Temposchlucker

As serious chessplayer I have to cut down seriously on all lesser important occupations like watching TV, washing dishes, going to anniversaries, garden maintenance etc.. As a result my garden looks usually like a mess . But when I rested between two problems, I walked into my garden and saw that it was taken over by Aciphylla Monroi. Aciphylla MONROI, commonly known as little speargrass, is an ugly looking parasite that lives on DEAD WOOD. This pesky weed is not native to the Netherlands but is imported by Canadian sailors in the 17th century. It kills everything that is not suetable for feeding. Allthough the flowers may look nice initially, your garden is only suitable for paving if you don't take rigorous measures. Warning: Monroi is on the international blacklist of threatening species. Let me put on my lawnsuit in order to sprinkle some pesticide.

My experiments have yielded the first three observations. I have solved 8 problems from Polgar's second brick. Typically it takes me two hours per problem before I have the feeling that I "get it". Now I review all 8 problems to look for what they have in common. First observation: 50% of the problems are flawed by Rybka. Take for instance the following diagram: White to move. In one of the variants of the solution black has just played Qg5+ (you can find the original problem in the next diagram). Black has sacced a knight at g2 earlier. If white plays Kh1, then black is winning indeed (after Rd8). But Rybka gives the counter-intuitive move Kh3 and black has no more than perpetual check. Because I have investigated only 8 cases, it is too early to say if this tendency extends itself over a greater amount of problems. But it seems to indicate that the defender has more resources than usually is assumed. As if there is a tendency to store the working combinations and to fo...

Quality vs quantity. Depth vs breadth. Conscious vs unconscious. Will-controlled vs automatic pilot. The past two years I have focussed on the sheer quantity of patterns that I wanted to learn. More was better. With solving 100k+ problems this idea has been seriously put to the test. It didn't bring me what I hoped for, or expected. The question is now, how can I recognize one pattern in as much disguises as possible? Questions as "why does this combination work?", "what are the chararteristics by which I can recognize it?" need an answer. It isn't enough just "to expose the brain to the pattern". A conscious effort must be made to understands its whereabouts. To do a lot of problems is a lot of work. A lot of work is associated with a lot of effort. But in a way it is easier to do a lot of work in the breadth on the automatic pilot than to do only a little work but make a conscious effort to go into the depth. So essentially doing loads and loads...

Right now I'm testing the hypothesis that I can skip the tiring process of trial and error (after what pops up immediately) and go direct to the solution and try to understand and learn that.

People seem to become speechless because of my rantings. I don't know exactly how to interpret that:) When solving problems there are two phases: Trial and error. Calculation. Trial and error. To let your unconscious chessmodule release stored patterns it is necesarry to trigger that. The release is triggered by a conscious effort. Scanning the board and making moves in your mind is such conscious effort. In the mean time is this conscious trial and error itself highly dependant from unconscious processes. What makes that you look conscious at Bc4 and forget to look at Bb5? The difference is caused by the unconscious processes that lie beneath. Thoughtprocesses start out conscious, but soon they are transferred to the unconscious zone and steer from there the conscious trial and error. In the mean time does this trial and error not make a very effective impression. Is there any need to extend the phase of trial and error to 30 minutes or more for a problem? Does the extra effort f...

Everyday I do one problem from Polgars other brick. Usually this happens: In the first two minutes I recognize 2-3 important tactical motifs. I look for another 20 minutes. There are three posibilities: 1. I get an "aha-experience" after 15 minutes and find 1-2 other tactical motifs which, after calculation, leads to the solution. 2. I see nothing and look up the solution and get an "aha-experience" (pattern already in my chessmodule) 3. I see nothing and look up the solution and I don't recognize the solution as the solution ( see previous post ). Situation 1 I try to find out why I didn't recognize a familiar pattern immediate. Without result so far. Is there something better than trial and error? Situation 2 I try to find out why I didn't recognize the familiar pattern earlier. Without result so far. Situation 3 I try to get familiar with the unknown pattern. With succes so far, since I recognized today a pattern that I have seen for the first time ...

Today I tried to solve a problem from Polgars middlegame brick. In the first 2 minutes I recognized 2 important tactical motifs that probably would play a role. After that I tried and erred for half an hour. But my unconscious chessmodule wasn't triggered to release other relevant motifs, so I couldn't solve it. So I looked for the solution. But when I played thru the solution, nothing happened. That is to say, I didn't recognize it as the solution . Isn't that strange? If the final pattern is stored in my unconscious chessmodule then usually I get an "aha-experience". But if it is not stored there nothing happens! No emotion, no recognition, nothing . In fact this happens quite often. Since I always thought it wasn't important, I paid no attention to it. But now I'm investigating what happens in the "clueless zone" it bubbles to the surface. I put the position into Arena and played with it for an hour. And only after an hour I started to ap...

The post I intented to write today has such similarity with a post of 10 months ago, that I decided to refer to that old post . The problems I faced by then are the same as the problems I face today. From a certain cynical point of few it looks as if I'm just running around in circles. But I'm not quite the same now as I was then. So I see it as a spiral in stead of a circle. The fact that I'm at the same point as 10 months ago means that this is a very import point. I read my old posts from the past 10 months. Boy, can I rant! A summary of what I accomplished in that period: Adoption of a positional style of play. Definition of the mother of all positional play: piece activity! Experiments with positional openings and cc. Timetrouble solved for 80%. Adoption of the GPA with considerable succes. Now I have come to the same point as 10 months ago, I'm going to take my time to try and penetrate deeper in the problem at hand. Basically this is the point: when I try to solv...

