Clearing your head
This is the method:
- Select problem positions with patterns you need to absorb.
- Don't waste much time with trying to solve a problem yourself. It is about the new patterns you haven't absorbed yet. Solving it yourself is about patterns you already have absorbed.
- Full understanding is the core of the method. Ignore the details that aren't transferable to other positions.
- Describe the scenarios in plain language. Clear the square, double attack, annihilate the defender et cetera. This is about conceptualizing the scenarios with the aid of system 2. System 1 looks over the shoulder of system 2. More precise: both system 1 and system 2 are focussing on where your attention is.
- Fiddle around with Stockfish to unearth more details of the position.
- Use spaced repetition to memorize the positions. Speed is taboo.
- Once memorized, solve the positions with your eyes closed.
The last step is my latest discovery. It will clear your head and cement the patterns. You don't need to see the exact position in your head, you only need to be aware of the concepts that govern the scenarios.
UPDATE
Of course this describes only the method of absorption. The next step concerns the question: what to absorb?
Tactics
Tactics is an area where continuous training is needed
- General tactics (gaining wood)
- Mate
- Promotion
It is an area that pops up whenever you try to reach a goal of some kind
Positional play
It took me about five months to get to the core of the matter. It culminates in two types of micro plans:
- Microplans 1: mastering weak pawns
- Microplans 2: mastering piece productivity
Ad 1 .Microplans 1: mastering weak pawns
Recognizing the different types of weak pawns
- Doubled Pawns
- Isolated Pawns
- Isolated Doubled Pawns
- Backward Pawns
- Fixed Pawns
- Pawn Islands
I wasn't aware that fixed pawns at the base of a chain are weak (well, Nimzowitsch talked about it of course, but it was no part of my game). Furthermore, more pawn islands means more vulnerable pawns.
Inflicting or provoking weak pawns
- By exchanges
- By pawn breaks
- Fixing weak pawns
Hit the weak pawns
- The main goal is conquering the pawn
- The secondary goal is to bind the enemy defenders
- The third goal is to start an attack elsewhere
Repair your own pawn structure
- By a pawn break
- By an exchange
- Prevent damage
Ad 2. Microplans 2: mastering piece productivity
- By pawn break
- By an exchange
- By manoeuvering
- By creating strong squares/invasion/outpost
- By opening lines/diagonals
These two microplans seem to give sufficient guidance during the middlegame.
There are multiple parts to absorption of usable patterns. Obviously, recognition must be triggered first. That implies that a certain degree of abstraction has occurred between Systems 1 and 2. In addition to recognition of the “problem,” there must be a recognition of what should be played in response. The generic name for that combination of factors is the pryome: standard scenario, standard response.
ReplyDelete“Patzer sees a check; patzer gives a check” would not be a pryome, IMHO.
One of the difficulties with selecting problems is implicit in the very act of selecting problems. A problem is restricted to a localized moment in a game (unless it is composed). “Solving that problem” (regardless of how the solution is determined) ends whenever a satisfactory result can be identified. That leaves off the rest of the game, which will in all likelihood be a series of (different) problems that must be recognized and solved.
“The appearance of a single swallow does NOT indicate the beginning of summer.”
Or something like that.
If the "solution" is not checkmate or an overwhelming gain of material, perhaps it would be a good idea to play out the game against a computer (or, better yet, against a human with approximately the same rating or a little higher). You might as well gain maximum benefit across all areas of your game, rather than confine it to one example of one pattern.
ReplyDeleteThe microplans as described in the update treat a lot of whole games.
DeleteUPDATE in blue
ReplyDeleteAnother way of playing emerges. I used to always opt for the king side attack. But the openings that I play are more designed to get an edge on the queenside.
ReplyDeleteI play usually without much compromises. Meaning that if logic tells me to do something, I do it, no matter the consequences.
I'm more a study head than a warrior. Hence I used to draw a lot in the past. Since two years I managed to suppress that habit. But now my game changes, it emerges again. Not that I offer draws, but that I accept them when my opponent does.
