Temposchlucker

The attempt to categorize the combinations in search for new patterns already revealed an interesting point. We usually think of combinations as an infinite way to combine tactical themes. But in practice, they usually come in pairs. If you have a double attack/fork, there are two targets involved. That can be pieces, or another tactical theme. For instance: piece + piece piece + mate threat example piece + loading a battery (discovered attack) example piece + invasion example There are about 18 common used tactical themes: Preliminary moves Attraction/magnet Blocking Capture/replace target Clearance Coercion/Chase Distraction/Overloading Interference Quiet Move Zwischenzug Duple attack or trap Discovered Attack Fork/Double Attack Invasion Mate threat Pin Promotion/advanced pawn Removal of the guard Skewer/X-Ray Attack Trapped Piece These 18 themes can combine with each other in 18 x 18 = 324 ways. In practice, not every combin

The diagnosis of our disease looks precise, and I'm happy with it. The past 63 days I've been on a streak at Chess Tempo, and I have made no progress in the area of the remedy at all . It is time to have a fresh look at it. What do we know? Prof. Dr. Temposchlucker From a documentary I learned that Susan Polgar has hijacked her Fusiform Face Area (FFA), a brain area that is dedicated to face recognition,  in order to use it for the recognition of chess positions. There are some scientific papers that point in the same direction (the FFA). Yet I'm reluctant to make much use of these papers. I'm no scientist, and if I'm going to try to emulate one, I might very well limit myself due to misinterpreting scientific data. In stead I will use my regular reasoning, which is good enough, and if it leads to wrong conclusions, we will falsify them along the way. Pattern recognition There are about 30 tactical themes that are commonly used when talking about tactic

There are two vast areas where we can improve in tactics: discipline and typical patterns. Discipline We suffer from an undisciplined mind. If we have decided to soar above the board, we are drawn into any interesting looking feature of the position before we know it. If you haven't looked at a specific area of the board, you simply don't know what there is. Our addiction to interesting looking variations is of biblical proportions. And every variation is a potential tunnel. White to move b7/3r2k1/1pqp1pBp/p3pPr1/P1P1P2Q/1P6/3R2P1/3R3K w - - 1 1 solution Here I was busy with interesting looking variations with queen sacrifices, rook lifts and pawn pushes for 4:37 minutes (!) before I remembered to soar a little higher in order to be able to see where my bishop could go. I simply had not looked at that part of the board at all! This happens time and again, time and again, time and again. WE MUST NOT ENGAGE IN VARIATIONS UNTIL WE HAVE SEEN THE BIG PICTURE! Typical p

I'm soaring for the third day now above the chessboard. Trying to never let my mind engage in any activity that causes me to loose sight of the whole picture. What I found, is that about 50% of my time is wasted by trivial moves. Moves of which I am inclined to think that "people of my level" should see them a tempo. But apparently my level is in fact due to not seeing these trivial moves immediately. It must look dumb (as usual) if I give an example, but no worries, I'm sure you have your own trivial moves that you overlook. Looking dumb has never been an issue to stop me from publishing. Black to move 3q3k/pRr1r1pp/2nNbp2/2p5/Q7/3P2P1/P3P1BP/5RK1 b - - 1 1 solution This position is in the middle of a sequence belonging to the solution. Apparently I had forgotten my holistic approach, since it took me two (!) minutes to find the right move. What did I do in those two minutes? Good question! I was totally engaged in solving the problem of my overworked quee

Hitherto I have found that the main problem with tactics lies in the inability to see a combination as a whole (level 3). There are a few temptations that distract you from seeing the big picture. Temptation 1: trial and error The first temptation is dubbed trial and error . This means that you see an interesting move, and want to see where it might lead to. Effectively, this is gambling. As in real life, gambling usually costs more than it yields. It depends completely of the position if the gamble pays off. In the metaphor of the missing keys which lie on your bed, if you are searching in the garage, you are wasting time. Your mind is gadding around at level 1 (moves). Temptation 2: tactical motifs When you see an interesting pin, you might try to exploit it. At the same time, you loose sight of the big picture. You can't know beforehand, if the pin is actually an element of the required combination. Effectively, it is a gamble, which might or might not pay off. You might b

So far I found two types of positions that cause me trouble: positions where I overlook a tactical element and positions where my logical reasoning goes astray. And of course there are combinations of those two types Logical reasoning reinvestigated After doing a lot of problems with my previous post about logical reasoning in mind , I can't help but wondering if logic reasoning is actually the best tool for the job. I remembered a lot of muttering reactions long ago when I proposed to exchange logical reasoning for something that you actually see . The most grumbling was founded by the idea that human thinking is so much more than pattern recognition, and chess is so much more than a simple game, that we need at least to engage the whole human mind in thinking about a chess position, with a big role for the human reason. Albeit that might be true fore a complex middlegame position (I commit the heresy to doubt that), the battering of our human vanity by computers the last tw

