Synopsis. First try
Finite amount of LoAs
There is a finite amount of lines of attack.
This already cuts down the amount of things to think about drastically
Moving target
All LoAs are geared around the king. That is because a LoA ends near to the king. But when the opposing king hasn't castled yet, you don't know where to aim your attackers to. Only in rare cases you are able to force the king to stay in the middle. This means that when the target hasn't stabilized, you can only go so far when it comes to placing your attackers. Once the king has castled, you can go all out.
Pawns
The role of the pawns is paramount. Their effect is twofold.
- They drastically cut down the amount of LoAs that are usable
- They increase the approach time of both attackers and defenders, but in an unbalanced way
Pawns come in two flavors. Your own pawns and your enemies pawns. Pawn breaks can alter the LoA landscape in a moments notice. All of a sudden, other attackers, other defenders and other squares become relevant.
Elasticity
As long as the killbox around the king isn't stabilized to a certain degree, you cannot decide which lines of attack are going to be crucial. Hence statistics and flexibility are the only guidelines you have. Keep your own options open while limiting the options of your opponent.
Exchanges
When the pawns are fixed, it has an effect on the LoAs. When the LoAs are fixed, you can make a judgement which pieces are good and which pieces are bad. By exchanging the right pieces, you can change the balance. Even a color complex where you dominate might emerge.
Change of plans
When a pawn moves, the LoA landscape changes.
When pieces are exchanged, the users of the LoAs change.
Hence that are the two criteria to adjust your plans. It are long term changes.
Tactics
There are standard scenarios that are geared around the domination of the lines of attack. Like clearing of the LoA and changing the balance of a focal point. From B.A.D. to worse. I reckon that the preconditions of Vukovic emerge here.
Calculation
This synopsis focuses on generalisation. With conceptualisation, you lose details. That is great, because it cuts down the amount of things to think about. A grandmaster doesn't think faster, he thinks less.
But once the diagnosis is clear, the next step is to implement the remedy. For that you can't do without calculation. Calculation is about adding the details again.
PART I:
ReplyDeleteAs I reread some of Dr. Betty Edward's intriguing book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain: A course in enhancing creativity and artistic confidence, I noticed some interesting tidbits that had escaped my attention previously.
“Learning to draw [or play chess] is really a matter of learning to see—to SEE correctly—and that means a great deal more than merely looking with the eye.” [Emphasis added]
— Kimon Nicolaides, The Natural Way to Draw, 1941
“The left hemisphere [System 2] analyzes over time, whereas the right hemisphere [System 1] synthesizes over space.”
— Jerre Levy, Professor Emeritus, Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, “Psychobiological Implications of Bilateral Asymmetry,” in Hemisphere Function in the Brain, 1974
There are five basic component skills proposed and trained by Dr. Edwards. She draws (pun intended) an analogy between drawing and reading. Drawing and reading are termed global skills, made up of component subskills that are learned step by step. [Funny: there is at least a verbal connection to the Chess Steps Method developed in 1987 by Rob Brunia and Cor van Wijgerden in The Netherlands.] With practice, the components meld seamlessly into the smooth functioning global activities of drawing and reading [and playing chess].
All of these basic component skills are various forms of PERCEPTION, not conception. None of them are specific drawing techniques, yet without them, it is impossible to draw realistic (true to life) images. All of these component skills must be developed using System 1.
The key insight is that we have to learn how to PERCEIVE before we can learn how to CONCEIVE.
(1) The Perception of Edges (seeing complex edges and the interaction of two or more objects, down to the tiniest details). In chess this is the perception of contacts between pieces (same side and opponent’s side) and squares.
(2) The Perception of Spaces (perceiving positive images [System 2] and negative spaces [System 1]). The clearest example in chess is seeing the Lines of Attack radiating as auras from each piece (positive image) and the surrounding landscape/background created by the pawns (negative space). Too often, we concentrate all our mental focus on the positive image, without considering the negative space(s) to be just as vitally important. As you note in your synopsis, even though the pawns and King move so slowly, they have a profound effect on the Lines of Attack. A very slight change in pawn configuration or king position can open/close a completely different set of LoAs.
(3) The Perception of Relationships (perspective and proportion). Perspective means looking at the position from our own viewpoint AND also from our opponent’s viewpoint, looking toward a vanishing point on the horizon (beyond which we cannot see). Proportion means taking into account various advantages and disadvantages of the relationships and evaluating them correctly in terms of relative importance. To do so, we must accept both paradox and ambiguity; there are many times when we cannot be certain of our judgments.
(4) The Perception of Lights and Shadows (the relative valuations/shades of importance of various local areas within each position for forming an assessment of the relative importance). Extrapolation from the known to the unknown is the essence of this perception.
(5) The Perception of the Gestalt (a feeling of Aha! resulting from a feeling of recognition of the whole that emerges from careful perception and recognition of the parts, all in relationship to each other and the whole.) This is an outcome or insight—a visual and mental comprehension of the perceived subject, resulting from the focused attention of the first four.
