Seeing everything as new

Say, there is a big tree in my garden. It casts a lot of shadow, so it makes my house ïnside very dark. At one day, I decide to chop it down because I got so annoyed to have to put on the lights by day, even in the summer. After a good night of sleep, I have forgotten that I did chop the tree and why I did it. When I wake up, I look in the garden and I start to rave: "which idiot has chopped my tree while I was asleep? When I now sit in the garden it will be too hot for me since there is no shadow!"

This happens when you see everything always as "new". When you don't see the relation between your actions and their consequenses. This may look highly unreasonable and highly improbable, yet this is exactly what happens in a chess game. Today my opponent made an unexpected knight move. I was in a bad position, and I was looking for eternal check. I looked at the consequences how his knightmove and I concluded that I could still put my rooks where I wanted them. After a few moves I gave a check with my rook. In stead of moving his king away, he simply put his knight in between. I had totally missed that move. I had seen the unexpected knight move. I had seen some consequences, but not all. You may argue that in this case, it was not me but my opponent who made the move. It was not you, but it was your neighbour who chopped the tree. But that doesn't make a difference. Somehow, we are blind for the consequences of actions, when it comes to chess. We see the action, but don't see the consequences.

This, and only this, is the main reason why we are so bad in chess. We see the actions, but are consequence blind.We see everything "as new". As if the consequence is there without a cause. No matter if we were the cause or our opponent.

This is what a brainscan of the amateur reveals. We see always everything as a new position. Every move. No matter if it was your move or your opponents.

ATH 1900 Fide estimated

In about 11 months my FIDE estimated rating at CT has risen from 1844 to 1900 today. Most of this has been realized the past 7 months, when I started with my new method of making diagrams and memorizing limited amounts of high rated tactical problems. As you might have noticed I made a detour for two months or so with endgames during this time.
In fact, I might be somewhat underrated even. Since I wasn't aware that the FIDE estimated which is calculated during standard tactics makes use of the time I spend on a problem. I have the habit to go to the mall or to watch the telly while the clock is ticking. I will change that habit from now on and see what it brings.

How to represent checkmate?

I'm making good progress in solving tactics in which I have to gain wood. The method of making diagrams of the essence of positions works very well, and transfers chess knowledge to new positions. At the same time I continue to act poor when it comes to king hunts. That is, mate in x moves. The reason for that is that the king hunt is about squares. Empty or not. It is difficult to make a readable diagram for these mates.

For gaining wood, the diagrams are pretty straight forward. Targets, attackers, squares, defenders are very well represented by a position with arrows and colored squares. But for checkmate, there is a continuous change of covered squares when the pieces move around. When I try to describe that with arrows and colored squares, it becomes chaotic very soon. Since the law is that you can't visualize what you can't represent in the mind, I'm on the lookout for other ways to represent these mates. So far I have no idea how to tackle this problem.

Two random diagrams to see what we are talking about:

Black to move.
5r1k/1p4pp/8/p5n1/2PR2b1/PPBPq1P1/3N3P/6QK b - - 0 1
You can find the solution here.

White to move.
r1b3Q1/p1q5/2n4R/bpk1pp2/8/2P5/P1PB1PP1/1R2K3 w - b6 0 1
You can find the solution here.

Tactics of the same rating that gain wood are much easier for me, lately.

What the heck?!

After thinking for 20 minutes I failed this problem which, given it's simple solution, should be rated about 1300 or so.

Black to move.
How is it possible to overlook such simple manoeuver for 20 minutes and still not see it?
What kind of training is needed to see these things?
You can find the solution here.

More about manoeuvers

Every tactic can be represented by a geometrical pattern. It contains the targets, the attackers and the road from the attackers to the targets. I call these geometrical patterns the static features of the position. If these patterns actual play a crucial role is decided by typical manoeuvers. The realm of the manoeuvers is governed by the initiative. I summarize this as the dynamics of the game. To give you an idea, it is perfectly possible that a certain position is won when you are to move, while you are lost when it's your opponent to move. This means that looking at the geometrics of the position alone can be very deceptive. We need to know more about the initiative.

