The missing scans

In my previous post I arrived at the conclusion that I had no adequate scans for knightforks and for prelimanary moves. The diagram below shows that point quite well. There is a knightfork possible on f6, but both the white knight and the targets aren't in place yet (K on h7 and Q on e8). Some prelimanary moves are needed to get the job done.
























White to move

But how do you train for such invisible knightforks? The prelimanary moves can be found by thinking, once the pattern of the fork is recognized. The prelimanry moves don't seem to be the problem. But how do you know which virtual fork has good chances to bear fruit? How to scan for this?

A tribute to Mike Anderson

Speeding up















Glenn Wilson drawed our attention to the nifty program of Mike Anderson. Since I experienced trouble with my double attack-scan I decided to use his program.

The scan for double attacks is quite time consuming and so far I haven't seen hardly any habit forming to speed things up or to make it easier. It is a compound scan and maybe it works better to train the constituent parts seperately. To that end I'm experimenting with Mike's great little program.

The program is based on the microdrills of DLM. Let me demonstrate.
























White to place a queen.

The problem is where you should place a white queen in order to attack both targets simultaneously in a way that you win the rook. To solve this you need to scan for the following:

• where do the diagonals which radiate from the rook intersect with the lines that radiate from the king?
• can you skewer?
• can the rook intercept the check? (that's why the queen can't stand on b3 in the diagram)
  
• can the king protect the rook?

Even such simple scan has 4 constituent parts already which have to be checked seperately. I strive for a speed of 2.6 seconds per mouseclick. When I try to do it faster the mouse handling begins to interfere. Any slower means that I'm thinking in stead of applying a habit.

In stead of a rook and a king the program enables you to do the same exercise with a bishop and a king, which is a comparable exercise, except that you scan for the horizontal and vertical lines that go out from the bishop in stead of the diagonals.

The program give you the possibility to use a knight and a king, which combines the exercises of rook-king and bishop-king. That is to say, you scan for all the lines that radiate from the knight for intersection with the lines radiating from the king. Be it horizontal-, vertical- or diagonal lines. Besides that, an extra element is added:
























White to place a queen.

With a knight close to the rim of the board you have an extra possibility to win it. You can place the queen on the squares with the blue edge where she attacks both the knight and all of it's escape squares. That's a different kind of double attack. It doesn't make a difference where the black king is, as long as it is far enough away to prevent the knight from jumping into safety.

The exercise with the knight takes me 15 minutes (5.3 seconds per move). I want to be able to do it in under 12 minutes (2.6 seconds per move).

Thanks for sharing your program, Mike!

What is not adressed.
The program gives me an opportunity to improve on the constituent parts of the double attack. There are two parts of the double attack that are not adressed by the program though:

• knightforks
• replacement of targets

Knightforks.
The movement of a knight is quite alien to the human mind. The knightvision exercises of DLM are not really making me happy. I haven't found a good alternative though. The checks for knightforks consumes a considerable amount of time of the total double attack-scan.

Replacement of targets.
You don't want to scan for double attacks that are manifest on the board solely. You want to know if there are any potential double attacks too. There are a few techniques and prelimanry moves to place targets on the spots that are under attack:

• Trade. You can trade a target piece with a low value, thus forcing a takeback with a piece of a higher value.
• Annahilation of the defender of a target. Thus making the target ready to pluck.
• Deflection of the defender of a target.
• Decoying a target to the right spot.
• Etc..

Especially difficult to see is if the target is an empty square.

If I am able to adress these omissions and if I could proof that you can learn a habit by training it's constituent parts, that would be a major leap forward in the theory of chess improvement with the aid of habit forming.

Heads I win, tails you lose

Lurking dangers















After a few years of conscientious blogging about chess only I hope you don't mind some off topic rant.

I have been thinking a lot about the phenomenon confirmation bias lately. It is very worthwhile to read the article of Wiki aboout this. If you want something to be true, you ignore reality and you only see what confirms your ideas. There is a sort of buffering what excludes non confirming ideas from entering alltogether.

[Wiki]
The effect is also known as belief bias, belief preservation, belief overkill, hypothesis locking, polarization effect, positive bias, the Tolstoy syndrome, selective thinking, myside bias, Plate pick-up and Morton's demon.

