Grand scheme of a tactic

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To understand the grand scheme I present here it is necessary to read my  previous posts about duplo-attacks and traps. To get a complete picture you should search my blog for "duplo".

I devised the following scheme of a tactic:

ATTACKER
Road to attacking square	put your attacker on the attacking square with tempo
ATTACKING SQUARE	get rid of the defender of the attacking square
Road to target square	get rid of the defender  that is blocking the road from attacking square towards the target square
TARGET SQUARE	get rid of the defender of the atting square
Road to target square	force the target towards the target square with tempo
TARGET

This is the complete scheme which presents all possibilities. Of course when some of the conditions are allready forfilled, you get a much simpler scheme. If the attacker is just one move away from the attacking square and the target is already on the targetsquare and there are no defenders of the attacking square, you get the following simplified version:

ATTACKER

ATTACKING SQUARE

TARGET

When you have a high rated problem and you have no clue, the complete scheme will guide your thoughts towards the solution. First you have to identify the 7 points of the left column of the grand scheme in the position. Once identified, it boils down mainly towards two basic techniques:

• Get rid of the defenders.
• Manoeuvre from the complex scheme towards the simple scheme with tempo.

 Special attention is needed for the defenders that are no defenders at all due to:

• being overworked.
• being pinned.

With this scheme, I can solve most high rated problems at CT.

Don't get confused by the issues of quantities. That is explained in older posts about duplo-attacks and traps. You can have one or two attackers and one or two targets.

• One attacker - one target: trap
• One attacker - two targets: pin, skewer, double attack
• Two attackers - on target: double check
• Two attackers - two targets: discovered attack

The attackers can already be in contact with the attacking squares or not.
The targets can already be on their targetsquares or not.

Is one plus one actually two?

According to Munich and Aox one plus one equals two. If you know all the constituent parts of a combination, you will be able to find the whole combination. The constituent parts are identified as "patterns". The fact that there are only about 27 tactical elements already shows a fundamental flaw in this reasoning. With only 27 elements you would know them by heart within a few weeks or so. Since it is evident that we aren't able to solve all combinations after only a few weeks, there is more to it.
If you call a combination of tactical elements a pattern, in stead of the tactical element itself, another problem emerges.
If you write out a combination as 27 x 27 x 27 x 27 x 27 etc. you will find that the numbers will grow rapidly. So rapidly that you need to learn at least millions patterns by heart to cover the most. Munich and Aox work their way around this by careful selecting their problemset based on their assumed frequency of occurence in real games. Of course it is logical that they worry about quantities and amounts of patterns per unit of time this way. Hence speed is their motto.

I don't buy this since I have tried all kinds of problemsets from easy to complex, tagged and untagged, big and small, fast and slow, blind and with the use of an analysisboard, with and without writing down the lines, standing on one leg while humming Mary had a little lamb etc. etc.. My results didn't differ from the avarage improvement of the Knights Errant. Just like the results of Munich, Aox and vitoc73 don't differ from that.

I take a more holistic approach, "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts". This means that there is something different to learn than patterns alone. I'm studying Weteschnik's "Chess tactics from scratch" (hattip to Empirical rabbit) and he has a very interesting chapter about this subject called "status examination". Here you learn to guide your pattern recognition by evaluating the features of each piece. Even more reductionistic than holism, I would say, but it is all very logical and it guides the mind towards the right patterns.





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In the end the reductionistic approach and the holistic approach probably will turn out to be the same. But at this moment, with overwhelming complexity, holism is a more logical approach.


They say that my method is not proven. But think about this: when I started with the first 50 problems I scored 0 out of 50. After just 100 problems I score 10 out of 50. From 0% to 20% in just 150 problems! This means that there is a massive transfer from acquired knowledge in known problems towards new problems! And if it already has such effect on high rated problems, how massive will the effect be on lower rated problems!


There has been a lot of talking about FIDE estimated ratings. I don't accept that as a convincing method. The only thing I want to know is what the effects are for my real rating. Then I will know how my efforts translate to OTB-play. No reason to muddle around with estimates. That is just a waste of time. I have said this a few times and this is the last time.


Aox didn't see where the speed should come from if you use a slow method in stead of a speedy one. My take is that you don't speed up the same things that you already do. In stead you simulate speed by doing something different. Look at it this way: I you must repair a car by means of trial and error, it will take a very long time. No matter how fast you are able to do the constituent activities. But if you read the manual first, you may speed up by a factor 100 or more, even if the speed of the separate activities is lower. Reading the manual is a very slow process in itself. It will speed up your activities by pruning the useless ones, though. Just like knowledge does to the tree of analysis.

Difference between a sentence and desoxyribonucleic acid

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Munich and I try to resolve which range of problems you should choose at CT. We make use of the metaphor of learning a new language.
We agree that the problems rated below 1500 can be compared to the syllables of words.
When I extend the metaphor, I compare 1500-1900 problems with whole words and >1900 with sentences.
Artificial words like desoxyribonucleic acid are to compare with composed problems with artificial clues you won't encounter in real games.

Take a look at the diagram below.

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Black to move.
You can find the solution here.

The compounding patterns of the combination pop up easily enough. And I shouldn't be too worried if you need a minute or two for that in stead of 10 seconds.

