Chess coaching

 I finished the autobiography "Rebel Queen" of Susan Polgar lately.

The Polgar experiment always has been my main inspiration for my quest of getting better at chess as a plateauing adult player.

I never had the inclination to learn more about the Polgar experiment, because I figured that it wouldn't work for adults anyway. Because if it had, I'm sure somebody would know it.

So far, I had extracted two conclusions from the Polgar experiment:

• Any child can be a prodigy with the right education
• Being good at chess is like learning a "trick", since a child can do it

The proof of the latter I considered to be true because of Susan Polgar, who gave a simul of 1131 games in 17 hours with a score of 99%. Meaning that she had used about 2.5 seconds per move at average. Given that she had to walk from board to board in the meantime, that would imply that there is no thinking involved. Since there was simply not enough time for thinking (system 2).

Reading the book told me that the main base of the improvement of the child prodigies was chess coaching. I already suspected that.

Susan tells that she had coached 29 children for a year, and that they scored 27/2 against children who were coached by an "ordinary" chess coach.

The problem with chess coaching

The "trick" of chess is that it is a "skill". Skills reside in system 1, while knowledge resides in system 2.

And system 1 and system 2 don't communicate in a verbal manner.

People who have the skills, have no inclination or capability to talk about them and those who have the knowledge usually lack the skills. So the best coaches are the people at the intersection of knowledge and skill. The candidate masters and the masters.

MDLM told us how he thought he did his trick. But because he didn't know the details, he put the emphasis of his method on a part that is totally irrelevant and even counterproductive (speed). The same is true for the authors of the Woodpecker method. The owners of a skill tell the wrong story how the skill came about. Because the story telling (system 2) resides in a different part of the brain as the skill itself (system 1).

I'm a software developer for 41 years, and I have interviewed countless end users and "super users". The users do have the skills, while the computer only can work with explicit commands. I always needed to unearth implicit hidden knowledge and translate it into clear explicit computer language. The problem always being that the users had knowledge that they weren't aware of, so they wouldn't tell me if they weren't asked, and how would I know what to ask without them telling me?

It is not rocket science

For years, there was a whiff of magic around color complexes. Even worse, Bronstein told that he understood color complexes at some day. He explained that it was not about the squares with the weak color that are the problem, but that it was about an attack on the other color. Since he didn't explain that well, he left us in the dark even more.

With hindsight, we talk about things that are easy to understand. Otherwise, a kid couldn't become a prodigy. But when you leave out the essentials, even an adult cannot understand it. Or when you fabricate a story that isn't true. Like MDLM.

White to move

All blacks' pawns are on dark squares. Hence the light squares are weak. Typically a weak color complex.

Which black pieces can defend these light squares?

• Bc8
• Nf6
• Nc5

Which white pieces can fight these defenders?

• Be3
• Be2
• Nd2

Hence you look for tactics that exchange the black defenders. Notice how the white dark squared bishop fights for the light squares by trading it for a black knight. It is this dark squared bishop that tips the balance on the light squares.

 Imagine that you have traded these white pieces against the black defenders. Then you are left with a white knight that can freely hop between the light squares. Since the black pawns are on the dark squares AND the white knight hops between the light squares, the black pawns happen to be attacked easily by the white knight. Because it, ehm, is a knight. The black bishop has very little room to manoeuver because all the black pawns are on the dark squares. So the black bishop is no match for the white knight. That is what Bronstein meant.

As you see, it is no rocket science. But you cannot leave any information out. Unintentionally fabricating stories is even worse. But since system 2 and system 1 are not communicating verbally, that is what happens.

We now know why adults usually do not benefit from a coach. But one question remains unanswered: why do chess prodigies benefit from a coach?

Susan gives the beginning of an answer from her own practice: a coach must ask the right questions instead of providing the answers.