Alternately, Murphy's Law of Research dictates that "Enough research will tend to support your theory."
[/Wiki]

A few years ago Margriet and I stayed at a chess camping in France. There was a guy from Belgium. In Belgium they have a language border. Everybody who is not from Belgium cannot imagine what that is. This guy was from the French speaking side. The enemy speaks Dutch. Since he knew we were from the Netherlands, he spoke Dutch to us. We had a good contact with him and we played a lot of games. After two weeks we decided to ask him about the language border, since inquiring minds need to know. All of a sudden he started to speak French and he pretended that he couldn't understand Dutch. Margriet and I were quite perplexed. No matter what we said, he refused to talk Dutch anymore.

Confirmation bias seems to be based on emotions. Those emotions prevent logical thinking. There are quite a few problems with this:

• The truth is denied
• Any attempt from outside to adress logical reason is placed in the camp of the enemy
• Logic reason is replaced by emotions.
• Emotions are more powerfull than logical thoughts.
• Emotions are much faster than logical thoughts.
• It is contageous.
• It is incomprehendsible for outsiders
  

Confirmation bias seems to be very common. So common that we tend to deny that it effects us. Which in itself is an example of confirmation bias.

The Belgium language war suffices all criteria above.
To me it seems that confirmation bias is the root of all wars, quarrels and misunderstandings. I'm very surprised there is so little scientific interest for such life influencing problem.

Everywhere where you see something incomprehendsible in social or political relations you can be sure that confirmation bias is the root. Take the following examples:

• The lauguage barrier in Belgium.
• The Chinese ambassador in our country once said: I would rather give up an arm than to lose Taiwan.
  
• Denial of the Armenian genocide by Turkey.
• Claiming of Cyprus by both Greece and Turkye.
• Claiming of the Kuril Islands by both Russia and Japan.
• The claiming of Tibet by China.
• The problems of muslims with pictures of the Prophet.

These problems have in common that they are quite incomprehendsible for outsiders and there are a lot of emotions involved.

I have taken great pains to find out what the confirmation bias was of the Germans in WWII. To that end I read mein Kampf from Hitler. The main idea was that the Germans were something special. Übermenschen. To us, who live next door to them, such idea would only give rise to risibility. If we think about Übermenschen, the Germans wouldn't be in the top ten at all. But no matter how illogical and ridicule the ideas are, they proved to be very contageous.

The problem is that outsiders tend to take such ideas not serious, since they are so illogical and they can't imagine anything by the triggered emotions. But taking the ideas not serious can be quite dangerous, as history has proved. Confirmation bias is a highly contageous illness that can even influence those who try to prevent contamination. Before 9-11 I had no opinion at all about Muslims, what's more, I didn't wanted to have one. Due to Bin Laden I now have an opinion about them. Which was his goal. Confirmation bias causes polarization into two opposite camps. The ideas in both camps are necessarily biassed.

On smaller scale the same happens. Take for instance the confirmation bias of people towards Elizabeth Vicary. People drawing conclusions based on non existing facts.

That makes this post slightly chess related. Boards of chess clubs and chess federations tend to bicker every few years. It usually starts the same way: somebody does something for a reason that is incomprehendsible to others. In stead of asking "why do you do that?" they fill in the motivations of that person by themselves. Usually an evil motivation is presumed. On their turn they start to behave strange against that person, who suddenly founds himself accused of evil intentions. When he starts to defend himself a quarrel is born and emotions take over. It is the same everywhere. Take the FIDE, the USCF, the KNSB (dutch federation) etc. or maybe your own chessclub. Even the chess improvement scene is ruled by biassed cults:)

Positional scans, inventing my own wheel

Hard to spot.



















State of affairs of the tactical scans.
I have done about 300 masterlevel problems. The paralyzing stalling of the brain hasn't occurred anymore due to the scans. That is a big plus. I was pleasantly surprised by my pace and my accuracy. Some scans are difficult, some are easy and already start to become a habit.

