Slaughtering the vulture
The flight of the vulture seemed such an elegant and neat idea. I tested it extensively, but it didn't show any measurable progression in practice. Apparently this logical idea is a creation that is invented by and for the thinking mind. The gain in quality of analysis, if any, is annihilated by the consumption of extra time. The longer the flight of the vulture, the more the thinking mind is filled with new insights and ideas. The more the thinking mind has to chew on, the easier it is stalling. A stalling mind tends to repeat itself over and over again, and the progress it makes in the actual line of thought that is necessary can easily take hours.
Dwelling in tunnels by means of association is possibly the right way for the unconscious mind to do its job. If so, the task for the thinking mind is only to take care that the right tunnel is entered in the first place.
The conscious thinking mind makes lists, and is consequently hindered by the items on those very lists which tend to occupy all its free memory slots.
I declare the war to everything that unnecessarily occupies a free memory slot. I will no longer accept a thought process that forces you to make lists. A list of targets, a list of points of pressure, a list of lines of attack
To develop an alternative, a sequential approach without branches that fill the free memory slots of the mind will not be easy. But I will give it a try. The next post that I'm going to republish is that of October 28, 2017.
Dwelling in tunnels by means of association is possibly the right way for the unconscious mind to do its job. If so, the task for the thinking mind is only to take care that the right tunnel is entered in the first place.
The conscious thinking mind makes lists, and is consequently hindered by the items on those very lists which tend to occupy all its free memory slots.
I declare the war to everything that unnecessarily occupies a free memory slot. I will no longer accept a thought process that forces you to make lists. A list of targets, a list of points of pressure, a list of lines of attack
To develop an alternative, a sequential approach without branches that fill the free memory slots of the mind will not be easy. But I will give it a try. The next post that I'm going to republish is that of October 28, 2017.
Robert just notified me that blogger stopped notifying me when there are new comments. Apparently this has been going on for months! I apologize for that. I will check the pending comments every day now by hand.
ReplyDeleteTo simplify matters, I stopped the comment moderation. Usually 98% of the comments is ok. The rest I can delete by hand.
ReplyDeleteI totally missed the past 20 comments or so. Sorry for that. I will answer them tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteI think there is a difference between training and the "real/measuring" task. Lists of things to do might help to internalize them. Then at a "teal" task you should forget about the list and hope , that they are done simultaniously und your subcocious.
ReplyDeleteI suggest to make at lest an aftermath, looking for some key elements. My experiment with looking at taktical weaknesses first at every puzzle for more than 1 year had no positive effect either.
Indeed blogger has developed a new method of notification for new comments to the blog owner. And in the process it has killed the old method.
ReplyDeleteThe blog owner gets now a notification of his own comments :P
ReplyDeleteIn Averbahk's book on tactics (I am going through the Labate, or 3rd edition) he talks about double-attacks at the beginning, and goes into explaining, sort of like how you do, how he describes the tactics. He is one of the few author's I've seen try to make an attempt at "explaining" tactics. It's not a difficult read, as some reviews suggests, as he "tells" you the answer to studies, and explains them (who could complain about that?)
ReplyDeleteI have the translation of Averbahk's book by Ruslan Tulburg, copyright 1984, 2012 with Introduction by Sam Sloan. It does not have a Table of Contents.
ReplyDeleteThe interesting (to ME) part of the book begins on pg. 171 in the section Individual Contacts. An aside: These contacts are the basis for Momir Radovic's RoaringPawn) blog on Chess.com. (I once did a search of Mr. Radovic's previous blog, and found (early on) where he gave credit to GM Averbahk for the "contacts" idea. The series of blog posts on PRINCIPIA SCACCHORUM are based on teaching beginners on the basis of contacts, as well as the suggestions by GM Aron Nimzovitch for "properly" teaching beginners how to approach the game. Unfortunately (IMHO), Mr. Radovic focuses almost entirely on beginners, without developing his training thesis for more advanced players. He also "simplifies" GM Averbahk's ideas regarding contacts as the elements of chess by omitting 2 of the 6 basic elements types.
Averbahk gives these 6 basic contact "elements":
1. The attacking contact
2. The restraining contact
3. The queening threat (left out of Mr. Radovic's interpretation)
4. The protective contact
5. The interposing contact
6. Refuting the queening threat (left out of Mr. Radovic's interpretation)
With certain qualifications, Averbahk breaks down the contacts into 3 groups:
1. Actively attacking
Attacking threats, attacks and queening threats
2. Restricting
Confining threats, restrictions and the warding off of conversion threats
3. Defending
Defensive possibilities, support possibilities of interposition and the interposition itself
That's as far down this rabbit hole as I want to go here. My personal assessment of the "contacts" method is that it may be excellent for rudimentary analysis of the underlying individual connections between pieces and squares, but that it is too far down "in the weeds" to be useful for playing a good game of chess. By the time you have figured out all of the contacts (and their reciprocal contacts from the other player's perspective), you will have lost the thread of the game completely.
Perhaps an analogy might help: Consider analyzing the movements of each chess piece as a resolution of vectors in a two-dimensional space. While it is certainly possible to do this, I have serious doubts that it has any practical application at the level of playing chess successfully.
YMMV, of course!