Those pesky weeds

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.

Three observations

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 forget the non-working ones.

Second observation: Collaboration of pieces.
If I try to solve a problem I look only at moves. Even after spending two hours on a problem that is the case. Now while I'm reviewing the problems I realize that I don't look at the collaboration of pieces. I look at what the piece I move accomplishes, but I'm not aware of it's effect on the other pieces.

Take for instance the following diagram:























Black to move.
This is the original problem which lead to the first diagram. If I look at Nf4, I only look at what squares I can reach with my knight and how white can react to the thread of Nxg2. So basically I look at the piece I'm playing with. But if you look at the position "from a distance" you can see that the three pieces N, B and Q converge at g2. Nf4 opens the long diagonal for the bishop and at the same time it opens the d-file, which makes that the black rook can come into play.

So there is a different way of looking at the position. Of course I already knew that. But what I didn't know is that my 100k+ exercises have done nothing to correct my way of looking. I still look at the pieces and not at how they collaborate!

Third observation: inner talk.
It seems to be necessary that I'm able to express what is going on in the position in clear language. Only then the hallstand is provided where I can hang my memories on. So it isn't enough to just "expose your brain to the patterns". Pathways that help with memory retrieval have to be paved too.
If I'm not mistaken.

Provisional conclusion.
When during problemsolving the recognition of relevant motifs has grinded to a halt, the phase of trial and error that follows is a waste of time indeed. This trial and error is based on subsequent moves. You must have an overview of the collaboration of pieces in stead.
You can't start to calculate before all important motifs are charted.

Opposites. The effort of being lazy.

• 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 of problems is an effortful method of being lazy. If you try to go deep and focus consciously, the mind resists. The brain seems to resist the construction of new pathways. Well-trodden paths are much more convenient. Even if a lot more work is involved.

And that is what I feel when I experiment with "the lazy way". In stead of trial and error on the automatic pilot I go directly to the solution and ask myself "why didn't I see the solution immediately?", "how can I make that I will recognize it in the future?", "what are the characteristics by which I can recognize it?".
This conscious effort makes resistance to arise in the brain. It makes me to want to flee from this effort. I want to do other things. More automatically. That is how his post came about to be written, btw:)

I always find it to be a good sign when the mind resists. It indicates that new things are learned and new avenues are paved. This is opposite of the feel of tiredness by doing too much work on the automatic pilot.

This diagram stems from a variant of a problem of Polgars second brick:























Black to move and win.
There are two possible moves. Black has invested a knight in the attack. It took me two hours to find all the finesses of the position, even with the aid of a computer. Two hours before I had the feeling "if I encounter this in practice, I will recognize all the tactical motifs immediately". Or "if I had to play this against Kramnik I would win, no matter what".

Now let me stop with that lazy automatic blogging and let me do an itsybitsy REAL work in stead.

The lazy way

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.

Trial and error

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 for those 30 minutes trigger the emotions that burn the pattern deeper in the brain? Or can you go immediately to the solution in order to make yourself familiar with the new pattern? During the trial and error phase, you don't really calculate. You are merely looking for clues and familiar patterns. When you conduct a game, this trial and error plays a lesser role since you most of the time have an idea what you want to head for. But when you look at a position that doesn't stem from one of your own games, it is more difficult to find a clue.

Calculation.
You can only start to calculate when all major motifs in the position are released by your chessmodule. As said, calculation doesn't seem to be the biggest problem.

Differentiation of cluelessity

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 two days ago.

I have done 4 problems so far. The solution of two of them was partially busted by Rybka. So the grandmaster that won the game by that combination, his grandmaster opponent and the grandmaster who checked the problem seemed all to suffer from tunnelvision, because they recognized all three a winning combination where there wasn't one. Which seems to be the downside of a good chessmodule.

When the chessmodule remains silent.

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 appreciate the solution as the solution.

Going around in spirals

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 solve a complex problem from Polgars middlegame brick, I wander around in a clueless state for 20 minutes or so. I recognize 2 of the 4 main tactical idea's that are essential to the position at once, but then my only system is trial and error in the hope to get a clue about the next 2 main idea's. Once the other 2 main idea's are found, the calculation starts. The calculation and visualisation doesn't seem to be the problem allthough it is difficult and error prone.

The problem is the phase of trial and error, the clueless state, looking for the remaining essential idea's I missed. When your unconscious chessmodule doesn't release those missing essential idea's how do you trigger that release? Because the patterns are already there. When you find them, the idea's are always welknown. But trial and error is an extreme slow method to find those idea's.

What's the difference?

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.

Next best

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

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. When the focus of attention puts the information in the light of consciousness, the information becomes available for all the parallel unconscious systems though. Only then all the unconscious systems are triggered to do their job, so far it is appropriate for the given information. Although the conscious part takes only 1% of the total efforts, without it the 99% unconscious work will not start. So the idea that you can learn a foreign language by playing a taperecorder under your pillow is utterly nonsense. You MUST make a conscious effort. And since that can only in a serial way, it will take a lot of time.

