Attack your confusion!
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 confused, time usage grows exponentially. I don't miss familiar patterns in this case, I miss the patterns because they are not thoroughly familiar. The positions are always related with exchange sequences, and subtle intricacies concerning maintaining the initiative. I have written a few times about the initiative the past weeks, and I noticed that these posts generated very little page views, and almost no comments. I'm very surprised by that.
It is very hard to imagine that this isn't a major cause of errors for most readers of this blog. But maybe in positions that are different than the ones I show you here. With hindsight, it is hard to see why I had so much trouble to fully understand the following diagram. It has taken me hours to grasp the simple essence of the position, and I have written out the whole tree of analysis for that. The position exposed a few major flaws in my chess thinking. If you too think that the position is dead simple, you should look for positions where you are confused yourself. The timer of CT shows you the way.
6k1/pp4pp/2p1brq1/3pn3/4P2P/2N1PBP1/PPP1Q1K1/5R2 b - - 1 1
solution
I played 1. ... Nxf3 here, which is wrong, and I was genuinely surprised to see that I should take with the rook here. What is the combination about? The heart of the combination is the duple attack 1. ... Rxf3 2. Rxf3 Bg4, which pins the white rook to the queen. Normally this shouldn't work, since the rook on f3 is twice attacked and twice defended, but due to the high value of the white defenders, black outnumbers white on f3. The first move is a preliminary move, which is designed to lure the rook into the pin with a capture. The reason why the black rook should execute the preliminary move, is that when the knight takes on f3 (1. ... Nxf3 2.Rxf3 Bg4) the white rook becomes a desperado, with a clear target on f6 and g6. When 1. ... Rxf3 2.Rxf3 Bg4, then the white rook has no such profitable target.
As said, the position is dead simple with hindsight, but it took me a few hours to iron out the confusion in my brain. Why was this position so confusing to me? Somehow I wasn't able to see what the pieces were doing in this position.
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 confused, time usage grows exponentially. I don't miss familiar patterns in this case, I miss the patterns because they are not thoroughly familiar. The positions are always related with exchange sequences, and subtle intricacies concerning maintaining the initiative. I have written a few times about the initiative the past weeks, and I noticed that these posts generated very little page views, and almost no comments. I'm very surprised by that.
It is very hard to imagine that this isn't a major cause of errors for most readers of this blog. But maybe in positions that are different than the ones I show you here. With hindsight, it is hard to see why I had so much trouble to fully understand the following diagram. It has taken me hours to grasp the simple essence of the position, and I have written out the whole tree of analysis for that. The position exposed a few major flaws in my chess thinking. If you too think that the position is dead simple, you should look for positions where you are confused yourself. The timer of CT shows you the way.
 | |
| Black to move |
solution
I played 1. ... Nxf3 here, which is wrong, and I was genuinely surprised to see that I should take with the rook here. What is the combination about? The heart of the combination is the duple attack 1. ... Rxf3 2. Rxf3 Bg4, which pins the white rook to the queen. Normally this shouldn't work, since the rook on f3 is twice attacked and twice defended, but due to the high value of the white defenders, black outnumbers white on f3. The first move is a preliminary move, which is designed to lure the rook into the pin with a capture. The reason why the black rook should execute the preliminary move, is that when the knight takes on f3 (1. ... Nxf3 2.Rxf3 Bg4) the white rook becomes a desperado, with a clear target on f6 and g6. When 1. ... Rxf3 2.Rxf3 Bg4, then the white rook has no such profitable target.
As said, the position is dead simple with hindsight, but it took me a few hours to iron out the confusion in my brain. Why was this position so confusing to me? Somehow I wasn't able to see what the pieces were doing in this position.
I am not sure what caused so big confusion to you, but I found the move RxB in about 10 seconds. And after short validation - I could not refute it. And I could not find any other promising move - different than the one mentioned.
ReplyDeleteI thought there is a small trap inside, but if White plays: QxR NxR, Black is winning anyway.
Maybe your problem is with the pin motif. Not just bare pin like 3 pieces at the diagrams when the children learn how to set up a motif, but the pin with the other ones you mentioned: desperado, the order of capturing, pieces value and a counterattack.
I used to have such problem with pins, but after some excercises and conclusions - it seems it is not that visible anymore.