• Double attacks. This is a difficult scan since there are often multiple possibilities which have to be examined. Further you need two targets at fork distance, but the targets aren't necessary already in place. Sometimes a preliminary move or trade is necessary. Besides that, an empty square can be a target too.
• Batteries. This is an easy scan. Both real and potential batteries are now recognized within seconds.
• Pins/skewers. This is an easy scan too, which I already am able to do in a few seconds. I discovered that there is a sort of "semi-pin". Usually that concerns the pawns that are in front of the opponents king. The aren't directly pinned, yet they can't move without causing great danger to the king. In combinations you treat them often as actual pins.
• Overloaded pieces. These are hard too spot. Often you have to trust on a feeling that the pieces are overloaded.
• Convergence squares. Sometimes hard to spot if there are many of them close together.

Scans that are concrete and not compound become a habit fast. Scans that are abstract and compound are difficult to learn. Maybe it must be divided in simpler subtasks.
The double attack-scan worries me the most. After 300 exercises I'm nowhere near a habit.

Positional scans.
I have thought a lot about the proper approach. I even re-read Buckley. There seem to be 3 major tasks in the middlegame which deserve 2 seperate scans.

• Improve your worst piece. Scan: identify your worst piece. This is something I definitely know but always forget to do. Once a bad piece is identified, I know how to activate it. The scan only is intended to make you aware of pieces that can perform better, not to tell you how to activate them.
  
• Induce weak pawns. Scan: identify which pawns can be forced to become weak.
• Attack weak pawns. Since you are already aware of them, no seperate scan is needed.

A downside is that both scans are compound scans. You have to examine every piece for the first scan and every pawn for the second scan. And both scans are pretty abstract too: How good or bad a piece is is rather subjective.

The tactical scans have some benefits for positional play too: targets are identified, convergence of pieces is a positional asset too, overloaded pieces indicate targets for attack etc..

There are two possibilities to train the two positional scans: use the strategy module of PCT and look if the scans lead you to the answers, or take a masterlevel game and go through it, performing the scans every move.

Cumulative analysis.
I tried this scan (again). But it is quite alien to my usual way of thinking and I don't expect the scans to become a habit in short time. So I decided to postpone it.

Cumulative analysis

Confusion. . .





















In order not to confuse you I had better not written this post. It is about a nagging idea which I can't get rid of, so in order to set me free I share it. Sorry, I don't mean to disturb you.

I'm completely happy with the scanmethods that I described in previous posts. And that is what I am training right now. In fact the method is a form of extended microdrills, with more practical value added.

The idea that I can't help thinking about might not be possible or practical at all. Yet there is a certain theoretical beauty in it that causes me to think about it.

The scan methods as described are useful in any position. I mean that you can break in in the middle of a game and start the diagnosis with these scans. It is quite useful to be able to do that. But that is not how we play. We play move by move, which means that theoreticly we can diagnose the game in a cumulative way. In order to do that, all consequences of a single move must be seen. That is quite a task. Maybe even too big to be practical. But it is the only way to prevent your positions from being accidental. I will try to explain it with a diagram.
























White to move

1.Ra7+ Ke8
Common practice is that I treat the new position as a new position. Which it is not. Let me focus at move 1. ... Ke8. If my diagnosis was up to date so far, then I have to look only at the cumulative effect of Ke8. That is to say: the black king leaves f7, which has certain effects, and he is put on e8, which has certain effects. An effect of the latter for instance being the interruption in the communication between the rooks. With cumulative analysis you have only to worry about the current move, since the cumulative effect of the previous moves is already known.

That is not how it works with me now. Since I don't look at the exact effect of every move, I must treat the new position as new. That is to say, I have to make a full scan of the position, as if I have never seen it before. If I'm lucky those scans reveal that the rook on b8 is no longer protected. In the position above it took me about a minute to see that. Simply because I was looking at other parts of the board first.

I wonder if it is possible to enlighten the task of cumulative analysis by making it a habit. That would change the feeling that I now often have: that a position befalls me accidently. That the features of the position seem to appear out of the blue.

Most miraculous problem ever.

Black to move

This is the weirdest problem I have ever seen. I had great problems to believe that it actually works!

At the club

Look at the right spots.























