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The past 10 years I often complained that 1 + 1 <= 2. That's to say, I always got what I trained for, or less. There was never a bonus, never a self accumulating effect, no rent, no unexpected fruitfull side effects, no magical brain changes overnight. So if you would have asked me if chess training is good for anything but chess then I was inclined to answer it in a negative way. It is of course a nice idea that if you want to raise funds for your chess hobby to claim that it improves your school results too or so. But I didn't found any proof of such beneficial side effects.
Recently matters have changed. If you train a skill, your brain all of a sudden shows a self organizing effect which I haven't seen when I trained in a conscious way. If you give your subconsciousness no other instruction than to improve the speed at which you can see a knightfork then the brain reorganizes itself and assimilates a strategy to do so.
Take for instant Troyis. I never took the effort to formulate a strategy to play it well. Yet, by mere playing it as fast as I could, I was getting better at it. I don't think that the strategy you unconsciously develop is necessarily the best strategy, but it is a strategy that works well enough. The best fit, so to speak. And what's more, I didn't need to invest additional effort to formulate a strategy consciously. There are other side effects too. After two hours chess training I stood up, bought a new washmachine tap and replaced the old one. In one flow, without hesitation, without thinking and doing different other tasks at high speed along the way. Quite a difference with my usual rather contemplative pace in live. Rebuilding half the universe in my mind along the way
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Did I already mention the importance of speed? The speed of training must be faster than your conscious thinking can follow. But why is it then that blitz chess doesn't work? Because it isn't simple. Simple tasks can be automated. Complex can't since the ratio of repetition isn't high enough. 15.000 repetitions in 22 hours total is the goal. You can't make that in complex positions. They differ too much.
...But 15.000 repititions in 22 hours mean that you have about 5 seconds per repetition. I could play blitz games with 2-3 seconds per move while my opponent has 2-3 seconds per move, too. If I play against a computer, I can make the program play very fast, lets say 1 sec per move for the program, 4 sec for me. Makes 15.000 repititions.
ReplyDeleteSo this cant be a limit.
But I guess, it would still not work (=improve my chess), though I never tried.
Here my thoughts about a training like yours:
http://chesstempo.com/chess-forum/training_diaries/munichs_training_diary-t2537.0.html;msg24458#new
greetings, Munich
Say in 1 blitzgame you encounter 1 knightfork. If 1 blitzgame = 5 minutes, you can play 264 games. That are 264 repetitions of a knightfork in 22 hours. That is way too little. Besides that there is too much noise in a game, so the brain can't self-organize a strategy for knightforks.
ReplyDeleteIt's like learning multiplication and starting with 2134 x 318. If you try that and speed up you enter a different game: gambling.
With gambling on a move, your mind doesn't get correct feedback. So it can't adjust a strategy.
I read your forum-post. You shouldn't worry about that you know the theme of a problem. If you train 8x7 you shouldn't be worried by the fact that you have an advantage because you know that you are busy with the table of 7. Your subconsciousness doesn't obey logic as it's guideline anyway:)
ReplyDeleteIf I read your post correctly you are saying that if one does ones training quick and repetively the brain will remember it beter then if one does it slow and repetively?
ReplyDelete@CT, what I'm saying is that you can only automate a task by doing it faster than the conscious brain can follow (typically <= 3 seconds). Doing a task is different from remembring knowledge.
ReplyDeleteIf you do it slower then the brain has no urge to automate the task. In stead of that it will reconstruct a solution every time you need it at the chessboard. Which makes use of the short term memory which is dearly needed for more important things.