And yes: if you write down after each half-move (a move played by one side) what is changed in the position and what gains (benefits) are for each side... you will find the best (or at least very good) move much faster and with less effort. I believe it is true.
BTW. I think you have come up with a very good idea to pinpoint wrong variation. Anyway I think it should be "expanded" a bit more (with explanation).
ReplyDeleteWhat do I mean? 1.NxN RxN and 2.Bg4 and now Rxh6. In my opinion this variations shows very well why this continuation does nor provide any advantage for Black.
And just a word of advice to your collection of tips. Always try to take the (less value) pieces with the pieces of a bigger value. Especially when you have a Bishop or Rook that can set up the pin. And if you capture the piece of your opponent which can do the pin (I mean - Rook or Bishop, sometimes a Queen) you can solve probably most of the "pin positions".
PART I:
ReplyDelete@Tomasz:
What did you mean by "1.NxN RxN and 2.Bg4 and now Rxh6"? There is no Knight captures Knight (by either side) available and Rxh6 is not possible.
@Temposchlucker:
I think this is a good illustration of why a "rule" (yes, I am aware that all such "rules" have innumerable exceptions) such as "always capture with the lowest valued piece" can be deceiving.
I think Aox's first three steps in his thinking process might have been helpful here.
(1. Count the material.) White is a Pawn up and everything APPEARS to be adequately protected: potential capture squares are f3 and e4. The Bf3 is protected 3 times and (currently) only attacked twice. The Pawn vis-à-vis (e4-d5) is covered by the White Bishop and Knight.
(2. Think a moment about opponents last move.) The last White move is not given here (although it might have been given on CT). One of my favorite exercises is to look at a given position and attempt to decipher what the last move "probably" was. Sometimes this helps to unravel the idea in the position. In this position, there seem to be several possible White moves preceding the position as given, so that's not really helpful here.
(3. Decide if the puzzle is about Checkmate, gain of material, or pawn promotion.) This can be done quickly. There is no obvious checkmate, and there are no Pawns approaching the Queening square. Therefore, the problem is about gaining material. As previously observed, there are only two squares on which a gain of material can occur: e4 or f3.
BLACK HAS THE MOVE! This is the first "clue" regarding the initiative. Black can "force" his will on White for at least one move with a "forcing" (CCT?) move. 1. ... d5xe4 2. Bxe4 or 2. Nxe4 ends Black's "initiative" and a general exchange of pieces will/may occur because of the open lines. So, for our intended purpose of gaining material, this line does not appear to be fruitful. We may have to come back to this line, but for now, we shift our attention to the f3 square.
PART II:
ReplyDeleteOnly two possibilities occur: 1. ... Nxf3 and 1. ... Rxf3. I briefly looked at 1. ... Nxf3 with the "idea" (perhaps) of deflecting the White King with 2. ... Bh3+. But 2. WRxf3 Bh3+ allows the White King to play 3. WKxf3 or 3. WKf2 and the White Rook is still protected, so that idea doesn't seem to work. I also thought about a potential ...BNxh4+ but it's hard to do that when the Black Knight has already been captured earlier in the move sequence!
So, by process of elimination, we arrive at 1. ...BRxf3. Now White is forced to recapture 2. WRxf3. Here I started looking for "desperado" moves of the White Rook: can White check my King? Yes, but it just loses the Rook because there is nothing Black has that is hanging, and there is no White followup sequence of checks. Is there any "attack" on the Black Queen? Yes, with 3. Rf6, but, again, there is no followup that doesn't just lose the White Rook.
Here (I think) is the hidden initiative. Using a "stepping stone" approach, visualize what potential motif(s) have now become available in the "new" position. Hmmm, there is now a potential pin of the White Rook against the White Queen (the geometrical motif). 2. ... BBg4 and let's see what is available. There is still no "forcing" or "desperado" moves of the White Rook that don't just lose it for nothing. The Black Queen and the Black Knight protect the Black Bishop and the White Queen is the only potential attacker (after moving the White Rook).
Now is the time when the realization of the relative material values comes into play. There are now two Black attackers on f3 and two defenders, B-U-T, both of the Black attackers are lower valued than both of the White defenders. Consequently, Black has an attacking superiority of two to NONE on f3. There are no other White pieces or Pawns that can be brought to defend f3 in sufficient time. The White Rook will be captured with gain of material, which is the "point" of the problem.
