Probabilmente la rubrica prenderà un nuovo corso e parlerò delle varie
correnti in articoli separati. Prima degli ipermoderni era una
pacchia, era tutto più lineare...

 pacchia, era tutto più lineare...
Beh, io intendevo proprio l'impostazione analitico-matematica data da
Botvinnik al gioco. IMHO, la scuola sovietica è *anche* la scuola di
Botvinnik, ma comprende pure giocatori (Tal su tutti) che con il
"patriarca" e le sue idee poco c'azzeccavano...
Pensa poi al match Kasparov-Karpov, con il primo fortemente osteggiato
dal vecchio Bot, che vedeva in Karpov il degno seguace della sua
impostazione di pensiero, contrastata dal giovane e "spericolato"
Garry dell'epoca... erano entrambi sovietici, ma di due "scuole"
opposte!
Lordste

 Lordste
Karpov è già successivo. Per scuola sovietica ci si riferisce a quella
che precede la conquista del titolo di fischer. Comunque si, la scuola
sovietica non ha una sola faccia ma tante e molto diverse tra loro.
Oltre al già citato tal mi viene in mente petrosjan che aveva un modo
di concepire gli scacchi ancora diverso. In poche parole è un vero e
proprio casino, me la studierò bene cercando di fare un lavoro decente
e di limitare i danni :-)

 e di limitare i danni :-)
Eheh... buon lavoro!

 Eheh... buon lavoro!
Grazie :-)