Think like a grandmaster
Back in 2000 I realized that when a 14 year old kid starts to beat up chess players who have 50 year or more experience under their belt, there must be some sort of trick that they apply.
When Susan Polgar set her simul record in 2005, I did the math and came to the conclusion that whatever the trick was, it had to be subconscious. She used 2.6 second per move at average, including walking from one table to another, and there is no way that someone can think in such short amount of time.
Hence I started my blog in 2005. Many red herrings were thrown at me by all kinds of chess authors, and I catched them all.
In 2023 I ran out of red herrings, and I concocted some sort of method to educate my subconscious. It kind of worked, although it was obvious that it was far from efficient.
At May 5th, 2026, finally all pieces of the puzzle fell into their place. In order to obtain the trick, you must absorb the logical patterns of a position, not so much the geometrical patterns. Since logical patterns are transferable from one position to another, while geometrical patterns are not.
So the Trick is, that a grandmaster prunes the tree of analysis rigorously before he even starts to think. Since this happens subconsciously and lightning fast, they are not aware of themselves doing so.
In order to be of service to their students, they invented all kinds of confabulations, and throw them out as red herrings over the chess community.
In order to find out the difference between geometrical patterns and logical patterns, compare the two following diagrams:
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| Diagram 1. Black to move |
r3kb1r/pp3ppp/2N1pn2/q7/3P4/2N5/PP2bPPP/R1BQ1RK1 b kq - 0 11
Siebrecht, S. vs. Odendahl, R., Wuppertal 1994
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| Diagram 2. Black to move |
r2B2k1/1pqb1pp1/p6p/8/PbB5/1P1p1N1P/2P1QPP1/R5K1 b - - 0 22
Kamsky, G. vs. Akobian, V., St. Louis 2017
Can you spot the logical pattern that these two positions have in common?
Geometrical patterns are the easiest to recognize. Hence everybody does that. It is hard to make a difference there.
ReplyDeleteLogical patterns have a degree of abstraction in them. This makes them much more common. But they are harder to learn. You must isolate them from a puzzle, conceptualize them so that they become position independent. Then you must absorb them. That is much harder to do. But that is how you learn the Trick.
“In desperate position, you must fight.” – Sun Tzu
ReplyDeleteDr. Lasker's motifs come in handy for encapsulating common and important logical patterns in a single word.
"When you absolutely don't know what to do anymore, it is time to panic." GM John van der Wiel
ReplyDelete