One of Dr. Lasker's insights is that at each and every new position in a web of variations, new (unanticipated) motifs may appear. It is vitally important to remember that idea when seeking a "solution." Not all potential motifs lie on the surface of the position. This process of "seeing" new motifs as the variation(s) progress may be a good clue as to how to continue with the initiative, in conjunction with "forcing" moves.
The question is, do you guys recognize the confusion? Apparently you don't, in this position. But do you recognize the confusion itself? Are there positions where you feel that the solving time went through the roof? And if so, in what kind of positions does this happen?
ReplyDeleteLogically, we all suffer from this problem, otherwise we would have become masters long time ago [ahem]. But due to our difference in past experiences, this problem shows itself in quite different positions. What is a problem for me is not a problem for you and vice versa. Without the stopwatch, I wouldn't have noticed the problem at all.
The fix is easy: a thorough investigation of the position does the job. And like you, I wonder what actually the problem was. Which mental blockade prevented me to see factual simplicity.
Yes, I recognize the "confusion"; that certainly describes MY lack of discernment in many positions. There ARE positions in which I stumble around, lost, without any clear idea of how to proceed. I am currently working through Tim Brennan's Tactics Time 2 book. I had a position in which nothing "popped" into my sight. It took conscious effort and several minutes to methodically work through the steps to FINALLY get an inkling of an idea. After that, it became easy to "see" the solution.
ReplyDeleteThe personal "problem" that I am currently working on (and have been working on it for several months) is to keep looking for the interrelationships of ALL pieces, using the "motifs" idea as the means of recognition. My "stumbling block" in the given position was failing to look for the potential relationship between the Black Bishop and the f3 square. In the initial position, the Black Bishop cannot go to g4 without just losing it. Consequently, I did not "see" the value of that as a move until after I had worked through the elimination process to arrive at 1. ... Rxf3. I still didn't "see" the Black Bishop move to g4 until AFTER 2. WRxf3 A-N-D I had created a "stepping stone" position. The "stepping stone" position is typically taught as a means to prevent returning to the initial position over and over because of insufficient visualization skills. It can also be used as the means to "look" for new motifs that were hidden initially. That's an insight I gained from this problem and your comments. I had not considered that aspect before.
I'll have to dig deeper to identify the type of problems that cause me "confusion." I'll try to get back to you on that one with some examples.
Thank you!
I can make you a temporary guest author of this blog, if you like. That way it is easier to post diagrams etcetera.
DeleteHere's an example that I just spent over an hour on the analysis. If you're a computer analyst/programmer, you are aware of the term "analysis paralysis" as an occupational disease. Well, that's what happened to me. Here's the position in FEN:
Delete3rk2r/pp3ppp/4bn2/2b5/1nPN4/4BP2/PPNp1KPP/R4B1R b k - 0 1
(It is exercise #(752) in Tim Brennan and Andrea Carson's book Tactics Time 2: 1001 More Chess Tactics from the Games of Everyday Players.)
(1. Count the material.) At present, the material is even.
(2. Think a moment about opponent's last move.) No idea what White played last.
(3. Decide if the puzzle is about Checkmate, gain of material, or pawn promotion.) There is no obvious checkmate by either player. There is a Black Pawn on the verge of queening AND there is a conflagration of potential exchanges associated with the d4, c2, d1 and e3 squares, so it could be either gain of material or Pawn promotion, or some combination (no pun intended) of the two options.
I first looked at possible promotion of the Black Pawn. 1. ... BNxc2 2. WNxN (forced) d1(BQ) 3. WRxQ (forced) BRxd1 seemed fairly obvious, IFF quiescence has been reached. I was on a roll - until I noticed that the Black Bishop at c5 is "hanging." OOPS! And i immediately went WRONG! Instead of realizing that quiescence had NOT been reached, I abandoned the variation. If I had created a "stepping stone" position in my mind at this point, then it would have been fairly obvious (I wish!) that 4. WBxc5 BRd2+ 5. K moves BRxc2 leaves Black up a piece. Why did I NOT "see" this? I think it was because of the residual image of the White Bishop at e3, "protecting" the d2 square! So, I didn't "see" that by capturing on c5, the White Bishop no longer protects d2, allowing the fork.