It has to do with uncertainty. When I'm uncertain, it is logical to accept a draw because I know that I'm going to screw up.
I use it as a tool to find my weaknesses. When I'm inclined to accept a draw, that means that I need to work that area. I hope to grow over it soon.
"Once memorized, solve the positions with your eyes closed."
ReplyDeleteWhen you solve a problem this way, a relation is stored between the logic and the pattern. You use your logic with system 2, and system 2 gets the related pattern. Just like when you formulate a sentence. You bother about the logic of what you are saying (system 2), and system 1 will get you the related words.
"You use your logic with system 2, and system 2 gets the related pattern" should read as "You use your logic with system 2, and system 1 gets the related pattern"
DeleteThis article was in the October 2025 CHESS LIFE, the official USCF monthly magazine for members. (I’m a Life Member.) It may contain some useful training hints for some of us older players.
ReplyDeleteHOW I TRAINED FOR THE 2025 U.S. SENIOR — GM Alex Fishbein, winner
My preparation for the 2025 U.S. Senior encompassed three main elements: (1) an active tournament schedule; (2) targeted training to eliminate deficiencies, and (3) specific work to improve calculation and visualization.
(1) and (2) are related. You cannot eliminate weaknesses in your play unless you know what they are, and for that you need a large sample. Online blitz serves important purposes, but it requires different skills than what you need in slower games. I played many tournaments — maybe even too many! — in the run-up to the U.S. Senior: 68 classical games in the first six months of the year. This helped build my endurance, but also informed me what I needed to work on.
I annotated my games as soon as possible after each tournament, while I still remembered my thoughts during the game, and note what misperceptions led to the mistakes I made. Then I would categorize these mistakes. It could be as specific as being afraid to trade into a certain type of ending; sometimes it was poor combinational vision; at times it was positional impatience. I would often use a method similar to Bruce Pandolfini’s Solitaire Chess to help eliminate these weaknesses: Working on something as general as positional play, for example, I might choose games by Anatoly Karpov. When it was more nuanced, I would ask my son Mitch, a master, to pick out relevant games from a larger set.
In “You’re Only Human,” Billy Joel sings, “You’re not the only one who’s made mistakes but they’re the only thing that you can truly call your own.” We all have unique patterns in when and how we go astray; therefore, targeted training is the best training [emphasis added].
My third technique, and perhaps the “secret sauce,” arose from some concrete things I discovered for myself about what skills suffer the most as we age. It’s not news to say that calculation becomes much harder, but I learned more about exactly how this happens. In my experience, I noticed I was forgetting variations I had just calculated, getting flustered when facing a complicated choice, and having trouble visualizing positions a few moves ahead. I went back to some old books written by serious analysts, such as Lev Polugaevsky and Paul Keres. I selected critical positions with deep variations in the books, set up a board and clock and, without moving the pieces, tried to find mistakes in the analysis (on average, about 50% of complicated lines in pre-computer books had mistakes).
This method may not work for everyone, but I found it effective. I felt that my calculation level during the U.S. Senior was comparable to when I was young.
All this work gave me a chance to win. Ultimately, I needed some luck, including getting favorable colors, seeing a couple of mistakes near the end go unpunished, and some favorable results in other games. All you can do is put yourself in position to win; sometimes, destiny will smile on you.
You can see an example of GM Fishbein’s method in the current issue (2025:6) of New in Chess.
I know fairly well what to train. The problem is not even time, although matters will become easier when I retire within four weeks.
DeleteThe real problem is focus. It is not easy to make a proper use of study time, since I will have to alternate focus during study time regularly. So I work a few minutes with intense focus, and then I need to change the subject for a few minutes.
I'm not sure whether it is just a bad habit. During a game, that urge is absent.
After absorbing a pattern, you cannot go immediately to the next problem. It takes time for a pattern to stick into memory. Hence you need to alternate the attention. In an ideal world, you continue with another chess study object that doesn't interfere with the pattern you just learned.
Delete