In search for the concepts
The fusiform face area works by storing the essence of the face characteristics. The concept, so to speak.
Despite the totally different ways the characteristics are emphasized, you still recognize who's face it is.
We must learn to do the same with chess positions. We have to find the essence behind the combination. The concept, that is.
Numbering the caricatures as two rows, left to right:
ReplyDeleteRow 1: Numbers 3 and 4 do not trigger Tommy Lee Jones for me.
Row 2: Number 3 does not trigger Tommy Lee Jones for me.
This illustrates the analogical connection between a caricature and a chess pattern. Different characteristics are emphasized (and others de-emphasized) based on what has been stored as significant features in our long-term memory. Certain features are abstracted out and exaggerated as being “more important.” That is what we remember as intuition using System 1. There is no objective criteria for what gets stored nor any conscious selection process involved; it is an autonomous process that depends totally on our unique previous experience.
Caricatures and chess patterns operate as clichés - a stereotypical depiction of an abstraction that relies upon analogy to previous experiences or ideas.
This is why some people can instantaneously “see” the ramifications of the piece configuration (and what to do) in a given chess position – it is an abstraction, a caricature, that matches the SALIENT features of the current position, thereby giving the “answer” to the question – “What should I play?”. Those without this stored “pattern” (cliché; caricature) CANNOT “see” the same SALIENT thing(s) and must laboriously figure out a solution using System 2 logical thinking.
Searching for “essential concepts” helps to store those abstractions in long-term memory, without any guarantee that they will be retrievable when faced with similar but unique positions.
The Knights Errant have shown that any king of tactical training by plateauing adults who have never been exposed to serious tactical training before, leads to an improvement of about 250 ratingpoints. No matter the method. But when your opposition gets better because of that, you both see the double attacks in general. So you need another area of chess to make the difference. That is why opening study is so popular. If you know a set of concepts of the French, and your opponent doesn't, you might get an edge in the opening. OTOH now openings knowledge is so widely available nowadays, it is hard to get an advantage with that alone.
ReplyDeleteI'm convinced that the Art of Attack delves into an area that is not so commonly known. Since you logically can only win when you see concepts that your opponent doesn't, you need to focus on those concepts. Which is what I'm doing.
In the past I always refused to give chess lessons. Because I think it doesn't make sense to educate others when you have the feeling you don't know what you are doing yourself. But now I finally have a serious clue, I accepted the question, under the condition that I can write my own lessons. So I'm going to train others with my newly developed method. Which means more chances to prove my case. Or at the very least I prevent them from wasting their time with methods that I have proven not to work.
The alarming sentence above is: no matter the method. Of course there is an effiecient method and a less efficient method, but in essence, everyone can do it. This points towards: you need different concepts, since the common concepts are mastered by everyone. You need concepts that you see and your opponent doesn't.
DeleteThere might be a difference in quality, though. I had trouble with the same pictures as you. I think that that compares to knight forks. Some knight forks are easier to miss than others. Perhaps you have to dive deeper in the concepts behind certain knight forks.
The Art of the Attack revolves about the preparation of an attack. Which is highly positional. It binds the positional concepts together towards a coherent goal. The positional concepts are commonly known, but the way they form a coherent system is not.