Since I abandoned that variation, I "assumed" that the "solution" had to be about material gain vis-à-vis the c2 -d4-e3 complex. And that's where I got stuck, going around and around in a cloud of confusion. I abandoned all rational thought at that point, trying everything I could think of to make a material-winning combination. I "saw" 1. ... BBxd4 2. WNxd4 (2. WNxb4 BBxe3 3. WKxe3 d1(BQ) 4. WRxd1 BRxd1 is winning for Black) 2. ... BRxd4 3. WBxd4 BNc2 (forking the WRa1 and the WBd4) 4. WRd1 BNxd4 5. WRxd2 and t seemed to me that White had gotten out of the complications relatively unscathed. I couldn't see a good alternative, so I meandered around, trying mostly T&E and bouncing back and forth between all the variations given, without ever trying to extend my search depth by a couple of ply. I finally got tired of looking and looked up the "solution" in the back of the book. This is the proposed solution:
"14. ... Nxc2 clears the way for the d-pawn to queen. 15. Nxc2 d1=Q 16. Rxd1 Rxd1 and Black gains a rook for the pawn.
But, but, what about that hanging Black Bishop at c5?!? Silence, from the book. So, I loaded up Fritz 11 running Stockfish DD 64, and got this "analysis" just to be spiteful:
Black has no less than 7 (that's right: SEVEN) "winning" lines!!! Did I "see" all those possibilities? Not a snowball's chance in hell!
1. ... Nxc2 (-5.79)
1. ... d1(Q) (-3.91)
1. ... d1(R) (-3.91)
1. ... d1(N) (-3.91)
1. ... d1(B) (-2.54)
1. ... Ng4+ (-2.00)
1. ... Ne4+ (-1.91)
I didn't see ANY of those exotic possibilities 2-7! I feel like GM Kotov, who (in his excellent book Think Like A Gramdmaster described his "analysis" of a particular position as LAUGHABLE, except that MY feeble attempt was PATHETIC. My attempted exchanging combination didn't even show up in the top 10 suggestions. And this position was taken from a game between "everyday" players. I can only imagine how mangled I would have been by a master on the White side!
A good example of confusion!
DeleteAs far as I can see it, you were too much ZOOMED IN on the position. You see the individual pieces, but the relationship between the pieces has become somewhat invisible. That leads to a short term memory overload, since every piece and/or every move takes a slot of your STM. When you start to juggle with INDIVIDUAL pieces and INDIVIDUAL moves, a STM overload is inevitable.
That is what happened to me in this post, and it might have happened to you with this position.
The interesting thing is that you had a clear TRIGGER that started the confusion. That trigger was the word QUIESCENCE. It looked almost as if you panicked when you realized the position is not in quiescence after 1. ... Nxc2 2. Nxc2 d1=Q+ 3. Rxd1 Rxd1
If you look at the greater picture, you are a rook up. The fact that the bishop on c5 is hanging might mean that you are only the exchange or a light piece up in stead of a whole rook. No reason to abandon the line.
I did look at 1. ... Ng4+ and 1. ... Ne4+, since I realized the importance of the promotion square d1, and the riddance of pawn f3 gives the black bishop access to d1. But when I saw that I could accomplish the same without the investment of a knight, I abandoned these lines.
Kotov might have given us the impression that we should calculate the whole tree of analysis until quiescence. But it is way more essential that we learn to decide when to calculate and when not. Because a memory overload is a much bigger problem than our lack of ability to visualize long lines or thickets of analysis.
Of course, when we become higher rated, a shift in approach might be needed. But for now, confusion is our biggest enemy. Great example!
"Panic" is a good descriptive word for how I felt. Somehow, it's as if I forget to "back out" to the satellite view of the entire board whenever I get "stuck" without a clear idea of how to proceed. Obviously, the result is random incoherent association of individual pieces rather than any attempt at a "plan" of attack.
DeleteThank you for the insightful analysis!
The post points out two types of errors:
DeleteIssues we are quite familiar with, stored in the unconscious, yet we miss them.
And issues we are familiar with, but not at an unconscious level. The latter causing confusion when the brain is overloaded with details. The battle against confusion is based on investigating the position until it has become simple.
The biggest problem to me is to analyse the variations and evaluate them in a correct way. I simply lack patience and I do not want "to waste" my time during the game. However when I was much younger I have been analysing the positions - with the help of deep analysis. It was simply to set the positions and analyse it to the core. All the relationship, possible variations, summary, conclusions and additional diagrams.
