Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Overwhelmed

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 targets. What else do I need to scan to identify all important issues of this position?
  • There is so much going on that my short term memory is overwhelmed and stalls. The only solution can be to automatize some tasks. Which ones?
Update 13:00
After 1.5 total analysis time I managed to identify the main themes that dominate this position:
  • White is a piece up
  • Ne4 is under threat
  • Black threatens Rb8
  • Nd4 is pinned
  • Removal of Bf1 activates battery Rd1-Nd4
  • Black queen has little space
  • convergence: b5, f6, d8
  • potential targets: N, Be7, Bc6, Rh8, Q, K
The move Bb5 (which is the start of the solution) adresses most points above.
The funny thing is that you put your bishop on a convergence square.

10 comments:

  1. if i cannot ride a bicycle, how can i possibly get around your country? just kidding.

    second, is it true that dutch women, instead of the archtypal strong german women, are really the strong women of Europe and, if so, what are the consequences to a post modern male unit who themselves are not entirely weak in nature?

    do you have experience of this directly?

    do i need circles, or a coach, or software, or start a blog about it?

    strongDutchwomen.blogger.com?

    ReplyDelete
  2. That is hard you tell since most men overhere are totally wussified, to which in comparison almost every woman seems to be a Kenau Simonsdochter Hasselaer or a Kaat Mossel (Dutch versions of Margaret Thatcher)

    But a real man will have no problems:)

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  3. Congrats on the improvement, you have earned it that's for damn sure.

    Do you think what holds you back in chess is not finding the right move in complex tactical positions like this? E.g., is missing such things the reason you aren't 2000 rated?

    It will be interesting to see where this goes with the complex problems. The narratives naturally become more complex (at least when using the fine-grained language used in the simpler stage of problem solving), perhaps necessitating the formation of individual concepts with more internal complexity to simplify the narrative descriptions for simplification to be possible (e.g., a single concept that combines multiple simple concepts analagous to the way 'discovered check' combines 'discovered attack' and 'discovered check').

    Or, perhaps the complexity is ineliminable.

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  4. I said:
    a single concept that combines multiple simple concepts analagous to the way 'discovered check' combines 'discovered attack' and 'discovered check'.

    Err, right.

    Remove the word 'discovered' from the third quote. I

    ReplyDelete
  5. Blue,
    While the simple aren't sufficient for the complex, they are necessary, no?

    Yes, the fact that the keymove Bb5 puts the bishop on a convergence square proofs that the simple scans (trap-convergence-targets) remain valid and necessary. But the scans must be of high quality. The microdrills of DLM were scans of low quality but they pointed in the right direction.

    Do you think what holds you back in chess is not finding the right move in complex tactical positions like this? E.g., is missing such things the reason you aren't 2000 rated?

    Yes. when complexity grows, all of a sudden my brain stalls. It's a hockey stick graph.

    It will be interesting to see where this goes with the complex problems

    The only way to solve this is to see the simple elements that constitute the complexity. Now I have taken 1.5 hours, the position starts to look simple. If I can only do that in 3 minutes:)
    Now I'm analyzing what scans would have helped me here. This is my provisional guess:
    Besides the 3 known scans I need to scan for:
    * double attacks
    * pins
    * discovered attacks
    * overloaded pieces

    This may sound weird because I have done 100k+ problems, yet it is true. Those scans are simply not performed by habit. My habit is just unsystematic trial and error. The weird thing is that the new scan for convergency squares already has started to become a habit. So I'm going to try to do these scans in the same way.

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  6. MDLM exercises I agree were not necessarily optimal. It is odd that there isn't good software for this, as it would be so very easy to make.

    I used the acronym 'FSTDD' ('fisted') for a while, and it was very helpful (F: fork, S: straight-line (pin/skewer), T: trap, D: discovered attack, D: deflections and decoys (i.e., removal of the guard). At first, consciously thinking through the steps, then eventually I just did it without thinking. But you are talking about things more complicated, as the problems you are looking at the parts of the fist are components of more complicated combinations.

    Removal of the guard is the most subtle.

    ReplyDelete
  7. For me the most important thing is:
    100k+ tactical problems did not lead to an effective scan-habit. While the convergency scan did. Why? What's the difference?

    The automatic unconscious selfregulation of the procedural memory didn't comprise an effective scanorder.

    The convergency scan was deliberately coördinated by conscious thought.

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  8. 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!

    I see, so you're class A material. That's cool. I mean to become class A material myself... And then some :)

    What club you play for anyway?

    ReplyDelete
  9. hello Temposchlucker,

    my thoughts mirror yours.

    in the position you have given, my thought process goes like this:

    1. Scan for potential problems in your position.

    The biggest one in the position is definitely the obvious move by Black.

    The following line is forced.
    1... Rb8 is not difficult to spot because after 2.Nb3 Qxd1+
    3. Qc1 Qxc1+ 4. Kxc1 Nxb3+ 5. axb3 Bxe4 6. Bxa6 Bxg2

    Black is an exchange up, winning easily.

    So the first priority is to either
    a. stop the Rook from coming to the b-file
    b. move the queen/king

    Secondly, the Knight on e4 is en-prise and can be taken with check, giving a valuable tempo to Black. We have to somehow prevent this from happening, either by defending it or something else.

    2. Look at Black's weaknesses. The square f6 suggests itself as the weakest point of Black's defence. If the Knight on d4 moves, there's a triple attack on f6. However, the Rook on d1 is not defended and so a way must be found to connect the Rooks ie. the Bishop has to move.

    Now a plan starts to form in my head and the move Bb5 is looking like a very strong candidate move because of multiple threats on the Black Queen and f6, and stopping Bxe4+ because of the pin.

    From then on, I look at possible move orders to see if any other candidate moves are just as good. Finding none, I turned to Bb5 and look for possible refutations by Black.

    I do not specifically look for convergence squares. Rather I look for weaknesses in both my position and my opponent's position and find ways to counteract/exploit it.

    cheers

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  10. I like tanc's analysis. I can't take credit for coming up with the key move on my own, having peeked at the answer, but again in revisionist history of analyzing the position, it seems that faster and more efficient ways of analysis might be revealed. White is ahead in material, but might not hold on. White doesn't have a checkmate, nor a win of a queen. White is actually in defensive posture from the most forcing threat of a free Bxe4+, with second threat of Rb8 pinning queen to king. Developing the bishop and connecting the rooks help the Nd4 achieve mobility. Pinning the offending Bc6 by Bb5 will likely lose the bishop, but White can maintain the piece advantage because of the newfound mobility and discovery Nxc6. I think the principle of Forcing Moves First might improve the efficiency of a scan. In computer chess, there is an analogy of what's called "killer heuristic", basically after ordering moves in most important to least important, don't waste time on the entire branched tree if second best moves can't come close. Here the forcing-est move in my opinion is Bxe4+, not Rb8. Plus the fact that there is no quick knockout for White. Still, Bb5 is hard to see, but it is a pinning move which slows Black's threats and unpins White's pieces. Great problem. I wish I hadn't peeked so that my conclusions seem less illegitimate.

    ReplyDelete