Temposchlucker

 The past 21 months I absorbed 2571 patterns. What have I learned? Tactical themes form a language. There are only about 60 themes (30 mates, 30 motifs like pin etc.), so that are not an awful lot of words to learn. The problem lies in recognizing (seeing) the themes in all circumstances . At average I have absorbed 2571 / 60 = 43 patterns per theme. And slowly a new factor starts to emerge. You can only visualize what you have absorbed. In order to visualize a combination that exists of 3 themes, you need to be able to see the 60 x 60 x 60 patterns. There are 60 x 60 x 60 = 216,000 combinations of 3 themes. You cannot calculate this. But if you can recognize the 60 themes UNDER ALL CIRCUMSTANCES, than you can visualize any combination. If I remember well, Dan Heisman told that when he was 18, he often had opponents who stopped calculating halfway a combination. He used that to concoct a theory about calculating until quiescence. Which is a typical description by system 2 of a syst...

 The following rant is a summary of my experiences of the past 1.5 years and especially the last tournament. It might sound a bit vague because it is partly based on my gut feelings, and not hindered by common beliefs. Since it sketches a realistic view of what might be needed to improve in the following years, I think it is useful anyway. There are five areas of improvement. Technique tactics positional play Strategy endgame opening king assault From these five areas, I have only developed tactics to a certain degree. To what degree? Ad tactics I have absorbed: 389 mates 208 knight moves 122 other tactics These numbers are problems. One problem is inhabited by 3 patterns, at average. I estimate that I have absorbed 36% of the tactics that are necessary to become the tactical wizard we all want to be. Currently, the absorption of tactical patterns has as effect that my my view changes from pieces to the cooperation of pieces.  It turns out that the PoPLoAFun system is especial...

 One of the three areas where I suck is the endgame. Since I manage to screw up positions where I'm a piece ahead, I suppose that this is the area where I can gain the most with a little effort. This position came from round 5 in the tournament: Black to move 8/8/p7/PpKnk3/1P6/6P1/8/8 b - b3 0 37 I'm black, a piece ahead, and totally clueless. I was lucky to draw this position. After the game, my 14 year old opponent showed me an easy way to win for black: 37. ... Nxb4. I felt pretty silly. Since the resulting position is familiar to me. But we already noted long ago that being familiar is not enough, we need absorption. I have the feeling that the endgame is about a finite amount of scenarios, which are in general not rocket science, but can be hard to SEE when you haven't ABSORBED them. And since we are talking about LONG lines, you can't visualize them by just being familiar with the scenarios. You can't SEE them without having them absorbed before. This position...