Temposchlucker

The past few days I have played about 85 blitz games (G/10) in order to find out if I could use blitz play to train my scan habits. Allthough I resolved to scan before every single game, I didn't manage to actually do so during the game. With 10 minutes there is so little time that I can only work on my usual autopilot, in trial and error mode. I just forget to scan. So alas blitz play isn't suitable to train scan habits. Since you play on autopilot, habits are paramount in blitz. That makes it an ideal method to test your scan habits. Despite my scan training the past month ( DaBattPinOlC ) my blitz rating hasn't improved. Maybe I have to admit that Phaedrus and DLM are right, and is transfer from training to OTB a separate problem alltogether. I hoped that my approach would work around this, but obviously that hope turned out to be in vain. It's a pity, because I like to play blitz.

The program of Mike Anderson is the best way by far to do the concentric circles. It helps to see a double attack or a skewer within no time (1.7 seconds/5 days). I get more and more convinced that being able to do these simple elementary tasks at lightning speed is the root of more complex skills. Just as Troyis was an ideal program to learn to move the knight in a limited space. Concern. The main concern of this kind of programs is: is the learned skill important, fruitfull and sufficiently common. In the case of the concentric circles it is, in the case of Troyis it isn't. Maurice Ashley has made a CD with a lot of this kind of exercises (Maurice Ashley teaches chess). Those exercises are excellent for novices. For more seasoned players those exercises don't meet our major concern though. I found out that with a little discipline it is possible to transform those too simple exercises. Take for instance the following escape exercise. You have to move the white knight while t...

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?

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 ...

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 w...

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 pin...

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...

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

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'...

Now we are officially exposed as a cult I suggest some measures against those who offend our Hero. . . :) After 136 masterlevel problems with the aid of my new mnemonic I get an idea what the future has in store. No brain stalling anymore. The mnemonic definitively solved my problem of a stalling brain due to complexity. Since the mnemonic comprises the most important tactical middlegame motifs, the complex position is broken down into it's simple elements, thus freeing brain resourses. I am very, very surprised that such simple means is so effective. In fact I start to find the masterlevel problems rather easy and I look forward for the more difficult ones deeper in the database. Score 95% The mnemonic leads me in 95% of the cases to the correct answer. That is remarkable, to say the least. There were two kinds of problems where the mnemonic wasn't sufficient to find the solution: Visualisation. In a few cases I wasn't able to visualize the tree of analysis to the end, so...

What I have found is almost too trivial for words. As predicted, the mnemonic used in initial scanning the board has altered a few times and is now changed into DaBattPinOlC D ouble a ttack Batt ery Pin /skewer O ver l oaded piece C onvergence squares Before I used this mnemonic I did the first two masterlevel problems of Renko's CD killermoves . With both problems I had great trouble to find out what was going on since my brain was simply overloaded by the amount of information in the complex position. Trying to solve those problems by my usual trial and error habit it took me 1.5 hours per problem. Once I started to use this mnemonic I did another 38 masterlevel problems and the stalling of my brain was over. Averaging 15 minutes per problem. Either it is a coincidence that the first two problems were much more difficult than the next 38 or a systematic approach really makes the difference. Using this mnemonic the complexity is broken down into its simple bite-sized elements. Th...

Thanks for the help, guys, your comments are quite inspirational. For scanning I'm using now the mnemonic CoTarTraDaDaPinOl (Convergence, Targets, Trap, Double attack, Discovered attack, Pins, Overloading). The first results are great, since they take away the complexity of the masterlevel problems. Everybody has his positions where the brain stalls because of the complexity. Weird enough that aren't the same positions for everybody. Tanc gave an example of a position which he found very deep and hard to see. Initially I wanted to show him how he could see the simplicity in the complexity. But soon after I found my own Nemesis in Renko's killermoves. What do we have? Good scanning breaks down a complex position in its simple elements. It really works that way. The brain is initially overwhelmed by short term memory overload, but the dissection of the position frees up the resources in the mind. The scanning must be finetuned by applying it to reality. That makes it into s...