When I solve a problem consisting of a position of a grandmastergame from Polgars middlegame brick, I do what I have already done so much times in the past. At the same time it is conform the conclusion of my latest posts. To study positions from grandmaster games with heavy annotations by another grandmaster as feedback. In this case the annotations are winning tactical variants. So what's the difference? There is no difference. Yet. But now I'm much more aware of where my focus goes. So I'm experimenting how to get the utmost from one position. With singing you can break down the maintask in a lot of subtasks like pitch, intonation, notelength, timbre, lyrics etc., which you can focus on seperately. It is much easier to focus on a subtask. Is the same possible for chess? We have tried a lot in the past. But there is a difference when you know what you are looking for.

According to the reasoning of my previous posts, the best method to improve your unconscious chessmodule is to hire a coach to give feedback on your games. I don't want to spend money for a coach though. I tried if a chessprogram could replace a coach. Since chessprograms don't show WHY a certain move is better, they are of little help. You can only confirm issues you already know. They don't learn you anything new. I assume that chess program writers don't want that anyone knows HOW their chessengine evaluates a position. So they are close to useless for this specific goal. And thus I will try the next best method, to study heavily commented mastergames. The comments must be given in plain language, not in variants (otherwise I could use a computer myself). I will try to find the moves myself first, to give my chessmodule a chance to err. I expect the comments to give contextual information so I can learn WHY my moves are wrong.

Serial consciousness. We can focus our attention only at one thing at the time in a conscious way. If we try to listen to two simultaneous stories that enter our left en right ear respectively, then we can follow only one story at the time. By shifting between the stories we can try to emulate a double focus, but essentially you follow only one story with your attention at any given time. Parallel unconsciousness. In contrast we can do unconscious parallel processing on a vast scale. While you sit and read this you are balancing against gravity, for every word you read you have to look in an internal dictionary, if a word has a double meaning you choose which one is appropriate, your eye muscles are constantly adapting, your hart beats etc., etc.. All this happens unconscious. All this happens parallel at the same time. Serial and parallel. In order to store any information from the outer world into your memory, it is ABSOLUTE NECESSARY that it is processed in a serial conscious way. W...

Let us, for the sake of reasoning, assume that the method as described in my previous post is the best method to learn something. What are the essences of the method? Baars makes it plausible that 99% of the learning takes place in an unconscious way, while 1% or so of the process happens conscious. On the other hand, that 1% conscious work is absolute necessary. Without that, no unconscious organisation of the brain will take place whatsoever. Since this 1% conscious work has an immediate effect on the 99% unconscious maintenance of the "chessmodule" in your brains, we have to know which rules govern the conscious part of the work and how it effects the quality of the chessmodule. The importance of this can't be overestimated. The core of the process is based on feedback. Which elements do we have here? Consciousness. The feedback must take place with full focus of attention. Produced errors. Flaws in the chessmodule results in errors and suboptimal moves during play. ...

If I rework my idea's with help from Blue Devil and from Baars , I get the following: Step 1 Creation of a chessmodule in your brain. When you play a game of chess in a conscious way, a "chessmodule" forms itself in an unconscious way in your brains. However the creation of the chessmodule in itself happens unattended, it is triggered by the conscious process of playing. Step 2 Play with the help of your chessmodule. When you play a game in a conscious way, you get help from your chessmodule in an unconscious way. In the chessmodule the birth of thoughts and idea's takes place in an unattended way. When the thoughts have a certain form, they are transferred to the conscious part of the mind. In the conscious part of the brain you can investigate the thoughts and decide whether to use it or not. In this way the flaws of your chessmodule show up in your moves. Step 3 Feedback. The suboptimal moves and errors that originate in your chessmodule and that manifest themselv...

When a thought arises in the mind, you can ask yourself "where does it come from?" . I imagine that there is a subtle area in the mind where the seeds of thoughts (idea's) take shape. It is invisible what happens in this subtle area. Only when the thought already has some form it becomes visible in the conscious mind. If you look at a new chessposition, there seems to be a gentle rain of thoughts about the position. You need your discrimination to decide which thought is good in the given position and which thought is bad. So one area where you can work on is your ability of discrimination. But the non-rethoric question is: "Can you have an indirect influence on what happens in that subtle area of the mind where the conception of thoughts takes place so that the quality of the gentle rain of thoughts improves?"

Life. Although life still needs a lot of attention, the greatest calamities are parried now. Which means there will be a little more time for chess in the near future. I don't think my blogging will be same however. I have done my share in the circles and the blogging and a lot -if not the most- has been said. So if I write it will probably be not quite the same as in the past. But I trust you will bear with me. Where am I standing now? The past few months I have played only one game a week in our internal club competition. I belong now to the 4 best players of our club which is quite nice. I have read your chessblogs daily. Further I have done nothing chess-related. I really enjoyed the break after 4 years of daily training 7 days a week and doing 100K+ problems. 4 years of tactical circles, blogging and chessstudy didn't bring me the succes in chess what I hoped for. I learned a lot about the human mind and the learningprocess though. Which was my primary goal. So overall I f...

A scientific study by grandmaster Karel van der Weide.