The spiralling vulture has landed

 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 that accompany the tree of scenarios. In order to feed them to system 1.

I read an article about Carlsen's Kryptonite

Carlsen: “I’ve Always Been Really, Really Bad at Solving Exercises in Chess!”

World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen made that admission about what he called a “blind spot” in a 2.5-hour podcast interview with AI researcher Lex Fridman. Magnus was asked what makes him so good at chess. "I feel like I’ve had two peaks in my career, in 2013-4 and also 2019, and in those years I was very different in terms of my strengths. Specifically, in 2019 I benefited a lot from opening preparation, while in 2013-4 I mostly tried to avoid my opponents’ preparation, rather than it being a strength." This is when Magnus turned to calculation, and a surprising admission. "In terms of calculation, that’s always been a weird issue for me. I’ve always been really, really bad at solving exercises in chess. That’s been a blind spot for me. First of all, I find it hard to concentrate on them, and to look deep enough… Usually, you have to look deep, and then when I get these lines during the game I very often find the right solution, even though it’s still not the best part of my game, to calculate very deeply. For me, it’s more that I’m at the board trying to find the solution. I understand the training at home is trying to replicate that, you give somebody half an hour in a position — in this instance, you might have thought for half an hour if you played the game. I just cannot do it!"

This was a strange confession to me. But now I start to understand what happens here. He is good at chess logic, A game is logic to him, and his system 1 can drum up the patterns that are related to the logic. But when a position has no preliminary logic, he has trouble to see the patterns as leading and to reconstruct the logic from there. The salient cues are NOT in the lead.

So it is back to the drawing board, and redefine the tree of scenarios. Then find the relevant patterns that are related to that chess logic. This way, I can be sure that I only spend my time on relevant patterns.

Chess logic isn't limited to tactics, so the method can be used for positional chess as well.