ReplyDeleteI used to work in a very similar manner as you my dear friend Tempo :). It was quite time and energy consuming, but I had enjoyed it then.
The only way to become faster is to analyse what makes you slow. First the diagnosis, then the remedy. And yes, I enjoy it.
DeleteI don't worry about the study progress being slow, since I firmly belief that the amount of flaws In my chess thinking is finite. At least when it comes to tactics. It is the Stoyko exercise for tactics, as it were.
That's a tricky problem and you're by no means the only one confused by it. It has a blitz rating of 1891. If you solved in blitz style, then it makes sense you played the wrong move (I did too). If you were ignoring the time limit, I am curious - did the solving time go through the roof as you say? If so, did you actually consider what would happen if you played Rxf3? Or did you rule that out because it looked less sensible at first glance than Nxf3?
ReplyDeleteFor myself, I know why I missed it - I tend not to open up the analysis tree very far. If the right move isn't the first one I seriously consider, I usually fail the problem. That's a tendency I need to fix, but I can't do it until my visualization and memory skills get better.
For me the feeling of confusion comes whenever I don't see a plausible move. That can happen even when it's just matter of missing simple patterns like a fork or pin. Sometimes there are combinations where I'm confused even after I see the solution played out, but those are more complicated problems I don't encounter often on blitz mode. - mfardal
It is pretty weird what happened. It was as if my mind refused to see what was going on in the position. I didn't see the function of the pieces. I only could see the independent moves without any coherence between the moves. Like when you have to read a word, and you see only the letters, and not the word as a whole. The whole text is a blur of letters, while I did not recognize the individual words.
DeleteI had to work out all relevant move sequences with their effect on the material balance first. Then I had to work out the functions of the moves and the pieces like:
1. ... Rxf3 2.Rxf3 is the preliminary move that puts the front piece of the pin into place.
2. ... Bg4 activates the pin.
The pin only works due to the high value of the white defenders, which make them unsuitable to defend.
The desperado move Rxf6 ruins the pin.
It took me about two hours to work it all out. And then all of a sudden, or maybe gradually, I could not understand why I didn't see the structure in the move sequences before. The combination was simple now, and I couldn't understand where the confusion came from. I could read the text, and was no longer confused by the letters.
That's why I think this work is pretty fundamental. I'm learning to read the chess words from a blur of letters. The stopwatch is my weapon of choice: it indicates the texts I don't understand.
As higher the puzzle is rated.. as more problems it ( or the virtuall opponent ) makes.
ReplyDeleteOur tactical vision tells us ( = the tacticians rated >1500? ) that an exchange at f3 and then pinning the rook with the bishop wins a piece. To exchange we will try to take with the piece of the lowest value first buuut
pins ( like forks, double attacks, skewers ) do have a method to unpin ( unfork...). You move one of the attacked pieces away and make so a big threat so that the opponent has no time to take the other piece. Such a threat couöld be a check, threat for checkmate or... to attack a piece of high value. In this case its the attack of the Queen at g6 via Rxf6.
At higher rated puzzles its not enough to find an idea, you need to check it for refutations/counterattacks.
My pseudocode :
1) find new good line
2) look for improvements for the opponent
3) Fix this problem for my side
4) goto 1) 2) or make move and stop
When you say "I don't belief that salt mine style exercises are of much help here" are you referring to "missing a pattern" errors or "confusion" errors? And if the latter, what do you think about the former? - mfardal
ReplyDeleteAs we did see the Saltmines only help with very very simple things. The saltmines cant help many tacticians even at a simple task like mate in 1, the task has to be simpler. So "missing a pattern" or "confusion" should be to complex for the mines.
Delete"Confusion" should be STM-related , we might need an chess - Dual-n-Back ;)
or.. the elements of the confusion must be "chunked"
@mfardal the salt mines are not suited for both type of errors, as it turned out. There might be a role for the salt mines in visualization of current and future board positions, though (board vision). The jury is still out on that. Lack of visualization skills is rarely the main issue with the problems as presented by CT. In higher rated problems (>2200) it might play a bigger role.
Delete@Aox, my description of "seeing the letters but not the word" points in the direction that chunking is needed.
DeleteRobert said the same in other words: "Somehow, it's as if I forget to "back out" to the satellite view of the entire board whenever I get "stuck" without a clear idea of how to proceed. Obviously, the result is random incoherent association of individual pieces rather than any attempt at a "plan" of attack.