The initiative.
Very little is known about the initiative. That's why I take a baffling position that has confused me for long, in order to see if I can find some governing rules.

Black to move.
You can find the problem here.
First I tried to apply some ideas like CCT in relation to the value of the pieces. But that just doesn't make sense. CCT orders the moves by force. The more forceful the move, the higher in the hierarchy. That might be something than can be easely calculated by a computer, but my brain has problems with that. I soon realized that the problems were caused by the fact that to different types of moves are mixed up.

Three ways to win with a tactic.
How do we win with a tactic? There are three ways:

• Mate the king
• Capture a piece
• Promote a pawn

There are moves that are directly related to these three methods and there are moves that are only indirectly related to these three goals. The latter are highly dependend of the initiative. The actual capture is delayed by postponing it. In order to get more favourable circumstances. Every postponing of the cashing in of a tactic is based on the initiative.

Direct moves first.
This means that we first must have an idea about the direct moves, before we can study the indirect ones. In the diagram above, mating the king or promoting a pawn is clearly not the theme. So the position is about captures. There is a natural hierchy of captures: the captures where a piece of low value is traded against a piece of high value first.

This means that the first capture that must be considered is Nxg6. That moves gains a value of +5 (a whole rook) since white is outnumbered on g6. After the gain, the initiative is handed over to white. The knight on f4 was shielding the black queen. Black is outnumbered on f4. Qxf5 Bxf5 Rxf5 leads to a cost of -3 (a bishop) for white. So the most logical sequence of capturing leads to an advantage of +5-3=+2 (the exchange) for black.
If you look at other captures that black can make, it soon becomes evident that he cannot improve on the given line. But maybe white can.

Then indirect moves.
The sequence of direct captures of both sides leads to a -/-2 disadvantage for white. Can he improve on that by postponing the direct captures while maintaining the initiative?
Take for instance 1. ... Nxg6 2.Qe3 threatening the black queen. If black plays the natural 2. ... Qe6 to get out of the way of the white rook and white plays 3.Bxh5 than all of a sudden black is in all sorts of problems. His knight is both pinned against the rook and outnumbered. His king is unsafe.
So black too must not play his most direct move 2. ... Qe6 but he must play 2. ...Rxe5. If black cashes in the queen  now the score becomes +5 (g6) -/-4 (f5) +3 (e5) = +4 for black (RRN vs Q).

Identifying the manoeuvres.
How do these manoeuvres work?
Manoeuver 1.
The problem with cashing in a capture is that it hands over the initiative.
With 1. ... Nxg6 2.Qe3 white abstain from the positive cashing in with 2.Qxf5 Bxf5 3.Rxf5.
In stead of that he introduces two new threats: 3.Rxf5 and Bxh5.
It's very tempting for white to rely on his +6 points (Rp) advantage and to save his queen. The price he pays though is giving up h5, his king safety, and a lot of invasion points for white to use. Alltogether that will proof too much. Especially since black has two undeveloped pieces (Ra8 and Bc8) so effectively he plays with a piece less.

Manoeuver 2.
So black has to answer with a manoeuver of himself.
1. ... Nxg6 2.Qe3 Rxe5 3.Rxf5 Rxf5.
Total cost of this manoeuver: +5 +3 -/-5 so  black gains a full piece. Since h5 is still protected the black king is still safe enough. The weak point of whites manoeuver is that he hasn't captured something during his previous move. He only threathen. But with Rxe5, only two threats remain for white: capture the queen with Rxf5 or capture the rook with dxe5. Both options are favourable for black, value-wise. Both keep the black king safe enough. Black gives some material back, but he doesn't compromises his king safety and het prevent to hand over invasion squares to white. In the end that is a better option. Since the pawnending is winning for black, white must prevent trades too.

