Temposchlucker

Bob asked me for a few examples. It was difficult to find a few good ones, since I'm a terrible score writer. Because I have no standard endgame plans, I'm starting to eat up time and end up in time trouble. Where I both start to make blunders, and start to write wrong. But these two games will give you an idea, hopefully. In the first game I didn't finish him off, tactically, although I came far. I'm working on that. But I shouldn't lose an endgame when I'm a pawn ahead, should I? In the second game I first won the exchange (he sacrificed it), which I later converted to a full rook. I didn't know how to stop his pawns, though, so I blundered in time trouble. The list of the past half year is long. Outplaying players with a rating between 1850 and 2000, then converting it into a winning ending, then getting into time trouble due to lack of a sensible plan, then blundering something away. [Event "Computer chess game"] [Site "STUDIE-PC"] [D...

 There are an awful lot of holes in my bucket. I'm trying to fix them systematically. The first areas are the tactical issues. Mates, gaining wood, promotion and preliminary moves. I'm working my butt off to fix these. The mates are pretty much fixed, the wood gaining techniques are under way. It are always the lowest holes that determine the waterlevel in the bucket. When you fix holes of a certain type (tactical combinations), your other weaknesses with lower holes will show themselves. The past months, the holes in my openings repertoire showed themselves. Especially with black. I got the feeling that I was rated 100 points lower when I played with black. Despite my new openings with black (the HAD and the Leningrad Dutch) I performed miserably. This was especially due to the anti-HAD and anti-Leningrad attacks that I faced. The Alapin, the Smith-Morra gambit, the Staunton gambit and the like. These attacks need not to be a problem, but you need to prepare yourself by memori...

 In order to train the relation between chess logic, visualisation and system 1, I'm looking for a (digital) dataset with hard to solve chess compositions of mate in two problems. Think of this caliber: Ideas, anyone?

 Trying to SEE the solution of a problem often felt a bit awkward. It often made me ask "system 1 are you paying attention? Or "system 1 are you ready with absorbing?".  It felt unnatural since there has been no moments in life where system 1 had to learn this way. System 1 always worked its miracles in the background. But yesterday I came to the logical conclusion that system 2 must be in the lead, and now a more natural approach presents itself. We tend to look upon system 2 with some scorn. But the processing of verbal narratives by system 2 might be slow, the words themselves contain a high level of abstraction. Take for instance the verbal description "double attack". It is totally piece and location independent. It doesn't matter which piece is the attacker, nor which pieces are the targets, nor on which squares the pieces are. "Double attack" says it all. It describes that there is a tempo problem for the opponent. Two targets are under att...

 My approach to any complex problem can be described as "naïve". I'm always the first one to admit that I might got it all wrong. Pigs don't fly. But I always keep the option open that they might. Since my knowledge is quite limited, and there can be circumstances that I'm not aware of. But after spiralling for long and eliminating possibilities at every spiral, the pieces of the puzzle might all of a sudden fall together in place. From that moment on, no swirling puzzle piece can surprise me anymore. Since when the pieces of the puzzle fit tight, there can be no doubts anymore. To a certain degree, that happened yesterday. When I found out, that system 2 is in the lead, and not system 1. System 2 can steer the attention, while system 1 looks over his shoulder. So I first must work out the guide of system 2. The idea for that guide is fairly clear by now: the tree of scenarios. Only after describing that in some sort of precise manner, I must find the patterns tha...

 The previous post of november 14th showed the 9 mates that occur the most frequent during a game. I don't plea that you should ignore the remaining 23 mates though. Since the patterns of those 23 mates occur too in the 9 most frequent ones. For instance Anastasia's mate often manifests itself as a backrank mate, which is on the list of the most frequent mates. It is not a subcategory of the backrank mate though, since it more frequently shows up on the side of the board, not on the backrank. The list of frequent motifs can be used to decide which categories deserve the investment of more time and energy. Which categories are worth to be divided in subcategories. I showed one elaborated subcategory of the dovetail mate in the previous post. Now I will show you a few other subcategories of the dovetail mate. Just to illustrate what we are talking about. I don't elaborate on those subcategories, because I don't want to immerse you in diagrams. I described the dovetail mat...