We need to find the idea's behind the moves. The (meaning of the) words behind the letters.
Aox, Tempo: how/where did you come to such definite conclusions about the salt mines? It seems like there was a great deal of effort invested in setting up those exercises, and a very few people attacked them with great vigor. But I didn't see much discussion of testing whether they had any effect. I may have missed some important parts of the comment section.
DeleteBTW is "salt mines" the same thing as "microdrill"?
And what is Aox's "plausible hypothesis about the improvement of board vision" mentioned on March 19? - mfardal
http://temposchlucker.blogspot.nl/2016/03/prelimanary-conclusions.html
DeleteThe day after I stopped with the salt mines, I started with blitz problems at CT. The very same day I missed a few simple mates. Imagine that, after two months in a row more than two hours per day training mate in one!
The microdrills are a certain type of salt mine exercises. In my sidebar you see "board vision exercises" AKA the salt mines.
The plausible hypothesis:
Deletehttps://temposchlucker.blogspot.nl/2016/01/visualization-i.html?showComment=1453822520630#c4918142871975148507
@Tempo
Deletewhen ever you stop the training at a server for a while your rating will be lower when you get back.
When ever i get back to CTS my initial rating is about 100 points lower than the rating i get a few days later. My rule of thumb is to ignore the first ~~1000 attempts and wait for the "stable rating" after a few days.
After weeks of hyperfast movings i guess that you simply moved too fast. The ratingssystem of CT "punish" fast moving. Your CT-rating is higher if you are not often quicker than "average time". We reach the highst CT-Blitz-rating if dont guess but calculate until we are shure its the right move, even if that takes seemingly "too long".
Ok, I dived into the comments section here and there but I missed the discussion on Jan 24.
DeleteI still don't know exactly what the hypothesis is, though. The discussion is infinitely recursive. You can take any task and break it into subtasks, then train those subtasks. If the hypothesis encompasses all levels of the hierarchy...then it is hard to see how you'd test the whole thing.
So here are two slightly more specific hypotheses at different levels of the hierarchy:
- if you improve at the subtasks of M1-e, namely the various FAC and escape squares exercises, then you will improve at M1-e.
- if you improve at the chessgym, FAC, and mate exercises in Tempo's sidebar, then your CT blitz rating will improve.
I thought you guys were testing the first one, but Tempo's preliminary conclusions post is more about the second.
Aox's stats seem to indicate no improvement in the salt mine exercises at all, so I'm not sure they speak to either one. I would guess he has lots of previous experience with his own exercises so maybe he has more to say
Tomasz also had only marginal improvement, not surprising as his speed was ridiculous from the beginning.
So it's a pretty tiny sample to draw any conclusions from.
I have been doing some of the salt mine exercises too, less intensively than you guys. I haven't gotten to the escape squares yet, so I can't speak to the mate hypothesis. I have improved by 50-100% at some of the exercises. Doing FAC subtasks seemingly improved my speed on general FAC (another part of the hierarchy), and since then I haven't been able to improve further by doing more FAC.
Finally, my CT blitz rating is up by 100 points since starting to train the exercises on March 31. I don't know for sure that it's the salt mines, but it's at least consistent with the second hypothesis. - mfardal
It is "easy" to improve at a simple task, to improve at a more complex task its necessary to have a certain strength. It is possible to MAKE a task "improvable" by improving first at the more simple subtasks.
DeleteThe main goal was to MAKE M1 improvable. M1 is the most(?) simple tactical task. Tomasz was able to improve at M1 but he is already stronger than Tempo and i.
A gain of 100 points at a tactics server is common the first 1000~4000 attempts.
I am still optimistic that the saltmines can work, but my nerves are to weak for that at the moment.
It might be necessary to find some more relevant subtasks of M1 though.
if you improve at the chessgym, FAC, and mate exercises in Tempo's sidebar, then your CT blitz rating will improve.
DeleteNo one ever proposed the second hypothesis.
The conclusions are preliminary because the test is too small. It is just based on my gut feeling after two months training, that I would not do much better after another six months training. None of the other participants felt obliged to contradict my gut feeling.
When I started with blitz training afterwards, I just happen to notice that salt mining had no positive effect at all. Not only in the area where I didn't expect an effect, but neither in the area where an effect might be possible: simple mates.