A closer look at a combination

The KNpKN endgame showed me the way how to learn from a chess position in a definite way. That's why I have another look at a tactic from my database. A tactic I failed, lately. I realize now that I haven't dug deep enough in this position. I will try again, in order to see if I can get the same clarity as in the KNpKN endgame. This is the position:

Black to move. You can find the solution here.

Let's inventorize the basic elements first.

Element 1: Discovered attack

The move 1. ... c3+ is a discovered attack with as target the king and the bishop. The bishop on f1 is outnumbered.

Element 2: Discovered counter attack
After the move 2.Rxc3 the following counterattack reveals itself:

White can take the black bishop with check. It's a pity it's black to move. Yet black has to reackon with it.

Element 3: Counter attack hanging piece.
After the move 2.Rxc3 the following counterattack reveals itself:

 White can take the haning black rook at c7. It's a pity it's black to move. Yet black has to reackon with it.

Element 4: overloaded king.

After the move 2.Rxc3 the white king is overloaded.

Element 5: pin

 After the move 2.Rxc3 the white bishop is pinned against the rook since the rook is unsufficient protected due to an overloaded king.

Element 6: annihilation of the defender.
After 1. ... c3+ 2.Rxc3 Rh2+ the following position is reached:

The king is threatened. But it defends the rook on c3, so the king can't move.


Element 7: another pin.
After 1. ... c3+ 2.Rxc3 Rh2+ 3.Be2 the following position is reached:

The bishop is pinned against the king, so at least one counterattack (Bxb5+) is ruled out.


Element 8: another overloaded king.
After 1. ... c3+ 2.Rxc3 Rh2+ 3.Be2 the following position is reached:

The white king is overloaded.

Element 9: another discovered attack.
After 1. ... c3+ 2.Rxc3 Rh2+ 3.Re2 Bxe2 the following position is reached:

The threat Bxf1+ is another discovered attack.


Element 10: and yet another overloaded king.
After 1. ... c3+ 2.Rxc3 Rh2+ 3.Re2 Bxe2 4.Bxe2 the following position is reached:

And the white king is overloaded again.

Order of the elements.
Any combination in this position is made by combining these 10 elements. The elements themselves are basic, trivial, well known and easy to spot. Yet it is not so easy to work out the right order OTB. The mind is easily blurred by the sheer number of the elements. Especially the possible counter attacks add to the confusion.

That's why I want to have a closer look at this position. Maybe it's difficult to find the whole sequence at once. But maybe that isn't necessary. Maybe we can say something about the priority of the elements in every position. We are on the look out for ideas that are transferable from one position to the next.

The rule of the initiative.
One thing that disturbs the mind is the initiative. Take for instance a look at element 3. The black rook on c7 is hanging. but since it is black to move, that is irrelevant. It can become relevant though, if blacks next move isn't forcing enough. A position cannot be judged without the knowledge who is to move. The pure geometrical pattern on the board isn't paramount at all. That is disturbing. Can we find some clarifying rules here? When can a counter attack be neglected?
A counter attack can be neglected when a move is higher ranked in the CCT index. When you give a check, it is irrelevant that your opponent can capture your queen if he were to move. If you capture a queen, it is irrelevant that he can take a rook the next move. If you take a rook, it is irrelevant that he can threaten your queen the next move. Since a threat is no capture. If you capture a rook and he can give a check though, it is a different story. Since the check is higher rated than the rook capture, you hand over the initiative to your opponent. When that happens, the counter attacks of your opponent need to be taken into account.
Let's have a look at our position after 1. ... c3+ 2.Rxc3

