The Trap

There are 3 kinds of scans I try to improve:

• Trap
• Converge
• Targets

In this post I want to talk only about the trap.
The following diagram is quite well suited to explain how the exercise works.
In the problemset of Chess Tempo there are a lot of mates. I consider a mate to be a special instance of a trap. You trap the king. A mate like below took me quite some time since there are a few initial moves which look promising but which are not.























White to move.

You don't know beforehand that this is a mate, but it isn't likely that you can win a piece.
Solution [1.Qxg7+ Kxg7 2.Rf7+ Kg8 3.Rxe7+ Kf8 4.Ng6#]

It isn't important to spend much time to find the solution but it doesn't hurt either. There is no objection to look it up. The exercise starts when the solution is known.

Input-output-narrative.
The input is the position at hand.
The output is the endposition with the mate.
The narrative describes in words how you arrive at the mate starting from this position.
How the white pieces work together to box in the black king. In this kind of mates typically the six squares f8, g8, h8, f7, g7, h7 must be covered. Imagine from the startposition which white piece will be responsible for which of those 6 squares.
The goal is to see the characteristics from the endposition in the startposition.

You must ask yourself the question, what characteristics do I need to notice to be sure that I recognize the solution immediately the next time I get to see this position?
It is not so much about visualising the move sequence, but to relate the input to the output simultaneously.

For this post no mice were hurt.

Theoretical conception of an exercise

A lot has been said about how the process works. Let's see if it is possible to conceive an exercise based on the diagnosis so far. First let me summarize a few important issues. These should be of help to conduct how to exercise (my english seems to deteriorate)

It all starts with a special kind of knowledge. The knowledge describes the input (characteristics of the position) and the output (a move) along with how to get there (the narrative). This proces of input and output is visualized before the minds eye, so that the apprentice can copy it. The apprentice is the procedural part of the brain.
The attitude is active, that is to say your attitude is based on the question: how can I make that I will see the solution in the future immediately?

It is best to start with the motorskills you need every move. I have done the problems on Chess Tempo past week and I found that 3 different kinds of scans give me in almost all cases the solution:

• Trap-mate-radiation of pieces. There are a lot of mates at Chess Tempo. It is useful to visualise the "radiation" that is emitted from your pieces and that diminish the space of the opponent's king. I consider a mate to be a special occasion of a trap. It gives you fast an idea if there is a mate possible or not.
  
• Convergence of my own pieces. This is the most fruitful scan. Because if you want to attack, you usually need to move your pieces to the convergency squares. It tells immediately which pieces of you can play a role in the attack and which not.
  
• Targets. Targets and the route to get to them reveal which enemy pieces are possibly subject of the attack.

A full scan of these 3 points is usually enough to trigger pattern recognition which in turn reveals the solution. After I have found the solution I formulate a narrative to distil the knowledge from the position. Then I visualise the essence of the solution so the apprentice can copy the process.

Summarized:

• The 3 scans (guides of pattern recognition)
• Transform the solution in a narrative
• Visualise the narrative

Goal of the exercise:
The apprentice must learn to do this process automaticly. Educating your automatic pilot.

Constraint during the exercise:
Active attention. Can not be done on autopilot.

Repetitions:
Nothing to worry about. Even those who need 70 repetitions to learn a single foreign word will find that you can't avoid far more repetitions since you do this every move.
























(click to enlarge)

Apprentice with an attitude problem

I called the procedural memory the ultimate apprentice since it works by imitation. In the past weeks I used the word "consciousness" to indicate the decisive factor whether the apprentice would learn something or not. But I now realize that is the wrong term. The difference is made by the attitude of the apprentice. Whether his attitude is "active and inquisitive" or "passive and lazy".

I gave an example of the choir I'm in where the people have problems with singing the vocals. Margriet has corrected us about 50 times, yet we forget it and make the same mistakes over and over again. The first problem is that we don't hear it ourselves. The second problem is that we don't believe Margriet. The third problem is that we think it's our neighbours problem. The fourth problem is that we act passively. "Margriet must make us sing well" while we lay back. You can't say we are unaware or unconscious of the problem. But we treat it as if is is purely theoretical.

The only way to solve this problem is to become active and to take the responsibility of the problem ourselves. Only if we start to work ourselves we can begin to hope to solve the problem.

This example put me on track to identify what goes wrong with our chess study. Why knowledge isn't "transferred" to the board. If the apprentice is passive, the knowledge isn't transferred to the procedural memory, no matter how often it is repeated. There has to be a certain tension, an active attitude which is paramount.