@Aox,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the reply, it still leaves me a bit confused though.
It is "easy" to improve at a simple task, to improve at a more complex task its necessary to have a certain strength. It is possible to MAKE a task "improvable" by improving first at the more simple subtasks. The main goal was to MAKE M1 improvable. M1 is the most(?) simple tactical task.
Are you arguing that if you first improve at the subtasks you still will not have improved at the main task? Just that it will have given you the platform to improve at it, when you finally come back to it?
My guess is that if a complex task is doable at all (as M1 is for all of us), training the subtasks can be a good way to get immediate improvement at the complex task. But it's already "improvable" with or without practicing the subtasks separately, as long as you can do it at all. It sounds like this is not your opinion.
Tomasz was able to improve at M1 but he is already stronger than Tempo and i.
My guess is that the better you are, the harder it is to improve at M1. Are you suggesting the opposite? We would need more data to resolve that. Not more months of Tempo and Tomasz training, but more participants.
A gain of 100 points at a tactics server is common the first 1000~4000 attempts.
I'll point out that I'm not totally new to CT, though my use of it has been intermittent. So while it's wise to be skeptical, it's at least plausible that the salt mines are having an effect on my CT rating. I feel like I see the board more clearly now, at any rate. Of course, feelings can be deceiving. - mfardal
@mfardal
ReplyDeleteHere some background
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wzs33wvr9E
http://temposchlucker.blogspot.de/2016/01/definitions.html?showComment=1453289088759#c8762114191051331757
We are talking here about "fast!!" processes in chess which supose to be the "most important" ones
See for ex. this paper: http://www.psychologicalscience.org/pdf/ps/burns.pdf?q=chess-masters-hypothesis-testing
"Are you arguing that if you first improve at the subtasks you still will not have improved at the main task? Just that it will have given you the platform to improve at it, when you finally come back to it?
"
The subtask FAC of M1 is only a "small subtask" (say 10% of the work), even if you are able to perform FAC in "Hyperspeed" your performancew in M1 will ( very theoretical ) improve only "a little" (say 10% "+- a few" in performance)
"
My guess is that the better you are, the harder it is to improve at M1. Are you suggesting the opposite? We would need more data to resolve that. Not more months of Tempo and Tomasz training, but more participants."
That is wrong. If you cant reach a certain initial speed then an improvement is seemingly impossible. To move tasks into the face detection system the recognition task needs to be simple.
"My guess is that if a complex task is doable at all (as M1 is for all of us), training the subtasks can be a good way to get immediate improvement at the complex task. But it's already "improvable" with or without practicing the subtasks separately, as long as you can do it at all. It sounds like this is not your opinion."
I think we did show ( at least for us ) that this is not the case, m1 is for a average sub 1800 seemingly not improvable.
"My guess is that the better you are, the harder it is to improve at M1. Are you suggesting the opposite? "
Yes
"I'll point out that I'm not totally new to CT, though my use of it has been intermittent. So while it's wise to be skeptical, it's at least plausible that the salt mines are having an effect on my CT rating. I feel like I see the board more clearly now, at any rate. Of course, feelings can be deceiving."
If you had a speacial weakness in these tasks then you potentially benefit more. But at average a FAC ist only a very small subtask of a tactical puzzle
It is a pity there is no constant monitoring and mutual work towards checking the hypothesis and conclusions related to the SALT MINE puzzles. Anyway it is a hard task to do and it is not that easy to continue solving it without mutual support and exchanging ideas (making conclusions and doing corrections every time it is possible or needed).
ReplyDeleteIf a method doesn't yield the results you hope for and the method is not fun to do then it is difficult to continue. I don't consider it definitely flawed, but it doesn't address my concrete problems. The method of logical reasoning looks much more promising since it is the result of measuring where my time goes during solving a problem. Yet we have a big nut to crack. How to speed up the logical reasoning process.
DeleteThe logic reasoning is fast, but to generate the preconditions/premises ( and to be aware of them )take their time.
DeletePART I:
ReplyDelete@Anonymous (mfardel) questions:
"Are you arguing that if you first improve at the subtasks you still will not have improved at the main task? Just that it will have given you the platform to improve at it, when you finally come back to it?"
I would argue this case.
