Temposchlucker

. . . . Tagging = Adding Intelligence

. . . . AoxomoxoA said it beautifully well: I did start at CT with standard tactics training = "focus on high rated problems. Just to minimize the effect of learning new patterns.". My standard rating did get up higher and higher... but my Fide estimate based on standard did go down and my Blitz rating did not change. The CT-Blitz-Rating is better correlated to the OTB-Elo then CT-Standard-Rating. My problem was: I was just getting slower and slower. This is exactly the problem we have to solve. We know how to solve complex puzzles in the studyroom when we are given enough time. But it doesn't transfer to OTB play. It is exactly the problem of cc players who play well in cc but not OTB. This must be a problem of automation, of ability, of skill. I have done lots and lots of difficult puzzles in the past with the same result as Aox. And I followed the same route to overcome it. But by focussing on patterns you are slaughtered by the law o...

. . . . I don't know how exactly CT has extracted their tactical problemset from a database of real games. Hence I don't know if their problems represent the statistical occurence in real OTB games. But let us assume that it is true, for the sake of reasoning. Rating distribution of tactical problems . . . Why is this actually a bell curve? Wouldn't it be logical that the simplest combinations occur the most? This looks like it is the result of filtering by CT. There are only about 25 different tactical elements (pin, skewer, etc.) which combine to combinations. There are 25 x 25 = 625 combinations of 2 tactical elements. 15,625 of 3 tactical elements and 390,625 of 4 elements, 9,765,625 combinations of 5 elements . There are two strategies to handle this increasing amount of possibilities: Learn those 9,765,625 positions by heart. Learn to reason logically with only the 25 elements. In the beginning the easiest progress is made ...

. . . . You might have read over it in the comments of the previous post, so I will summarize it here. Munich had a period of 2-3 months in which he improved 200 points. In 2001 I had a period of 6 weeks in wich I gained 170 points. I always felt that this should be the standaard and not the exception when you train something. Oddly enough I couldn't replicate that trainingseffect allthough I tried it for 10 years. It seems logical to look after what the training of Munich and me have in common: We learned something that was new to us. We both were aware that we were improving. The automation of the knowledge happened somehow automatically , without specialized training. No repetition exercises. No speed exercises. The essence of the training seems to be that we learned something new . Of course you can't expect to improve 200 points every 3 months. But it sets a new standaard. Just like the 620 points in 2 years of DLM did. Why can...

. . . . I always had the feeling that there was something missing in what DLM told us about his method of chess improvement. Something he forgot to tell us. Not on purpose, but for the reason that he didn't realize that it was important. All the knights who aped his method over the years failed to get the same results as DLM did. Because of this little omission. It took me 7 years of research to find out what that little something could be. Now I have found a reasoning that might explain everything. The pieces of the puzzle fall into place. This should be the order of training: Add intelligence. Automate it. With adding intelligence I mean that you must take your time to really grasp the concept behind a tactical puzzle. You must ask yourself: what is so special about this position that it works. You must ask yourself: how must I guide my mind so that I will see the solution the next time. This is by its very nature a slow process of conscious thinki...

. . . . Now I work out the why behind every tactic I'm enjoying tactics again. But two questions come to mind: What is the difference between a Stoyko exercise and correspondence chess? Why do cc players usually not improve their OTB play?

. . . . I'm able to build a logical reasoning. I only don't do it when it comes to chess. Why not? Automatic thinking has taken over. Since automatic thinking is only semi-intelligent, it doesn't adapt to the details in the position. So I fail in the details. You can play chess only with a great deal of automatic thinking. For the reason there is no time to think consciously. Conscious thinking ist just way too slow during a game. So you can't use real intelligence in a game. I exaggerate to make it more clear. This means that we depend on the quality of our semi-intelligence. That's why we plateau in chess at a certain level. No matter how much conscious intelligence we possess. In life this means that when we grow older we start to rely more and more on automatic intelligence. Even if it isn't very well suited for reality. The task at hand is to improve the quality of our semi-intelligence. With the checklist I have introduced a...

I have been working my way through another 50 2300-rated problems at CT. Of those I consider 2 to be difficult to find. The rest is simple once you know it. I refined my checklist to 37 tactical elements. I could describe all 50 problems with only those 37 elements. I scored 0% which is both amazing and fantastic. The amazing part is that the users that have done these exercises scored about 30%. Of course it are usually the higher rated players that encounter such high rated problems. Yet I assume that I don't score in accordance to my rating. That might have to do with the fact that I maybe have trained too much patterns. The recognition of patterns is so strong that it is difficult to come up with something different. But maybe I deceive myself here. The fantastic part is that it exactly pinpoints why I such at chess. I can't build a consistent logical reasoning which guides my pattern recognition. I falsify moves that are good and I don't falsify moves t...

. . . . Black to move. 2288 rated. Solution .

. . . . The checklist for tactics has now 37 points. Today I did 30 difficult problems at CT and I was able to describe them all with those 37 points. Which is of course the other way around. But applying the chechecklist to problems seems to work too, though. I'm trying to do the same with positional chess. Does anyone have an idea where I can find a database with high  level and computer checked positional problems?

. . . . I don't have the feeling that my idea about guidance comes across very well. Let me try another angle of attack. First I want to make one point very clear. I don't have anything against speedtraining. As a matter of fact, at this very moment I do speedtraining of the overworked piece tactic with a low rated problemset at Chess Tempo at moments when I'm too lazy to think for myself. It works and it should be trained. But don't let the results of this interfere with the results of guidance, since that is quite a different animal. First you should read this little story . What did I learn from this? The mind is protected against cognitive overload by context restraints. You will only find those patterns which match the actual context. I looked for two hours at the position for a positional clue (I had not invented "No DIY" yet) without noticing the mate in 3. After the context was changed, I recognised the mate within 20 seco...

. . . . Munich said: Still, in the very fist puzzle (with the distraction theme) I only considered the check ...Rf8+, but not the check ...Bg3+. Nevertheless it is good to be able to find 35 checks/ minute instead of 6 or 7 checks per minute (the value I started with when I did the check-training). Actually, you (Temposchlucker) found out what is the hypothesis of aoxomoxoa: difficult puzzles are made of several easy patterns. While an easy-easy puzzle contain often just 1 simple tactic, an "easy"-difficult puzzle often contain 2 or more easy-easy puzzle tactic ideas (remember my 2+2 = 4 equation?). Here the hypothesis of aox again, see point 5 & 9  Of course being able to recognize 728 knightforks in 1 minute is better than 7 per minute. And if you want to do repetitions until mortgage foreclosure, be my guest. I don't deny the importance of that. Everything what is said about that still stands today. But I suggest kindly to don...