If you have driving lessons you don't lay back and say "the instructor is responsible for the fact whether I get an accident". In stead the sweat drips from your armpits in your attempts to do things right. That's the attitude needed. Otherwise eternal patzership is our fate.

Rigmarole causing mayhem

One of the great problems of the current subject we are talking about lately is the vague terminology I use. It possibly causes some people to think that what I'm saying is way over their head. I don't think that should be the case though since the subject itself is straightforward enough and everybody knows it from his own experience and is hence entitled to have an opinion about the subject. Sorry if you get confused by my terminology but I don't know better terms.

I remember well the first times I encountered the word "mayhem". I didn't know what the word meant and I looked it up in the dictionary. Within a few months I encountered the word several times, and everytime I had to look it up. Right now, after 7 times or so, I know what the word mayhem means. Immediately when I hear it. I can use it in a sentence without noticing it.

In my terminology the following has happened:

• Within only 7 repetitions I managed to create the lifetime lasting habit of translating the term mayhem into mayhem. Since we don't have a dutch word that quite covers it. But I know now what the word means.
• Or: I have developed the motorskill to translate the word mayhem.
• Or: I have stored the word mayhem into my procedural memory and if the input is now "mayhem" the output is a sense of the meaning of the word.

All 3 descriptions mean the the same to me, none of them is clear nor scientificly correct nor exact. Yet I know no other way to describe it. The only thing I can hope for is that you recognize it from your own experience and understand what I'm trying to say.
(rigmarole was used by Soapstone and I know I have looked it up before but I forgot what it meant)

The procedural memory works unconscious and seems to be filled by imitation. The conscious knowlegde we are talking about relates input to output.

• Input: two targets
• Output: a knightfork

The implicit procedural memory imitates the explicit thought. That's miraculous!

The power of imitation can be applied in other ways too. The procedural memory is the ultimate apprentice who imitates the master. That's how playing through mastergames can help.

There is only one condition: the apprentice must be active and alert. If he isn't, the knowledge stays knowledge only. The person becomes a scholar. Who knows what should be done but is impotent to do it.

On knife's edge. Stay sharp!

In the previous post I elaborated on my reasoning process which brought me some new hypotheses. It's time to focus on the core of the story. What do we have?

A simple motorskill can be learned for life by repeating it just 7-15 times. The reason why we often need 20 hours or more, or 2500 repetitions or more, is because we then are talking about a compound complex motorskill which is composed of multiple simple subtasks. Every subtask takes 7-15 repetitions. In the previous post I gave an example of how singing of the right pitch is composed by hundred or more subtasks, each taking 7-15 repetitions. Everytime when precision is needed you can expect that.

An example of a simple subtask in chess is: occupy an open file with a rook. If you repeat that 7-15 times with full attention, it will become a habit for life.

There is a situation that 7-15 repetitions don't work. That is the case when you do those repetitions on the automatic pilot. On automatic pilot there is no consciousness of sufficient intensity. When there is unsufficient attention the transformation of knowledge into procedural memory doesn't work. You are left with the knowledge alone and you become a scholar, who knows how things should be done but lacks the skill to do it.

I will give an example of failing transformation. In our choir we always make the same mistakes. For instance we sing the vocals in a bad way. Margriet has corrected us at least a hundred times for this mistake. Yet we keep making the same mistake over and over again. Why is that?
Margriet acts as the active force while we as choirmembers let it come over us in a passive way. We react on autopilot. The only way to break through this barrier is when the choirmembers themselves decide to actively work on the problem.

If the transformation from knowledge into habits fails because of lack of consciousness we get scholars, if the feedback from habits isn't transformed into knowledge you get blitzplayers with 1200 rating. Active consciousness is paramount for both transformations. The passive autopilot is the enemy.

BTW feel free to put your comments on the previous post here.

Phantom-knowledge and habit-forming

Let's see if it is possible to build a model of the transformation process of knowledge into procedural habits. What do we have?

Information.
When you read books, blogs, magazines, talk to other people etc. you get lots of information.

Knowledge.
By thinking about information you transform it into knowledge. What is the nature of this knowledge? In the end chessknowledge relates the characteristics of the board (input) to a certain move (output). All other knowledge is obsolete with regard to chess improvement.
The output generating process is divided into two stages which compare as 1 : N

• diagnosis
• remedy

To make Soapstone happy you can say that diagnosis culminates into evaluation of the position.
Let's have a closer look at how knowledge generates a move.

