Temposchlucker

Boring down  From the amount of views of this page I can draw conclusions about how difficult the treatises are that I present to you. There is a slow decline from a few hundreds views per post to about twenty nowadays. I completely understand that. Yet I make my biggest progress now. Not in terms of rating, but in developing an improvement method for adult chess players. And actually not only for chess, but for any domain where an adult learner is stuck for years. I even expect some lowering of my rating, since I play without compromises. I play for feedback, not for points. But since I'm basically thinking out loud, gratefully making use of every feedback from commenters I can get,  it may well look boring or difficult to grasp, especially if you have missed a post or two. Don't worry, when I have reached some definite conclusions, I will take some time to write the essence down in a more clear and attractive manner. Just make sure to stay in touch. Use your systems For sake...

 Memorizing is a task of system 2 (thinking). The best method for memorizing is spaced repetition, for all we know. Absorption is the task of system 1 (intuition). We have no clue when system 1 decides to absorb some stuff. Absorption is not the preferred method of system 1, since it consumes mental resources. The priest who used a cheat sheet for a prayer he had to pray every day, still needed the sheet after 25 years. Only a serious effort by system 2 would have freed him from his cheat sheet . Probably one evening of serious training with system 2 would have been enough to free him forever. It's a bit like striking a match. If you don't add enough initial energy, it will not ignite. If you don't realize that you hit a barrier and underestimate the value of an effort by system 2, you tend to procrastinate it or even think it is not necessary at all. The absorption itself by system 1 is effortless. It only doesn't ignite when system 2 is not making an effort that is se...

 When you have absorbed a pattern you immediately know it. You recognize instantly what the position is about. Like recognizing a face by the Fusiform Face Area. Do you recognize this actor by his (caricature) forehead? I hope you do. You never memorized his face. Meaning that memorization and spaced repetition play no role in the process. I train with a database of 500 problems. I absorbed about 4% of them. See what happens with 100% absorption. When I have memorized a position, there is some delay before realizing "hey, I know this ". With absorption there is no delay.

 I have selected about 500 tactical problems at chesstempo. Half of them are mates and half of them are other tactics. The selection is based on the frequency of occurrence in the database. It are all 3 movers and the problems are themed. They are rated between 1700 - 2000. Currently I'm occupied with the lawnmower's mate. The complexity of the problems is high enough, so that trial and error is not the best strategy to solve the problems. I try to formulate the logic behind the mates. I'm in search for a method that performs better than trial and error. With Xmind I map all findings and I try to sort them out. That has been no easy task, since every tactical motif can play a role. But after three days of hard work I seem to have the beginning of a logical method with no redundancy or overkill. There are 4 area's to investigate: What about the area the king is in? What are the relevant lines of attack? What defenders play a role in defending the lines of attack? What ab...

 I tried to generalize the brilliant ideas that I have written down during my study of the French defense. I was quite surprised to notice how fast these brilliancies transposed into trivialities when they are generalized. Like for instance: trade your bad piece for a good piece of your opponent. There are of course important subtleties, like "as long as the pawn structure isn't fixed, you cannot know which piece is good or bad". But knowing positional trivialities is not going to win you much games. At the same time, I noticed that there are typical manoeuvers that are related to the French. For instance when you try to trade your bad bishop in the French: Black to move Black to move What strikes me is that these manoeuvers are perfectly described by the PoPLoAFun system. You look what the shortest line of attack is from your bad bishop to the good bishop of your opponent, and try to get the upperhand on that line. All standard ways for white to frustrate your access to ...

 The logic behind the French defense is totally different from the Colle's. If I try to summarize it: seduce white to play an early e5 trade all pieces nibble away the center pawns And what is left is a winning endgame with a protected passer. Ad 1. Your barter goods are: space and your king can be attacked. But lack of space is only a problem when your pieces have no good places to go. The French defense is so designed that that should be no problem. Ad 2. White must attack on the kingside. Otherwise he might end up worse. He need his light squared bishop and queen for that. Without these two pieces a mating attack is next to impossible. So black must undertake rabid attempts to trade these pieces. For more than one reason: No queen and bishop means: no kingside attack. Less pieces means less problems with a lack of space. No queen means being closer to a good endgame. And trading the light squared bishops means that white lacks his good bishop for your bad bishop. The threat of t...

 How to conduct a game? My idea is pretty simple. There are sitting ducks (the king and the pawns). Attack them! In the beginning only the king is vulnerable. Put pressure on him, and chances are that something will give in. That other weaknesses, especially weak pawns are created. New weaknesses means new targets. Attack them! The Colle approach is actually exactly so straightforward as described here. You see how all lines of attack point in the direction of the enemy king. The task for black is to create obstacles in the lines of attack. Whites pride and joy is the bishop on d3. How can black neutralize it? a knight on f6 covers h7, which is the end of the line of attack a knight on e4 blocks the bishop a pawn on f5 blocks the diagonal a pawn on g6 ditto a pawn on c4 chases the bishop away a knight on b4 ditto a bishop on a6 threatens to exchange the bishop on d3 Black will try to make the line of attack useless, while white tries to prevent that. The same principles work for th...

 I have a fairly good idea what my openings should look like. Not in terms of variations, but in a theoretical way. I'm in the process of changing to other openings for quite a few years now. I tried the HAD, the 2.Bf4 London, the black Sniper, the white Sniper. the Dzindzi Indian, the Jobava London, the Classical Dutch, the Bogo Indian and maybe a few others. About most openings I'm rather enthusiast, yet I hadn't the idea that it represented the way how I think a game should be conducted.  That is arrogant in more than one way. First of all, I don't know how a game should be conducted. Secondly, I mishandled the openings I tried often in a terrible way. So how can I possibly know? Yet that is simple. I have a few ideas about how a game should be played, and I want to test these ideas in practice. I'm after the feedback my games can provide. So openings that give good results but no feedback, are useless, essentially. Since I want to learn to play chess. I might ge...

 Since I have in the meantime a fairly good understanding about the process of gaining tactical skill, every exercise provides a chance to zoom in and add precision to the details.The base is, logical reasoning must become better. That is an activity of system 2. System 1 looks over the shoulder of system 2 and adds its magic, like storing patterns, remembering analogies, visualisation and the like. But without an improvement in logical reasoning, there can be no progress. So focus on system 2 and try to work on your logic. The following is a perfect example. For me, if you see the  solution at once, or just fast, you need a more challenging problem. Black to move. Mate in 3 4k3/1p1r4/2p1b3/2P1K1r1/PR2P2p/2R5/6P1/6N1 w - - 0 1 [ solution ] Once you solved it, you must take your time to describe the logic with precision. This is the general rule of gaining skill in any area. Focus on adding precision to the logical reasoning. And system 1 will follow. My memory, association and...