I'm trying pick up blogging again. Since I seem to have forgotten a lot of what I wrote in the past, I might produce some duplicates or miss out some reactions you wrote it the past. Sorry for that. I try to catch up within a few posts.
This seems to be the essence of what I have written in the past:
In order to transfer knowledge from one position to another, the knowledge of a position must be deduced to a higher level of abstraction.
This is a system II activity. System I knows what to do with that higher level of abstraction already, by means of analogy. So system II must focus on abstracting analogies from a position.
The Stoyko analysis should probably work the same, when properly executed. Indicating that there are a lot of wrong ways to execute it too. Hence the mixed results in practice.
Since this blog -still- mainly focuses on tactics, the Stoyko-ic way of thinking will be cut down to a "Stoyko-ish" way of thinking fine-tuned for tactics. I hope to produce some examples.
"So system II must focus on abstracting analogies from a position."
ReplyDeleteThat is the very essence of creating patterns for later pattern matching.
I highly recommend Hoftadter and Sander's tome Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking. It is well worth the purchase price.
Here's the very first sentence of the book:
"In this book about thinking, analogies and concepts will play the starring role, for without concepts there can be no thought, and without analogies there can be no concepts."
Analogies -> Concepts -> Thought
The surface (the position "as-is" on the board) provides vital clues as to the essence (what must be "seen" in order to choose the best plan, move sequence, etc.) by analogy (patterns). Patterns must be recognized first, in order to reduce the search space to the minimum necessary for a human to find a solution.
I highly recommend Hoftadter and Sander's tome Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking.
DeleteI ordered the book.
PART I:
DeleteGreat! There will then be TWO chess players who have studied this book and its very cogent ideas regarding how to learn (indirectly) to play chess better.
Repeating something I included in a comment on 10 MAR 2017:
As mister Lasker said:
"You learn no art by anxiously restricting yourself to it; you have to seek its association, and its logical connections and ANALOGIES with the rest of things [outside of chess]."
"But it is not the multitude of examples that is instructive, for the multitude is confusing; IT IS THE METHOD WHICH CARRIES VALUE AS INSTRUCTION, and the method has been sufficiently illustrated above [in the Third Book - The Combination.] to be thoroughly intelligible. The reader must now work by himself so that he may ACQUIRE THE ABILITY TO APPLY THE METHOD however the circumstances may vary in detail. [Emphasis added.]
I've often had the experience of "remembering" (something pops up unbidden, via System 1) certain truisms when the appropriate "trigger" occurs. On rarer occasions, I've also found connections between those truisms BY ANALOGY.
Here's a recent connection that I made via analogy.
PART II:
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure that most chess players have seen the truism that "Chess is 99% tactics." (This is usually attributed to GM Richard Teichmann). The actual percentage is unimportant; I suspect it is a WAG (Wild Ass Guess) rather than the result of any statistical investigation.
Another truism is Weinberg's Law of Twins. I posted about that in a comment on 18 MAY 2016. Rather than duplicate that comment, here's the gist from the Psychology Wiki:
Weinberg's Law of Twins states that most of the time, no matter how much effort one expends, no event of any great significance will result.
Weinberg's Law of Twins Inverted states that occasionally—PARTICULARLY WHEN ONE ISN'T EXPECTING IT—a significant event occurs.
Gerald Weinberg invented the law and described it in his book The Secrets of Consulting (1986), in which he explains the origin of its name.
Weinberg reported that, while riding a bus in New York City, he observed a mother with six small children embark. She asked the driver the amount of the fare; he told her that the cost was one dollar, but that children under the age of five could ride for free. When the woman deposited only one dollar into the payment slot, the driver was incredulous. "Do you mean to tell me that all your children are under five years old?" The woman explained that she had three sets of twins. The driver replied, "Do you always have twins?" "No," said the woman, "most of the time NOTHING HAPPENS AT ALL."
What in blue blazes could connect those two truisms?!?
We "KNOW" (right?) while playing a game of chess that most of the time, there are NO tactics to be found in the move-to-move positions. We "KNOW" that successful tactics can only arise from a superior position, one that is arrived at by successful strategy. The game reaches a "critical moment" and the accumulated advantage(s) "discharge" via a combination.
This KNOWLEDGE is confirmation of Weinberg's two Laws. Searching for a combination (trying to "see" tactics on every move) is a colossal waste of time (Law). Failing to recognize a critical moment and thus to search for a combination (regardless of whether it arose through our intentional play or by accident from the opponent's mistake) is also a colossal waste of time - since we fail to take advantage of the opportunity because we are not thinking about tactics on every move (Law Inverted).
Weinberg's Law "seems" to contradict Teichmann's observation - but it doesn't. Most of the time there are no combinations BUT on every single move, we must be vigilant for any tactical possibility (favorable to us OR favorable to the opponent); hence, "Tactics is 99% of [what we should be alert for as we play] chess." Two hours of creating a fantastic strategical masterpiece can go down the drain instantly with a single careless move allowing a winning tactic by the opponent. Weinberg's Law Inverted tells us to be watchful at all times (or at least 99% of the time) for favorable opportunities - which may only occur once during a game.