Spectrum of knowledge.
On the gross end of the spectrum we find rules:

• Characteristic: open file
• Rule: occupy an open file with a rook
• Output: move the rook

The advantage of a rule is that it gives a single kind of output for a whole lot of similar positions.

In the middle of the spectrum we find conflicting rules:

• Characteristics: open file, king in danger
• Rules: occupy the open file, bring king into safety
• Output: move the king

You have to value the goals you achieve by both outputs against each other. This valuation can generate new meta-rules.

At the other end of the spectrum we find concrete analysis. Whether concrete analysis gives an answer to your problem is a matter of the goal you serve with the resulting move. If the goals are too subtle, the analysis is a waste of time.
Another point is the amount of possibilities you cover with concrete analysis versus the amount of possibilities on the board. Often concrete analysis is just too time consuming in comparison to the value of the goals that you can achieve.

Spectrum of goals.
There is a whole spectrum of goals too. Winning a piece is on the gross end of the spectrum and trading a piece to get some dominance over a square is on the subtle end of the spectrum.

Transformation of knowledge.
Explicit thinking about the generation of a move is an extreme slow process. Since there are so many aspects involved it is absolute necessary that the gross part of this task is done automaticly. This is done by transforming the knowledge into habits. To transfer the knowledge to the procedural part of the brain.

How does this transformation work?
The following issues play a role:

• consciousness
• repetition
• different pace of the procedural part and declarative part
• emotional reward
  

It looks like the procedural mind works by imitation. You have to repeate a certain thoughtprocess a few times and the produral memory starts to imitate it. So it becomes semi-intelligent. It copies the intelligence that's in the knowledge.
Let's have a look at a few examples first:

• To learn to drive a car takes 45 hours at average.
• Adjusting my pitch took me 22 hours. I sang 2500 tone-ladders.
  
• I played Troyis for 22 hours
• A crash-course skydiving took me 32 hours. Pun intended.

With both driving a car and skydiving you learn multiple complex motorskills simultaneously.
But are these examples really a good indicator for how long it must take to learn a new motorskill? If I seriously and consciously repeat a word of a foreign vocabulary for 7-10 times, I have learned to translate it in the future. How close is this related to a complex motorskill? Words of foreign languages tend to fade away overtime. From riding a bike and swimming is known that once you have learned it you will never unlearn it. Has that to do with the fact that you will always repeat those motions much more than 7-10 times? How many conscious repetitions are necessary to prevent a word from being forgotten during a lifetime (forget about the demency at the end of life. Pun intended.) How often must you consciously put your rook on an open file before it becomes a habit?

15 times sounds reasonable. But if 15 times is enough to form a lifetime habit, why are so many hours needed in the examples of driving, singing, Troyis and skydiving? Why know most sports so many hours of training? If you filter in with your car 15 times you know it for life. If you park your car 15 times you know it for life. If you swim 150 meters you know it for life.

Precision.
It seems that lots of repetitions are needed when precision plays a main role.
For singing it isn't sufficient that you can hit a note at the right pitch by copying a note produced by a keyboard:

• You must to do it from 32 different kinds of previous notes. Since the stand of the muscles of the larinx of the previous note influences the next note. So you must exercise 15 x 32 seperate habits.
• If you maintain every note for 5 seconds, it is simple, because you have time to adjust your larinx. But the shorter the note, the more difficult it gets and the more control is needed.
• If you have learned to copy a note from a keyboard you have learned to produce the harmony do-do. But during a polyfone piece you must be able to produce any harmony with precision, so you have to repeat the two points above for all kinds of intervals.
• Once you can hit any interval fast, you must concentrate on the overtones. Those have to harmonize with the rest too. So the whole training process starts over but no for the overtones.
• Once all this is mastered you sound like a dead midi-file from a computer and you have to learn to make music from the notes by adding emotion to it. But how do you do that? etc. etc..
• Not only must you know all this but you must train your ears too. You must learn how a harmony must sound, how overtones sound. There are altered sounds reflecting from the walls, transmitted through your skull etc.. All this you must learn to distinguish.
  

If every little subtask needs 15 repetitions then it becomes clear why it takes so much time to master a complex composed skill. If your consciousness starts to dwindle the process will stall immediately.

The same is true for chess. You must learn an awful lot of habits to master chess. The resulting semi-intelligence is as good as the quality of the initial knowledge. If your consciousness starts to dwindle the process of transformation of knowledge into habits will stall immediately.