Update 14:00 My official dutch rating has now become 1761. Due to the sluggish processing of ratings 7 games of a tournament aren't included (+4 =2 -1). If I include those games I come to a virtual rating of 1806! It's quite difficult to find all the keys in a complex position. The diagram below is the second problem of the masterlevel problemset I try to solve. (George Renko, CD Killer moves). It shows quite well what the point is. I investigated 7 candidate moves and only the last move was correct. I have investigated the position for half an hour and allthough I know the solution I have no idea what this position is exactly all about. White to move. There is a lot going on in the position. But even when solved, most things aren't evident. I find it hard to formulate a narrative. Only after I have formulated that, the real problem starts: What scanmethod do you need to present what was now my last candidate as the first candidate? Right now I scan for convergence and targ...

My new scanmethods work fairly well with the relative simple problems of Chess Tempo. In the past I have seen already two times that mastering simple problems is of little use for mastering complex problems, though. It was Phaedrus who told me so the second time and after checking it it proved he is right. So it is time to put these new scanmethods to the test with a complex problem-set. If you have read my blog in the past then you will find that it is common practice to test the same ideas a few times. Everytime more information is available though, so tests that first failed can go well later when new information is applied. Today I started with the masterlevel problems of Renko's CD "Killermoves". The first two problems already showed that the new methods are unsufficient to find the solution in more complicated cases. Only the 6th or 7th candidate move I tried was the right one. I'm trying to find out what kind of scan will help to find these moves in the hope ...

And now for something completely different. I belief it is obvious that the road I'm following isn't leading to creativity in chess. I break down everything untill there is nothing left of the whiff of magic or romanticism that surrounds chess. I plea quilty. Yet creativity exists. But it is a difficult subject. Science is a form of superstition that often yields splendid practical results. Yet it doesn't feel itself qualified to do statements about the realm of that what is not direct or easy perceptable in a controlable way. Those who do feel qualified to speak about such things though, often suffer from confirmation bias and sensationalism. Speaking about creativity I must go beyond science. My only compass is what I have experienced myself. Micro-creativity. My main day to day weapon is logic. Logic isn't creative, it is destructive. You can't use it to determine what is true with logic, but you can use it to destruct what is not true. By consequent applyance ...

There are 3 scans that I apply while solving problems at Chess Tempo: Traps Convergence Targets I wrote about traps in a previous post . The only reason that traps are number one in the list is due to the biased problemset of CT, which contains an abundance of mates. During a game it will be the last scan to perform, convergence being the first. The following problem is rather simple, but it provides a clearcut example of how to scan for invasion squares where two or more of your pieces converge. White to move. The white queen and rook converge at e6 . The scan cuts down dramatically on the candidate moves. You first look for the invasion squares. If no pattern is triggered and you cannot make use of the square, you can always look at other candidate moves. But that is what a good scan does, it prioritizes your candidate moves without you consciously being aware of it. 1.Re2+ Kd6 2.Qxe6+ Kc7 The queen and bishop converge at c6. 3.Qc6+ Kd8 The queen and rook converge at e8. 4.Re8# There...

At the moment I'm reconsidering the use of Chess Tempo as a means to improve my scanning skills. On the one hand the problems are rather simple, on the other hand it is obvious that my scanning skills leave a lot to be desired, even with simple problems. I rewatched this video from National Geographic about Susan Polgar for the 4 th time. She undergoes a fMRI -scan by prof. Joy Hirsch from the New York Neurological institute (around 40 th minute). Susan is presented with chesspositions from her youth and has to treat them as a normal chessposition , and she has to think about the next move. Prof. Hirsch shows that Susan has hijacked here fusiform face area ( FFA ) in her brain , which is commonly used to process face recognition. Susans FFA processes chess positions too. A chess position is checked against an internal database in about 0.8 seconds. To me this suggests that pictures are important. I take great pains to see the input-output (see previous post ) of a che...