Temposchlucker

At November 27, I started with my new approach. The past two month has been in the light of developing a new thought process. The surprising result was the tree of motifs, and my derived personal twist of it, PoPLoAFun. The past I have been developing thought processes quite a few times in the past decades. But invariably I had to ascertain after a month or two that the effort to apply the TP (Thought Process) was far off balance with the (potential) gain that could be harvested from it. The main reason for that is that any TP comes with redundancies, and when you repair a redundancy, you will find that your TP lacks commonality. In other words, you are left with a set of solutions for problems that don't occur much in practice. The present This time, it is different. Even after two months, I still have the feeling that the effort and the result are in balance. The main cause for that is, that we have a solid fundament this time. The motifs encirclement, geometry and function...

One of the most time consuming activities while trying to solve a problem, is to continue thinking about solutions that don't work. The following diagram shows a position that took me 9:12 minutes to find the first move, and then another 3:06 minutes to find the second move. There were a few red herrings, but how can I recognize that my attempts must remain fruitless while trying to catch them? Something is wrong with my priorities. Black to move 2b2r1k/2q2ppp/p3R3/1p5Q/5B2/2r5/PPP3PP/5R1K b - - 0 1 [ solution ] There are 3 PoPs: e6,  f4 and f1 But I couldn't focus on them, and started to dabble around with moves like 1.Qc4, 1.Qc5, 1.Rc5, 1.Qxf4, 1.Bxe6, 1.g6, 1.Bb7. Even fxe6 was considered a few times, but I could not make it work. Yet, if my mind was only disciplined enough, and would follow the system I described, I would soon have found the answer. I must unlearn the habit of trial and error.

When developing a thinking method, we must keep in mind what we want to accomplish. We just want to retrieve from our memory what we already very well know. We must avoid the pitfall that we strive for a complete system that helps us out in every obscure and rare combination. We want to focus on the mainstream combinations that takes us tons of time, not because they are complex, but because we have an undisciplined straggly mind. We must act according the KISS principle . This means that we must remove redundancy as much as possible, and we must prevent any unnecessary load of the mind. Find the relevant PoPs How do we find the relevant PoPs (Points of Pressure), in a position where the enemy pieces don't stand on the PoP, as fast as possible? Start with the target with the highest value Connect it geometrically with the attacker with the lowest value The connection points are the potential profitable PoPs Look for the PoP that is B.A.D. (Barely Adequate Defended) Ident...

Let's have another look at the diagram we are investigating, and especially at the PoP a7 . Btw, I changed the use of colors a bit, in order to take into account those who suffer from color blindness. I reckon most people should be able to distinguish between the colors now. White to move Legenda: brown square: (potential) attacker of a7 blue square: defenders of a7 brown dot: PoP yellow dot: colors brown during the investigation, since it turns out to be just another PoP red dot: attacking square B.A.D. a7 is B.A.D. (Barely Adequate Defended). How can we exploit it? First attempt: harass defenders There are two defenders, K and B. They can't be forced to give up the defense of a7, while maintaining the same pressure on a7. Second attempt: add attackers How can we pile up against a7? The only attacker we can add is Qh7. Qh7 makes that a7 is outnumbered. But if a7 is outnumbered after Qh7, it is equally true to say that g8 and h8 are outnumbered after Qh7. So ...

The PoP (Point of Pressure) has become the starting point of any attack. We need to develop an eye for PoPs. When I look at a new position, my approach is pretty incoherent. Time to have a closer look at the PoP. What are the characteristics, how do we recognize them? Two (three) types The first thing that pops into the mind, is that there are two types of PoPs. PoP-P The first type is where there is a a piece on the square which is under pressure. The first twenty positions in my database appeared to be of that type.  Only when I started to look at positions that have a 300 point higher rating, I noticed the first PoP with no piece on it. PoP-P can be solved with the three motifs encircling, geometry and function. PoP-S The second type has no piece on the PoP. It's just an empty square. For instance a7 in the diagram below is such PoP-S. To exploit a PoP-S, you need an extra motif: the assault motif. PoP-PS I theorize that there must be a third type, which is actually ...

The problems with the application of PLAF (PoPLoAASFun) need further elaboration. We can use the same diagram. White to move k7/1R2R3/pb3p2/qr6/5N1p/2r3P1/PPQ4P/1K6 w - - 0 1 [ solution ] PoP (Point of Pressure) a7 . What do we want to know about a PoP? How many times is is attacked? 2x How many times is it defended? 2x Can I add attackers? Yes Qh7 Can I harass defenders? No That Qh7 isn't viable, isn't immediately clear. Only when the Function of the white queen is examined, we will find that it is immobile along the c2-h7 diagonal, since it has a defensive duty against the black rook sac on b2. a8 How many times is is attacked? 0x How many times is it defended? 0x Can I add attackers? Yes Qe4 Qg2 Can I harass defenders? No At first, I thought that when we look at the PoPs, we must keep it as clean and simple as possible, we don't look at the Function of our attackers just yet. That must be done at a later stage. But now I think about it, it se...

I expected the application of the three motif system PoP LoA Fun (PLF) to have some obstacles. And indeed there are. Let us talk about that. I solve now problems from the standard problem set at CT in stead of problems from the blitz problem set. That presents me problems which have a 300 points higher rating. Since I want to become 300 points stronger, I wanted to know which problems I encounter when applying the PIF system to higher rated problems. Problems include: Higher amount of PoPs, so it is difficult to choose the critical PoP. Higher amount of LoAs, so it is difficult to choose the critical LoA. More than one attacking square on a LoA, so it is difficult to choose the critical square. Motif assault Motif promotion Counter attack  Quiet moves (non CCT) Higher rated problems contain more problems with the motifs assault and promotion . There is additional knowledge needed to handle these motifs. Theoretically, the preconditions from the Art of Attack of Vuk...