Knowledge that isn't consciously processed into procedural memory becomes impotent phantom knowledge. It is assimilated into the stinky pool of scholarship. It will sink into the marsh like a hippopatamus!

There is no limit in the amount of knowledge that can be transformed into procedural knowledge. Nor will the amount of repetitions necessary to store the information differ much.
The limitations of the process seem to be due to the following factors:

• the quality of the knowledge
• the quality of the consciousness
• the sheer amount of subtasks
  

Habits.
There are some big advantages when knowledge is ingrained in procedural memory.

Speed.
Procedural memory can produce output at a much higher pace than the slow explicit thinking brain. Besides that it can process information parallel.

Visualisation.
Visualisation of the output is something you seem to get for free when knowledge is transformed.

Energy.
In contrast to explicit thinking there is virtual no effort needed in the procedural processing of data.

Freeing resources.
Procedural tasks don't need the short term memory (STM) while explicit thinking can't do without STM.

A problem is though that the output is only semi-intelligent. If you have learned impropriate habits the outcome will be faulty moves.

Feedback.
The output of your procedural "chessmodule" must be constantly monitored by your conscious thinking. You have to identify faulty moves and to define what is necessary to correct them. The result of the feedback re-enters the process as new knowledge.

Consciousness.
According to my interpretation of Baars, consciousness is paramount in the feedback.

• The lowest form of consciousness is automatic. Here you will find the blitz-players with a rating of 1200 after zillion games.
  
• The next level is trial and error. This works well when the result of a move is gross and well-defined, so as the win of material. But if the result of a move is subtle the correction will escape you since more effort is needed to develop a strategy.
  
• The next level are narratives. Those help you to identify what has gone wrong and to develop a strategy to do it better next time. Every new strategy needs its repetitions to become a new habit.

I realize this post isn't an easy read. But any feedback is appreciated!

More about feedback

In the past I had already written a lot about feedback here. I think that everything that is said there still stands today.

If you read the comments on my previous post, then you can see that we found that feedback is the nec plus ultra method to improve your motorskills. Let's see if I can elaborate on this.

Knowledge is short lived in chess. It either fades away or it is transformed into procedural knowledge. To give an example: when you read that it is a good idea to occupy an open file with a rook, you will either do that or forget to do that. Once it is a habit, you will do it every time, even when it isn't necessary. If it doesn't become a habit you don't will do it, but when you teach children you will tell them still that they have to occupy an open line. If knowledge isn't transformed into skill you are left with the impotent ghost of knowledge. This illustrates i.m.n.s.h.o. a transfer problem as mentioned by Phaedrus.

The transformation of knowledge is helped by narratives. Why? Because it helps to make the knowledge conscious. Consciousness is paramount. The following factors play a role:

• acquisition of knowledge
• quality of the knowledge
• transformation of knowledge into procedural memory. The forming of habits. With the aid of narratives.
  
• assessment of the knowledge. Because procedural knowledge is only semi-intelligent, you need to know it's value. Otherwise you cannot determine when the knowledge must be overruled. This assessment is based on the feedback from experience. Again, conscious feedback will adjust procedural memory while automatic feedback makes that this process of adjustment grinds to a hold.
• duration of validity of the knowledge. This only plays a role with opening knowledge.

From both Troyis and singing stems my estimation that it costs 22 hour or 2500 repetitions to establish the fully automatic application of knowledge. The transformation from knowledge into an effortless habit.

Let's take a closer look at Troyis.
While playing Troyis the feedback was rather low level and hardly conscious. It was simply based on trial and error. Yet the result was sufficient to score well at this test. The question is, can the amount of time I used for Troyis (about 22 hours) be diminished with better and more conscious feedback?
Possibly so. When I had taken some time to look better at the game of Troyis I could probably develop an efficient strategy to move through the maze. Trial and error simply doesn't lead to a sufficient optimized strategy.
It has to be said that the lazy way is attractive. After all, playing Troyis is no penalty. But for chess the lazy way is too time-consuming. There are too many skills to be mastered.

A factor that has to be taken into account is the difference in speed of the declaritive part of the mind, which is low, and the procedural part, which is fast.