Ideas tested at the club.
Friday I tried my scansystem against an opponent against whom I have never won a single game over the years. He has about 200 ratingpoints more and my score is +0 =12 -3, which is actually quite good.
For some reason our play doesn't match. I cannot get grip on his pieces and he cannot get grip on my pieces. Our latest encounters were all draws.

Although the scans are still time- and effortconsuming I managed a few times to do the full scans during the game. That showed me that the amount of elementary tactical motifs was way below the average in a masterlevel problem. There were a few knightforks now and then, but then I had to put my knight on a square which it couldn't reach because it was solidly protected.

No tactical shots.
The scans told me with certainty that there were no viable tactical combinations around. (The game became a draw again.) That brings me to the next point. I'm very happy with the scans and I'm quite sure that it will get me lots of points once the habit is fully settled. Yet there are situations that there simply is no combination around. No matter how good your scans are. For this situation a positional scan must be invented.

Positional scans.
I'm sure that a positional scan will sound as trivial as the tactical scan after developing it, yet I must take the pains necessary to go through the process of formulating a positional mnemonic and testing it. The positive side of triviality is that it is the best way to keep things secret. The items, however trivial, are carefully selected from a bunch of irrelevant trivial items. The fact that the application of a mnemonic is subject to subtility and it needs considerable efforts to establish the habit is sufficient guarantee that my ideas will remain "secret" for the mass.

With a tactical approach the elementary tactical motifs seem to come out of the blue. A scanmethod is only invented to detect them once they arise accidentally during the game.
This raises the positional question: how can I put my pieces so that the tactical scans start to deliver positive results? In other words, how can I inflict my opponent with double attacks, batteries, pins, overloaded pieces and convergency squares?

First I need a strategy to do so. There is no doubt that a lot of it can be found in positional books. But before you can decide which positional path to go you must scan the features of the position at hand. That is where the yet to invent positional scans come in. In the coming time I will elaborate on this. Next to my daily tactical scan-drills.

Just a coïncidence?
I have done a vast of amount of experiments the past 3.5 years. It always surprised me that none of the exercises yielded any interest. You never get something extra for free. A positive side-effect which you had never thought of. There was always a direct relation between your efforts and what it brought you. While I'm solving masterlevel problems with the aid of the mnemonic, all of a sudden my intuition begun to work. The killermoves started to rise up in my brain and I didn't know where it came from. Just an urgent feeling to make the right move came up. I wonder if that is a coïncidence.

A few questions.
Likesforests wrote the following comment on my previous post:

Dabattpinolc, dabattpinolc, dabattpinolc. It seems like it can't be THAT easy but you have extreme experience studying tactics so I will also try this mnemonic out as I study tactics and report back my success or lack thereof. I have a feeling this will speed up my process, but won't be able to solve some positions, that have say a queen that can be trapped or somesuch that's not a DA BATT PIN OL C. What about the traditional checks, captures, and threats? Do you try that first? That sequence seems to crack simpler problems very quickly.

I understand the doubt that it can't be THAT easy. The difference is made by the following:
You can't educate your autopilot while you are on autopilot. The conditions are consciousness and an active attitude. You don't focus on the solution of a problem but on the scans that trigger the pattern recognition.

Some tactics are not included, like a queen trap. I have focussed on the bulk. Initially I had included traps in the mnemonic. Since I usually don't miss a queen trap, I dropped it. Feel free to include it yourself. I'm rather pragmatic and try to avoid any ballast. It is difficult enough as it is.

The scan for checks, captures and threats is designed to narrow down on the candiate moves. It is in fact a kind of an heuristic. The scans I suggest have another goal. In stead of narrowing down your view, it is widened. The used method is guided pattern recognition. Just make sure you look at all important spots and your pattern recognition will take over. I have tried CCT myself but it yields to much irrelevant moves.

That sequence seems to crack simpler problems very quickly.
I need no aid to crack simple problems.

Blue Devil asked:
Do you think what holds you back in chess is not finding the right move in complex tactical positions? E.g., is missing such things the reason you aren't 2000 rated?

Partly. The other part is the positional side of the story, as I explained above. The solution for both problems is the same though: guide your pattern recognition. Both tactical and positional.