Here are the patterns:

• The main weakness of white is the pinned bishop on b4. It calls for an extra attack. For instance with Be7 or Ba5
• White has a discovered attack with Bf8+.  That helps you to decide between Be7 and Ba5.
• You can decoy the white king with g4+, hxg4, hxg4+, luring the monarch away from the protection of the white knight, thus creating another target for the black rook.

The words are familiar enough, but now you must make a sentence of it. To make the sentence gramatically correct you must decide about the right order of the combination. Should you start with 1. ... Be7 or 1. ... g4+
Both moves are forcing but one is a win and the other is a draw.

This is what I mean with "adding another element to the equation". You cannot learn anything about grammar or move order with only learning a vocabulary by heart.

When do you know you are ripe for grammar? When you don't improve from learning words anymore. That is why we seem to disagree. Munich still improves from learning more words, I want to learn the grammar. We are both right in our approach. But we have a different goal.

In the end the grammar rules are followed implicit. Just like children learn to use the grammar rules in an implicit way. Even the rules of grammar wil eventually take the form of patterns. But these kind of patterns you will not be able to find in low rated problems.

BTW I prefer the use of the abbreviation DNA ;)

Aaaarghh!!! Not those 7 circles again!

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I'm doing high rated problems at CT in sets of 50 at the time.
I'm trying to work out why I keep missing them and try to take measures to prevent to miss them in the future. Of course I want to test that so I do the circles in a slow way a second time after a while.
Since I missed a lot the second time too, it is not unlogical that at a certain moment I want to test the same problemset a third time in slow fashion. Since even the third time I miss a few I know I will have to do them a fourth time slow to get them all right.

And if I have them all right, it is logical I want to ingrain the patterns and speed them up. What do you think, would doing them 3 times at full speed be enough? I hope so.

But look what I have reinvented here: those darned 7 circles again!
Only with one little difference!

At the moment I started a new series of 50. I want to know if my method has any effect when I encounter new problems. Since I scored the old problems at 0% during the first circle, any progress will be substantial. I will keep you posted.

Precision

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Munich found this crushing attack by white at CT. See diagram.
It is a 1830 rated blitz problem which is a beautiful illustration of pattern recognition guided by context.
White to move.

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You can find the solution here.


As you see a lot of people miss this tactic due to the wrong context. At CT you expect problems of a certain difficulty. You don't expect a simple capture. The 1830 blitz rating and my description of the crushing attack might have put even you on the wrong foot. But then again, if attacking a queen isn't crushing, I don't know what is:)

The message is that we see what we are looking for and that we don't see what we are not looking for. Even when it stares you in the face. Allthough that is very economical for the brain, it means that we have immense blind spots. Both in chess and in life.

If you think this doesn't apply to you since you saw the queen capture immediately, you are wrong.

Precision.
At the Tata tournament I asked myself during the games what the potential  reach could be of the training of complex tactics which I'm doing. I realized soon that there are, besides the opening, no tactic-less moves in my games. The amount of moves you can do is always restricted by the moves that cost you wood. You always have to look for tactics yourself. This always checking for tactics for both you and your opponent is time consuming, errorprone and draining your energy. Of course not every move is a tactic, but you have to watch out for them anytime. They always play a role in the background. Being able to do this automatically and flawless would have an immense effect on my games.

The training I'm doing I consider not to be about tactics, by the way. It teaches precision in reasoning. You usually recognize the patterns that are involved soon enough. But then you must make the combination work. And when you think it works, you must attempt to falsify your move. From the 37 topics on the list which constituted my thoughtprocess there are only a few left. I left out those topics which I already check for automatically. So it became a highly personalized list:

1. What is this position about?:

• Mate
• Gaining wood
• Promotion
• Counterattack.

2. What if I could do 2 moves in a row?

3. Can I falsify my move?

The first question helps for orientation in the position.
The second question helps me to identify threats. CCT prunes a lot of garbage moves, but it introduces new ones. Since I'm always looking at checks and captures automatically, there is no need to guide my mind towards that. But question 2 brings above all the relevant threats in the position.
The third question is designed to test the correctness of my combination.

You have seen me change from exercise to exercise the past 3 years. The reason for that was simply that I was never quite convinced that it was the right method.That's different now. I have at least found the right subject to train. Precision in reasoning is imo the subject to be trained to the max. What can change is the exact method. For now the current method seems to be working fine, so I will stick to it. In fact I already do for 2 months now.

100,000 unique visitors

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Yesterday this blog welcomed its 100,000th visitor!

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According to Extreme Tracking, that is. I started with Extreme Tracking on april 10, 2005. But the actual kick off of my blog was on february 9, 2005.

I managed to track down the 100,000th visitor as being Paco Vela, a bartender from Las Vegas. Please  say hi to Paco.

The main goal of this blog always has been to keep track of my thoughts and to generate inspirational comments. I have never tried to generate traffic since I value quality above quantity. And about that I have not to complain! I've got lots and lots inspirational commands over the years and I want to thank you, my dear reader, for that.

I know I haven't made this blog an easy read. I could have written it funnier and clearer, but I choose not to. I used it as a way to think out loud and to catch the most volatile of thoughts before they escaped into the oblivion I use to call my brain. The fact that this blog still has readers is a compliment for you, my dear reader. You must be of an exceptional resilient breed!

Tata

I scored +3 =5 -1 in group 5 at the Tata Steel chess tournament 2012 and became shared 1st. With SB points taken into account I was the best. So I will play in group 4 next year.