Temposchlucker

My mind can use a little distraction, so I decided to look into a question of Robert: "I have some thoughts vis-a-vis your observation regarding the 50 hours of driver training but that is not sufficiently on-topic at this point; perhaps at some future point you might address it. The question is this: There is an assumption that youngsters and adults learn differently. Yet in the case of learning to drive a car, youngsters don't learn this at all; only adults (well, at least much older "children") learn to master driving skills. In this specific case, the adults acquire the requisite (unconscious) skills in approximately 50 hours, not the proverbial 10,000 hours. WHY DOES THAT LEARNING PROCESS NOT TRANSLATE TO CHESS (OR ANY OTHER SKILL)?!? " Maybe it does. Lasker  said: "Let us assume that a master who follows a good method, say, the method of this book, strives to educate a young man ignorant of Chess to the level of one who, if conceded any

How to proceed I'm not quite sure how to proceed. So I will just give it a go, and see what I end up with. I'm a bit cautious with reacting to your comments, as you might have noticed, since usually it is easy to start a whole new series of posts on any subject you come up with. I want to stay focused on the faint thoughts that circle from high above through my head, like barely visible vultures. I don't want to let these thoughts fade away into oblivion by the bombardments of thoughts that reacting to all your comments would trigger. Identify the sitting duck Starting to look for the piece that is the most restricted in mobility is a good start. There is no doubt about that. It prunes a whole lot of branches from the tree of analysis from the very start. Sofar, I have never seen it failing. In the sense that I never have pruned a branch too many. Some positions seem not suited Some positions seem to be more suited for the plf-system than others. I called that the ho

While performing an investigation for the previous post, I realized how weak  trial and error actually is, in comparison to calculation in the direction of a goal. Just random trying in the hope for clues must be the last resort during a game. In the study room we need to eradicate trial and error . Diagram 1 - white to move 2r2rk1/1p3pb1/p3bBpp/2p1P3/4NR1Q/8/1Pq3PP/4R1K1 w - - 0 1 [ solution ] The black king looks like a duck, it sits like a duck and it quacks like a duck. So it is probably a sitting duck. So the main goal is clear: mate the king! If the opponent feels compelled to postpone his demise with a piece sac, I'm fine with that.  I tried from here on to solve the matter with trial and error , but I failed. We need a clear goal here that gives direction to our calculations. What can that be? What can we say in general about this position? White has 4 attackers (Bf6, Rf4, Qh4 and Ne4). Black has 3 defenders (Bg7, g6,h6). The most likely scenario is the trade o

This blog is not easy to follow. I fullheartedly acknowledge that. If you have become interested in the PLF (PoPLoAFun) system just lately, you probably have trouble to keep up with the details. If you are genuinely interested,  I advice you to go back a few months, and start reading from dec 3, 2016. It is worth the effort. Going back in time In fact, I'm doing so myself. Just to ingrain the knowledge that has been accumulated along the way. And to look if somebody has fallen of the bandwagon without me noticing it. A musician we can't do without in the future, for instance. This is what I have already found sofar. The adult human mind is unsuited for chess calculation. This means, that if an adult tries to improve at chess, he must be clever enough to avoid calculation whenever he can. The plf system is designed for exactly that. It determines goals that lie in the future by their characteristics. Only when the goal is determined, we can go back from the future towards t

Diagram 1. White to move r3r2k/pp4b1/2q1Nppp/1R1Q1P2/2n5/2P5/b2NBPPP/4K2R w K - 1 1 [ solution ] UPDATE When you compare our comments, it looks as if we are looking at quite different positions. Which is a clear indicator of what our problem is. We see way too much possibilities. I saw an in essence simple position. Nc4 is hanging, and how am I going to round it up, with the knight or the bishop? Hence the title of this post. I had just one job. . . Choosing between 1.Nxc4 and 1.Bxc4 After thinking for more than three and a half minute I flunked it with 1.Bxc4. Based on some vague notion that "it was more active to attack Ba2". Now let's have a look at this position in the light of my next post. Which black piece is the most immobile? Answer: the black knight. Why? It is hanging and immobile due to lack of time. White is to move first. That may sound silly, but that is because this is a silly position, with a knight already hanging. We start in the middle of s

You might have noticed the past weeks, that I augmented the term immobility . I discriminate between: Limited mobility due to lack of space Limited mobility due to function   Limited mobility due to lack of time Space Usually the term limited  mobility is associated with immobility due to lack of space solely. The trapped piece and the mated king are examples of lack of space. Function Lasker added function as a cause of immobility. If you loose a piece when you move a defender, you cannot really move that defender, albeit it is allowed by the rules. The defender has limited mobility due to its function. Time I extended the term immobility with limited mobility due to lack of time . This means that all duplo attacks fall under this description. If you must save two pieces but you have only time to save one, the other piece remains on the board as if it is frozen. Augmented immobility This augmented immobility as I defined it, comprises almost every possible technique

Diagram 1 black to move 2rr4/1q3pkp/3p1n1R/1p2p1p1/1P4P1/1BP4Q/5P1P/3R2K1 b - - 1 1 [ solution ] UPDATE This position  is not about winning a piece in all variations. Often, two pawns are enough for a sure win. I kept looking for winning pieces or mating the king. So this position revealed a fundamental flaw in my approach. I don't know when to stop calculating. In the comments we toss around a lot of HE's, targets, PoPs, LoAs and Funs. Most of them are not very relevant, and confuse our view. In the past weeks we have found a method to sift the relevant targets from the irrelevant ones. That sieve is called immobility. You can't shoot a mobile target without hail. Hail is  T and E (Trial and Error). This blog has become a rehab for those who want to quit from their T and E addiction. To avoid shooting with hail, we must focus on the sitting ducks. We have a few of them. Diagram 2. Sitting ducks. Black to move White Rh6 is immobile due to lack of space Q