 There are 32 mates. When you know only 9 of them well, you cover about 70% of all mates that occur in practical games. See the previous post. Every mate of those 9 mates, can be subdivided in a more intricate way. This clusters all patterns of the same type together. Look for instance at the dovetail mate. I have a problem set of 40 dovetail mates. Here are 7 of them. Can you see the resemblance between them? 1. black to move 2. black to move 3. black to move 4. black to move 5. white to move 6. white to move 7. white to move Within the set of these 40 dovetail mates there are other subdivisions as well. I haven't counted them yet, but I would say there are at least 5 other subdivisions. The other 8 mates (other than dovetail) can be subdivided too. I postulate that this is the way to study tactical themes. I have identified 32 themes (9 mates and 23 tactical motifs) that occur frequently. See the previous post. Get 40 examples of each (40 x 32 = 1280 examples), and divide each th...

 In order to maximize the effect of my training, I look for the tactical motifs with the highest frequency of occurrence. I make use of ChessTempo, but its label system is rather dodgy. Sorry for that. Dutch and English labels are mixed, for instance. I use problems of just 3 plies deep, since they show the clearest motifs. Mate: edge lawn mower Damiano bishop swallow's tail dovetail pawn mate opera suffocation back rank These 9 mates cover 70% of the mates that occur in practice. Motifs: fork multiple attack tellen (counting) verdedigende zet (defensive move) aftrekaanval (discovered attack) removing the guard tussenzet (in between move) verre pion (remote passer) wegjagen (chasing away) gain of tempo offer (sacrifice) penning (pin) discovery ingesloten stuk (trapped piece) overbelasting (overloading) röntgen veld vrijmaken (square clearance) verdediger slaan (capture the guard) zwakke achterste rij (weak back rank) desperado lokken (luring) onderbreken (interposition) stille zet ...

 If you don't see the endpoint pattern, there are many ways to go astray. Look for instance at this simple problem: White to move 8/7p/3p2pQ/3P4/q1b3k1/6R1/r3PP2/6K1 b - - 0 0 You can find the [  solution here  ] Have especially a look at the comments and the 40 mistakes that people have found to make. While if you see the lawn mower pattern and the wall created by the pawns, the solution is immediately clear. Which tells us where the work lies: absorb the simple endpoint patterns.

 One of the fascinating issues in chess development, is that it helps you to observe what is going on in your mind. Between two chess exercises, I tend to relax with a simple game. I must shift wooden blocks, in order to free a Christmas present. The intelligence I use to do that, is originated in system 1. It is quite smart but not perfect, and it is lightning fast. It is strange, since I don't consider it to be my intelligence. Well, I claim positive results of it of course as a result of my intelligence, but I do not have the feeling that I have contributed to it. My usual verbal thinking is not and has not been involved. And I cannot remember that I accumulated that intelligence in the past. I certainly haven't invested in it consciously. It is very strange to have a second intelligence inside.

 In order to get more insight in the absorption process, I focus on the problems that are only 3 plies deep. They show all the endpoints you need to know. It is easy to imagine how the absorption of these endpoints will help your calculation ability tremendously. Have a look at the following diagram: Diagram 1. White to move Black has just given a check with Qb6. White has three possible answers, which all lead to a different mate. All three mates consists of a hammer (the black Queen) and an anvil against which the white King is crushed. The swallowtail mate and the dovetail mate have a lot in common. It is essentially the same mate, rotated over 45 degrees. There are an an incredible amount of ways how a dovetail mate can manifest itself. The anvil can consist of the own pieces of white (Queen, Rook, Bishop or pawn) The anvil can be replaced by one or two squares that are covered by five different pieces of the attacker. The anvil can even be formed by the rim of the board. There...

 Tactical patterns are the endpoints of your calculation. They are forced. You must absorb as many patterns as you can. But most moves in chess aren't forced. You must be able to visualize those series of moves. Those moves cannot be represented by definite patterns. Since they are not forced. If you have insufficient patterns absorbed, your visualizations of future positions have no endpoints. If your visualization is short of an endpoint, you cannot be sure whether you are on the right track. So you tend to repeat your visualisations over and over again. Which is the surest way to end up in time trouble. Now I start to build up the basic patterns, it begins to show that my visualization skills are insufficiently developed. So I searched for a method that promises to develop my visualization skills. I think I have found one (five) at Chessable My first two games with the French defense: a win and a draw. I'm pretty excited about this clever repertoire. As if I have finally lan...