Miracles.
The unconscious modules of our mind can work miracles. It is unbelievable what they can do. We can create access to any part of the brain using consciousness (Baars).
To control a single spinal motor neuron we merely pick up its electrical activity and play it back over headphones; in a half-hour subjects have been able to play drumrolls on their single motor neurons! Of course they are not conscious of the details of control. Conscious feedback mobilizes unconscious systems that handle the details.

Suboptimal training.
I have done all sorts of training to improve my chess. Given the results, I always had the feeling that the methods I used weren't optimal. That something was missing. Now I have seen the importance of the conscious part of learning, it is just logical that I am prepared to go to any length to optimize this part of the job.

There is an astonishing relationship between a conscious effort and the output of the unconscious modules that are triggered by that effort. On the one hand, the unconscious systems seem to add intelligence and organisation, and on the other hand the result is very precise. If you sing a song and you focus on pitch, your pitch is corrected. Your notelengths, rests, lyrics, intonation and timbre remain uneffected. If you sing the same song and you focus on your timbre, all the other aspects remain uneffected.

So you must be certain that during your conscious efforts of chesstraining all single important details get focus. If you forget to give conscious attention to just one detail, you cannot expect a change in your unconscious chessmodule for that detail.

Feedback.

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.
• Identification of the errors.
• Correction of the errors.

Consciousness.
Everthing we do on the automatic pilot is not conscious. This might explain why solving 100k+ problems isn't as effective as one would expect. Only the moments when we work with full attention it will have an optimal effect on the unconscious part of the work. What is necessary here is discipline, alertness for distraction and energy. Passivity and laziness are your enemies here.
Conclusion: consciousness is everything, being active is everything, automatic pilot is tabu, passivity is tabu.

Produced errors.
If you study your own games, the errors and suboptimal moves will for 100% be related with the flaws in your chessmodule.
If you use a standard problemset like CT-art, it will only be effective if a presented problem is a lookalike from a situation you would do wrong when you encounter it in a game AND there is a chance that you will encounter it. It is not unlikely that that is the case for only 50% of the problems (figure is arbitrary). If so, 50% of your efforts are wasted beforehand and will not lead to better play but only to better solving CT-art.
When you study grandmaster games, you try to invent a move yourself before you look at the move that was actually played in the game. In that case mistakes originate for 100% in the chessmodule in your brain. On the other hand the positions you will find yourself in can bear very little resemblance with what you probably encounter in your own games.
Conclusion: study your own games. Second best: study mastergames.

Identification of errors.
It is undoable to find all the errors yourself. If that was easy, you would not have made the errors in the first place. Trying to do this yourself must be a waste of time logically.
There are two good methods to identify your errors: a chessengine or a coach.
Chessengines are so good by now that this would work. A coach will work fine too, as long as he is prepared to analyse your games and he don't let you train an K+B+N vs K endgame (which you can do well without a coach).

Correction of errors.
This is the most tricky part. What exactly makes that you will not make the same mistake again? Can it be done WITHOUT repetition?
Since the chessgame isn't "solved", there are usually no alternative moves from which you can know that they are 100% correct. Basically you replace a bad move of your own by a better move suggested by a coach. Hence you try to adopt the playing style of your coach.
A computer is not a good alternative here since it only tells you WHICH move to correct and HOW to correct it, but not WHY the correction is better. This WHY seems to be necessary contextual information for a good maintenance of your chessmodule.
This part of the story needs more research.
Conclusion: you need a coach to analyse your games.

Reworking my idea's

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 themselves in your play have to be identified and corrected. When that happens in a conscious way, your chessmodule corrects itself according to step 1.

This story suggests that the best way to improve is to study your own games. What is the best way to identify the flaws in your moves and to correct them? It seems logical that the best way is to pay a coach to do this dirty work for you. As Blue Devil pointed out.

In a next post I will try to compare the different methods of improvement that are tried by the various Knights with the method as described above.

The birth of a thought.

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?"

How to get a good idea.

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 feel content with it.
Before my break I wanted to look at the chessvideo's of chesslecture.com and the like. Further I wanted to look at positions from grandmastergames for 10+ hours per position. If I will start with chesstraining again, these two points will be the core of my plan.




















How to get a good idea.
The past few months I have asked myself "where does inspiration come from?" I thought I could force the generation of good idea's by hard training, but that is clearly not the case.
For now I postulate the hypothesis that there exists an universal reservoir of idea's. Both good and bad idea's. We just have to learn to tap into this reservoir. We are at the receiving end and our receiver has to be disposed from impediments.
In general, hard training is the way to clean our system and make the way free for inspiration. But there isn't an evident relation between the efforts you put in it and the fruits you will be reaping. Without efforts, nothing will happen at all though.
One of the main impediments we suffer from is to be content with bad idea's. Discrimination is needed to seperate the bad idea's from the good idea's.

If the hypothesis above is true, the question is "what kind of effort cleans my receiving system?".

Why chessplayers don't get laid

A scientific study by grandmaster Karel van der Weide.