Last friday at the club I played against an opponent who is rated 500 points below me. He has made a great progress the past years so maybe he is somewhat underrated. It is an elder guy, he doesn't like to think about the game nor to talk about it. He just plays a lot. He did see all tactics quite well. At a certain moment I made a severe positional error. I played a freeing move which in itself was a good idea, but I forgot to prepare the move. By just playing simple and logical moves his position became better and tactics came into play all by itself. At a certain moment he could win the exchange and I would be virtually lost. But he didn't see it and I could trade off a few pieces and the queens. I was a pawn behind with R+R+N against R+R+N. He had clearly no idea how to play this and I won the game in a simple way, despite being a pawn down.

This game illustrated me the following:
Feedback by means of just trial and error can make you a tactically competent player. Since the feedback is simple, you win a piece or not. But at the very moment he had to make a positional decision, he was lost. I just attacked a weak pawn and he couldn't resist to defend it. Because material is what tactics is about. If he had given up the pawn and had activated his rooks, he could have drawed, possibly. But this is something he cannot find by trial and error. And since he doesn't like to think, talk or read about chess he has cut off all other feedback.

Knowledge, calculation and evaluation

While developing the theory about motorskills I was well aware that I deliberately left out a few topics. Reading this post from Soapstone I realized that it is now the time to address them in the light of the new findings. I don't know where this post is going since I use the writing as a means to think about it. So please bear with me. Before I start to talk about evaluation, calculation and knowledge I summarize the previous in an attempt to get some focus.

Motorskills.
Experienced (7+ years) chessplayers don't differ all that much in amount of patterns they recognize nor do they differ all that much in the skill of recognition they have. The real difference is made by the automatic scan-habits they have.
When a task is performed with the aid of procedural memory you get these for free:

• speed
• visualisation

It works the other way around too: when there is no speed and you can't visualise it you can be sure that you lack the motorskill to perform the task.

Knowledge.
Knowledge is a strange commodity in chess.

Acquisition of knowledge.
Sometimes it is very difficult to obtain useful knowledge, but once acquired it is usually short lived. Within days or weeks the knowledge is converted into procedural memory.
For the acquisition of new knowledge the following elements are indicated as being helpful:

• a coach
• analysis of your own games
• books
• blogs
• etc.

Transfer of knowledge.
The transfer of knowledge into procedural memory is assisted by narratives. Just like the knowledge of the rules inevitaby will transform into procedural knowledge the same is true with almost any chess knowledge. You can't avoid it. Narratives form a bridge from acquisition to transfer. New knowledge that isn't transformed into procedural memory will usually be forgotten soon.

Opening knowledge.
The only edge that you can have with knowledge while it is still in the state of declarative knowledge, is the advantage you have with opening knowledge. Actually this isn't quite true since opening knowledge is constantly renewed. If a certain amount of opening knowledge isn't renewed within the last decade or so then usually everybody knows it. Even in a chesscafe almost every tourist knows how to play the first 5-8 moves of the Najdorf with white. Automaticly and without even knowing why.

Calculation.
The word calculation is used in a rather unusual way in chess. It has nothing to do with arithmatic. How shall I define it? Maybe this "Soapstone-inspired-definition" is useful:

Calculation is everything what happens in the mind before you evaluate the endpositions of the tree of analysis.

Evaluation.
After the calculation you have to assess the endpositions.
We like to belief that our decisionmaking is conscious and rational. Usually there are too many factors involved so we make a sort of emotional assessment.

Right now I realize I first have to think alot more about this subject, so I will shift that to a future post. There is clearly a lot that has to be taken into account. Sorry if I have awoken expectations that I can't fulfill at this very moment.

Scanning-skills as guide for pattern recognition.

I'm trying to falsify my hypothesis by putting it to the test via Chess Tempo.
I focus on the following motorskills:

• identifying targets
• identifying attackers of those targets, including the path the attackers have to go
• identifying squares where my own pieces converge
  
• visualize the "radiation" from attackers and how this limits the mobility of the opponent's pieces but especially the king
  

All these skills play a role in initially scanning the board.
Today I encountered this problem:
























White to move.

While I was looking at the black queen as target with my rook as attacker, I considered 1.Rf8
Immediately I recognized the pattern of a rook sac on h8 with an invasion of the white queen via h6-g7
1.Rf8 Qc6 2.Rh8+ Kxh8 3. Qxh6+ Kg8 4.Qg7#

Because of the order of the scans I persist to use, I recognized this more complex pattern before I had the chance to look at a more simple pattern:
1.Qxh6+ Kxh6 2.Rh3#

This simple Anastasia's mate only occurred to me while I was executing the 4th scan, to visualise the radiation from the knight and how it limited the black king.