Black to move.
It's logical to think first about cashing in the outnumbered bishop at f1 by immediately trading the rook on c3. But there is a problem with 2. ... Rxc3. You should ask yourself here: "has white a move with a higher CCT index than my Rxc3?" It turns out he has. 3.Bxb5+ with check! This hands over the initiative to your opponent. Only now you need to look at the counter attack of your opponent (element 2 and 3). In this case it is over fast. The discovered attack with check brings in a bishop and a rook for white. I failed this position since I missed that 3.Bxb5+ was with check, btw.
This means that the most logical move 2. ... Rxc3 isn't high enough ranked in the CCT index. The only reason to think further is when there is a higher ranked move than Rxc3. It turns out that there is: 2. ... Rh2+

A hypothesis to be tested.
Do we need to know all 10 tactical elements before we can decide to make a move? Before I wrote this post I was inclined to say "yes". But my experiences with the KNpKN ending casted doubt on this conclusion. Now it seems sufficient that we only see the tactical elements in the current position. With current I mean the position that is currently under investigation, whether that is the position that is actually on the board or an imaginary position in the future.
In practical situations, the mind is blurred by messing up the different future positions with the actual position. Can we safely escape from that by a ridgid application of the rule of the initiative? If so, it would rid the mind of a vast lot of ballast. How often do we say: I saw what tactical elements played a role, but I messed up the move order? Our probing mind with it's trial and error approach seems to work counterproductive here. I'm going to test this idea, in order to see if there are exceptions to the rule of the initiative.

Bustification of trial and error

After 3 days exercising the KNpKN endgame, my score went up to 80% succesrate. Enough to play this endgame with confidence in practice. Given the complications, I suspected that I would need at least 2-3 weeks to master this endgame, just as I needed for KRpKR.


Why did I learn this endgame so much faster?

I made a diagram of each position I didn't grasp straight away. By taking my time to define the goals and the relevant squares I was able to really grasp what is going on in a position. The diagrams were put in Anki and repeated. The hundreds of possibilities that arise in a trial and error approach were thus limited to only a few common themes. These themes or fighting methods or manoeuvers proved to be transferable from one position to another.

What can we learn from this?
Trial and error is totally busted as method. We already had hypothesized that, but now it is proven.
Every investigation of an unknown endgame has the following steps:

• Defining the maingoal of the position. For instance: guard the pawn towards the promotion square or create a passer etc..
• Define the subgoals for both sides that arise in reaction to the main goal. For instance: sac the knight for the latest pawn. Fork King and pawn. Block the promotion square with the king etc.. What one side tries to accomplish must the other side prevent.
• Define the squares that need to be dominated in order to reach the goals.
• Investigate the moves that lead to the required domination.

There are the following drawbacks with trial and error:

• You need way too much time with positions that should be pruned beforehand. It took me 3 full weeks to master the KRpKR endgame by solving CT problems. If I had taken my time to work positions totally out with diagrams, it would only have costed 3-4 days.
• Second is that recall of the final methods is weak and error prone. Since I haven't been exact, I only have a global idea how to approach that endgame.

Troyis redux.
When I got better at Troyis by just playing it, I worked on my complex motorskills. This is the kind of thing we can train unconscious on autopilot by just doing. The result of playing with Troyis was that I could do this exercise as fast as a grandmaster. So automatic training has a clear function when it comes to handling the dynamics of a position fast. It works on complex motorskills. Complex motorskills are geared around the dynamic handling of pieces in the mind. You need to be able to do that. But mere playing is already enough to exercise these skills.
When playing Troyis, I hypothesized that I could become even better and faster by inventing a strategy how to play it. I didn't test that at the time, since, well, it was only Troyis.
But now I tested the very same idea with the KNpKN endgame.

Defining the manoeuvers.
When you define the manoeuvers that belong to a certain endgame with the aid of diagrams, you are in fact pouring knowledge into patterns. When recalling these patterns with a high level of knowledge, you cut down on thinking time. Since the thinking already has been done during study time. The pruning of the irrelevant is already integrated into the pattern.

The past and the future.
In the past I have spilled my time and energy way too much with trying to improve my motorskills. What I must do now in stead is to pour all kinds of chess knowledge into patterns with the aid of diagrams and learn to recognize those patterns. Which is what I'm doing now.