PART II:
ReplyDeleteDr. Lasker had this to say (quoted in GM Kotov’s Think Like A Grandmaster, pp 45-46:
“Emanuel Lasker once said of a promising player: ‘For all his undoubted strategic and tactical abilities he lacks the special sort of imagination needed to foresee the contours of the complicated operations that are germinating in the position.’ From this it follow that a good player has some special quality which enables him to get a bird’s eye view of what is building up in a position.”
I’ve been curious as to what distinguished the child prodigies Capablanca and Reshevsky from others. Both learned to play chess at age four (by their own account). I don’t blithely attribute their abilities to “genius.” At that early age, almost everything is absorbed via System1 through PERCEPTION, not via System 2 through CONCEPTION. The evidence seems overwhelming that it was PERCEPTION, not CONCEPTION, that enabled them to play quite well from the very beginning. Although Bobby Fischer was considerably older when he began studying chess, he spent considerable time alone, PERCEIVING the intricacies of the interactions in game after game until, in his words, “he got good.”
Just as we can’t figure out what to do with the pieces unless we know where we are going, we can’t make good CONCEPTIONS without good PERCEPTIONS.
The hard part is to figure out how to train PERCEPTION so as to facilitate CONCEPTION.
I'm in the second year of following a course of clay modelling. I work from project to project. But between projects, I often take one or two evenings where I focus on trying to model a female's face. But all my faces look like old men. Some times an ape, an alien, or a Chinese.
ReplyDeleteI recognize a female face immediately when I see one (system 1). I have no idea how I do that. But my hands only make old men.
I learned a lot of characteristics of the female face from the internet (system 2). But so far to no avail.
I will keep you posted.
PART I:
ReplyDeleteAn observation by Dr. Edwards:
If an art student says, “Well, I am good at drawing still life, and I am fairly good at figure drawing, but I am not good at landscape, and I can’t do portraits at all,” it means that one or more of the basic component skills has not been learned. A comparable statement about reading would be, “I am good at reading magazines, and I am fairly good at instruction manuals, but I’m not good at newspapers, and I can’t read books at all.” Hearing this, one would know that some reading components were not learned.
I’ve made several comments vis-a-vis the perceptual skills needed for drawing and chess. Those same perceptual skills are needed for sculpture. Perceptual skills transfer across many (all?) subject areas.
As another analogy, consider martial arts. When I first began studying martial arts, I did what I always do when learning a new subject: I bought several books on the subject. I tried my best to memorize the verbiage used to describe what what happening, assuming that since that approach worked for almost every subject I had studied in school throughout my life, it would work for martial arts as well.
It didn’t work at all.
I had “head” knowledge but no “heart” knowledge. I could reel off verbal descriptions of the components of a form and the individual sequences, but couldn’t perform it. As I was attempting to “practice” one of the early (simpler) forms one day, the assistant head instructor (a 4th degree black belt and 3 times World Champion) rushed over and in a loud voice said, “STOP RUINING THAT FORM!” I was totally shocked, thinking that I had been performing it carefully and correctly. How little I knew!
I began observing how the class was taught. There was minimal (if any) verbal instruction; no description, no explanation, nada zip. It was a cultural shock, because it was taught in the traditional Okinawan style. The instructor would simply perform whatever technique or form was being “taught” in front of the class, with all students trying to copy what they SAW. After one or two iterations with the instructor in front, the instructor (and assistants) would then circulate through the student ranks, making a small change here and there, with NO verbal instruction whatsoever, using “touch” to guide the correct motions. It took me quite some time to accept that this was a good (better?) way of instruction than by giving verbal lectures. You got the “feel” of the correct movement directly in your body, without verbalization. It was amazing how often I would experience an “AHA!” moment after just a small adjustment of a hand, arm, leg, foot or body position while performing the technique.
PART II:
ReplyDeleteI suggest doing the something similar for your sculpture of a female face/head. Ask a female friend or fellow student (hopefully, one and the same!) to allow you to explore their head using your hands—with your eyes closed. Try to perceive the “lines” (the various shapes and curves and texture) through your fingers. Then shift to your clay, and with your eyes closed, attempt to recreate the “feeling” that you experienced. Try to eliminate all attempts at verbalization. The important aspect is to try to get System 2 to quiet down and “fade out,” allowing System 1 to take control. It is an attempt to transfer your perceptions from a real head to your sculpture, without trying to conceptualize or verbalize what you felt.
If you can do this successfully, you can learn to PERCEIVE what is necessary to “SEE” when sculpting or playing chess.
Dr. Edwards opines that one of the best kept “secrets” of the art education world is that most teachers cannot teach non-verbally by demonstrating what needs to be done to improve because they don’t have the needed perceptual skills.
If you don’t have a copy of Dr. Edward’s book, I highly recommend it for both your sculpture and your chess. It will provide several insights into the perceptual processes that must be trained, and how to go about that training.
The usual caveat applies: I have no financial connection to Dr. Edwards, blah, blah, blah.