The recognition of a pattern is triggered by the guidance of the scan.

Intermezzo about pattern recognition.
General is thought that for chess you need to be able to recognize 50,000 to 100,000 positions. These figures are based on a scientific study by Prof. Adraan de Groot. It's my belief that the professor has put us on the wrong foot here. The amount is much less. The mere ability to recognize patterns itself multiplies this little figure into a big figure. Since everybody possesses the ability to recognize patterns only this little figure (i.e. the # of patterns you need to know) is of relevance. It is my take that almost everybody who has done tactics on a regular basis knows the most relevant patterns.

The difference is made by the scanning that guides your pattern recognition. That determines if you will find the pattern or not. The problem is not in the recognition of patterns but in the scanning-skills. Those guide your eyes to the different parts of the board plus they determine how you look.

Initially it is pretty difficult to learn to scan effectively. At first you have to do the process in a conscious way, using your thoughts to steer your focus. Exactly as you start to learn any motorskill. Endgoal is to perform the scans unconscious and automatically without effort.

Skill-assisted thinking

An example of my previous post might clarify matters (or obscure them even more:).
Say, Joe's rating is 1800. In that case I say 1700 points are atribbuted due to his motorskills while his average conscious thinking adds the other 100 points.

Average Joe.
Motorskills = 1700
Average conscious thinking = 100
Total rating = 1800

By drinking beer, having no sleep and trashtalking to spectators during the game he can diminish the influences of his conscious thinking to the maximum. In that case he plays still like a 1700 player.

Beer-impaired Joe.
Motorskills = 1700
Beer-impaired conscious thinking = 0
Total rating = 1700

If he improves his stamina, works on his focus and visualisation, drinks lots of coffee etc. he can improve his conscious thinking untill it is responsible for 200 rating points. In that case he will play like a 1900 player.

Optimized Joe.
Motorskills = 1700
Not average anymore conscious thinking = 200
Total rating = 1900

Fugures are arbitrary, of course.

In my scheme it seems as if there are two sources for chess moves: conscious thinking and unconscious complex motorskills. From here off referred to as thinking and skills.
In reality your moves are produced by your thinking while your skills assist your thinking.

When you start playing you have no skills, so all work is done by your thinking. Soon after you start to build your first skills and the task of your thinking will be enlightened. So there is room to think about other things. In the end you have build a pile of skills and your rating plateaues. Why is that?

It becomes harder and harder to find a skill that really attributes to the win of the game. If Joe starts to play Troyis, he builds the skill to move around the knight in a restricted area. In stead of thinking about those knight moves he will be able to do them automatically, without effort, fast, and he will be able to visualize them. These kind of moves are used in a game typically to regroup your knight with 3 or 4 moves. Since such move seldom decides the game, Joe's rating wil not improve more than a few points by playing Troyis. If measurable at all. His greatest advantage lies in the fact that he saves time while thinking about them, plus such move occurs sooner to Joe when there is one in the position.

The point is to find the skills that really matter. Some skills are too simple and common so everybody developes them. Other skills are so specific that you rarely need them. And other skills are common but have little or no effect on the outcome of the game.

The past weeks I have been busy to identify relevant motorskills. So far I haven't reached definite conclusions but I will give you an example what I'm researching.
























White to move

This is a typical end of the middlegame position which I played yesterday. Especially
the fact that the queens are still on the board makes that both sides have a lot of possibilities. Most moves are trivial, that is to say they aren't immediately decisive, but you have to look at them anyway just to be sure. This is typically where motorskill assistance kicks in. The queens are racing around the board and the ease with which you can imagine them cuts down on the time you need to find a move and improves the quality of your move. In this case I had consciously worked to create a few targets and now I try to exploit them. Black is already too late and will lose a pawn by Qb5. And white can try to play for the win.

It is this kind of motorskills I'm talking about.

• Pretty simple
• Very common
• Potentially decisive
• Freeing up brain resources for thinking
• Not mastered optimally by your opponent
  

The skill to race around the board with your queen and to aim at different targets can be trained seperately. Such skill will definitely attribute to your game results since such positions appear frequently and the application can be decisive.

The microdrills of DLM are somewhat too simple and too common (=already mastered) to be of much use for Joe, but for the real novice they will be very good. If the skills are too complex, this will have an ill effect on the frequency you can apply them.

Transfer.
Training should engage in transferring tasks from your thinking to your skills.