First, as Aox pointed out, the "salt mines" cover only a very small percentage of the issues with improving the speed at which the recognizer mechanism (the "Robert Coble" module) fires. Second, the "problem" is hierarchical, consisting of different layers of complexity and context and meaning. Training the sub-tasks at one level does NOT address the issues at a higher level. "The [complexity of the] whole task is greater than the sum of the [complexity of the] sub-tasks. There is a distinct conceptual difference between “the trees” and “the forest.” What is relevant at a simple lower level is no longer consciously relevant at a higher level. This is the point of Temposchucker's analogy regarding letters and words. You can memorize individual LETTER combinations until your brain is saturated with letters, but you will not have improved your comprehension of WORDS, nor of any higher level in the hierarchy of complexity, context and meaning. The meaning of letters does not move up to the meaning of words. The meaning of words does not move up to the meaning of sentences. The meaning of sentences does not move up to the meaning of paragraphs. The meaning of paragraphs does not move up to the meaning of chapters. The meaning of chapters does not move up to the meaning of the book. At each level, there is different complexity, context and meaning, and the concepts become more abstract and generalized as you move up the hierarchy. The lower levels must exist but NOT consciously. I guarantee that if you begin to focus on the individual letters, you will lose sight of anything and everything at a higher level of cognition.
Obviously, some knowledge at a given level is required in order to progress to a higher level at all. However, I submit that it is necessary but NOT SUFFICIENT for significantly increasing skill at any higher level of abstraction.
PART II:
ReplyDeleteAs a "thought experiment," try this. Set up a program to randomly generate two-letter sequences. Try your best to memorize those sequences and time how long it takes you to do this at high speed. No matter how good you get at this sub-task, I submit that you will not improve your word recognition or reading comprehension skills at all. So, if that didn't work, try randomly generated three-letter sequences until your eyes bleed. Again, I submit that you will not improve your word recognition or reading comprehension skills at all. It is only when you start working with the individual words (obviously, composed of letters) that you will begin to increase your word recognition (and hopefully, reading comprehension) skills. You can enhance this reading comprehension work by looking up the dictionary meaning(s) of the words, and by looking at how the word is composed of various "sub-words" (prefixes and suffixes that give some sense of the word). It is only by beginning to have a "vocabulary" of words that you will be able to construct sentences with meaning. And so forth, up the hierarchy of letters, words, sentences, paragraphs, chapters, and books.
Most of us have a rather small set of often-used words as our vocabulary. It does what we need for our everyday lives, and we (usually) make no concentrated effort to continually increase it beyond "good enough for government work" (which usually is at an appallingly low level of quality; I know - I was a career Civil Service employee). We may have somewhat extensive subsets if we work in a specialized domain (which will have its own technical jargon). I was somewhat surprised when I studied Japanese (under a Japanese native teacher) to find that the daily newspapers in Japan have a subset of approximately 200 symbols out of the "official" set of nearly 2,000 symbols (composed of kanji, hiragana and katakana characters) That "newspaper" subset is considered to be the basic set required for functional literacy. The combinations of those various characters into symbols gives rise to the complexity of the entire Japanese language. You can study the strokes which comprise the basic set of characters forever, and you will still not be able to read a Japanese newspaper with comprehension no matter how good you are at identifying the individual strokes or even the characters themselves. Naming the symbol does not mean that you can utilize that symbol in the appropriate context in a sentence.
I think the same thing is true of chess. Tactics is a sub-task of the chess game. Mate-in-1 is a very tiny subset of tactics. Piece auras is a very very tiny subset of mate-in-1. Focusing at the bottom of the hierarchy may produce "skill" at that level - but it will not "magically" translate into higher levels of skill at higher levels in the hierarchy. Each level in the hierarchy has its own "problems" to be identified and solved. I think that's what Aox meant when he wrote: "It is "easy" to improve at a simple task, to improve at a more complex task its necessary to have a certain strength. It is possible to MAKE a task "improvable" by improving first at the more simple subtasks."
The experiments that have been conducted have pointed out the hierarchical nature of the so-called "adult improvement" problem. I don't think there is a "one method fits all" solution except as a general framework, which is too general to be very useful to almost all adult players. I think the current investigation of the logical thinking process, the causes and the elimination (or considerable reduction) of "confusion" is a much more promising line of inquiry for overall skill improvement. Time will tell. . . just like it did with the MDLM "Seven Circles of Hell" [Michael de la Maza's Inferno] and the M1 sub-task "salt mines."