The position below is of a special pedigree. It was easy to spot all construction blocks of the combination. The only thing I had to do is to put them in the right order. For that, a little logical reasoning is necessary. In tests, I usually score extremely well when it comes to logical reasoning. But here I could not get the building blocks in the right order within 4 minutes. And when I saw the correct answer, I slapped my proverbial forehead. Black to move 6k1/1p4p1/3PN2p/p7/1n1R3P/1q4P1/5PB1/6K1 b - - 1 1   solution This kind of logical reasoning is both time consuming and error prone. It need to be worked on separately. It is quite different from the position in the previous post, where the problem was that a certain tactical building block was overlooked. I'm a bit surprised to see that I'm so bad in logical reasoning when it comes to chess, while it usually is my forte. If I could only overcome these two flaws: poor chess logic and missing tactical building bl

After 51 days of doing blitz exercises at CT, the diagnosis of what's wrong is pretty clear. Yet I'm not one step closer to a remedy. Let's summarize what we have found so far. The diagnosis Logical thinking takes too much time and should be minimized.  I wander too long at level 1 and 2 (individual moves and individual tactical motifs) I have oversights at level 3 (combination, how the pieces work together) Guiding my attention to find the oversights at level 3 has proven to be elusive so far. Decision between different choices takes much time Confusion increases time usage in an exponential way What has been tried so far Creating a formal thought process. Applying a formal thought process. Slow post mortem to ingrain the geometrical patterns into the brain. Slow post mortem to ingrain the logical patterns into the brain. Solving at the highest possible speed.  Guiding the attention at level 3. Categorizing the problems Analyzing the time consumers Foc

The following diagram is a beautiful example of the problems we are trying to tackle. It is by no means a complicated position, so there is no confusion. This means that confusion is not the first problem we have to fix (!). All geometrical patterns are perfectly well known, so no problem in that department. There is not much visualization required, no problem there. I dabbled around on level 1 and 2. I.e. I looked for moves and for tactical motifs or themes, or whatever we call it. I knew I should look for level 3, the combination. I can't say that any logical reasoning really took off. You can't find a combination by just scanning level 1 and 2. If you are lucky then you get an idea of level 3, but if you are not lucky you are pretty much toast. You can't work your way up. You can't comprehend a sentence by just scanning the letters and the words ad infinitum. Even a checklist that in itself is based on questions that don't expand beyond level 2 is not going to gi

So far, investigation  has revealed two types of error: Missed patterns Flawed logic Today I had a closer look at the missed patterns. I found out, that if I take more time for a problem, I stop missing patterns. The price tag for this is twice the amount of time than the average solving time of other users for a problem. This means, that if I take my time, then sooner or later I will find all patterns that I used to miss. This implies that the missed pattern problem is actually a slow logic problem. Which I'm very glad to find out. All my failure is logical reasoning related. Only once in every 25 problems (4% of the cases) I make an error that is due to bad logic. I'm glad that both problems are related to logical reasoning. I will make an in depth study of the 4% flawed logic errors. What remains is 64% failure due to slow logical reasoning and 32% correct solved problems in time. And so the key question remains: how to speed up logical reasoning? After 45 days co

After I made an error, or use excessive time while solving problems on  CT, I always take my time during the post mortem to analyze what has been going wrong. Once in a while, I bundle my errors, and try to categorize them. I found that I made two types of errors. Missing a pattern Often a pattern is all too familiar, yet I miss it. A knight fork, a simple mate pattern, that kind of things. To be honest, I'm not too worried about that. It is caused by the fact that with CT, you must time and again acclimatize to a position. When I play a game at a slow tempo, I rarely miss these patterns. On the other hand, to become better at CT, I will have to fix this. I belief that should be perfectly doable. For the time being I focus my attention to fix a more nasty kind of error. Just for the record, I already explained that I don't belief that salt mine style exercises are of much help here. Confusion From time to time, I bump into a position that confuses me. When the mind is con

The story of a combination is the story of the initiative. We need a thorough knowledge of the "inner workings" of the initiative. Somehow the initiative always has been a kind of "changeling" for me. In books it is always mentioned rather briefly, while the more "sexy" motifs of a combination gets way more attention. The result is that I have theoretical knowledge about the initiative, and some practical knowledge that is embedded in geometrical patterns. Since the most knowledge is theoretical, the only way to apply the knowledge is by logical thinking. Which is, as we know, notoriously slow. I measure the time usage during solving a problem. And that put me on the track of the initiative. Time and again, I use a minute here and a 30 seconds there, by thinking about the flow of the combination. A better grasp of the precise modifications of the initiative would give me a faster insight in what is going on in the position. The story of the initiative te