Temposchlucker

After doing lots of visualisation exercises I came to the following reasoning: If you can't solve a problem while looking at the board and moving the pieces around with your hand, you certainly aren't going to solve it with with your eyes closed before your mind's eye only. So the best you can hope for as result of visualisation exercises is that it is as if you are looking at the board with your eyes open. But it doesn't shift your boundaries as problemsolver. There is more to it though. Yesterday I introcuded the 3 layers of chess vision: 1. The squares covered by my present pieces (part of the present cage) 2. The squares covered by a piece of me in the future (part of the future cage) 3. The squares covered by the enemy (limits the places where I can put my pieces hence my ability to create the future cage) Here I have a diagram that perfectly demonstrates these features. White to move This is a problem of masterlevel. You can't say that it is a very difficult p...

Now I have formulated the narrative of the cage, there are a whole lot of chessproblems that fall into this description. Every mate, to be precise. I'm well aware that what I try to tell now probably will sound very vague, but since it is important I hope you are willing to put some effort in it to understand what I'm trying to say. Feel free to ask. There is a close relation between narratives and chess vision. A narrative is the first stage of learning something new, chess vision the second. Take for instance the narrative of the king in the cage. The narrative tells that there are 3 types of fabric of which the cage is made: The edge of the board (physically visible) The pieces of the opponent (physically visible) The squares covered by your own pieces (chess vision needed) The narrative supplies the idea of the king in the cage. The idea of the cage limits what you need to see. You don't need to see the whole rim of the board, you need only to see that part of the rim t...

A few posts ago I mentioned an improvement of chess vision due to mumbling narratives while solving chess problems. In the previous post I mentioned chess vision as one of the elements of calculation. What on earth is the relation between narritives and chess vision?! Chess vision is defined as the ability to look at the covered squares in stead of the pieces. Narratives play a role in defining which squares play a crucial role in the position. An example will clarify matters. White to move This is halfway a combination, so the position looks pretty nonsensical. Blacks only hope can be that white's cellphone goes off, or white gets an heart attack, or, less likely, he can give eternal check at some moment. But that is irrelevant. The point is to find the fastest way to checkmate black and what is of help for white to find it. I think the main reason why we are so bad at chess is because we fall for the temptation of looking at candidate moves without defining the criteria first...

The idea of narratives is so flexible that you can use it for almost anything. Even the first problem of my new problemset unveils an abundance of new information when pried open with narratives. Some information on important elements of calculation is revealed. What is it what you do exactly when you calculate? If you know that than you can devise a method how to learn it. So be patient, the position itself is not specific important or interesting, the implications are, though. White to move. White is an exchange and a pawn down. Black's kingposition is unsafe though. If you have been on a diet of 6 queensacrifices before breakfeast during the past years, like me, then you will see a red flashing "Bxh7" appear in neon-letters above the board. I'm sure there are a lot of chessplayers who will just play the move by intuition and "look what happens". If you are less lazy, you look if there is a forced mate somewhere. Since you are a full rook down after the bi...

Phaedrus, the dutch chessplayer who act as a sounding board for me lately, has suggested to me that the problems of Chess Tempo aren't difficult enough for my goal. Today I thought about this and I did some measurements and I think he might be right. The average solving time is 1m 42 s per problem. 16% of my answers are wrong. That means roughly that for 84% of the time I'm doing exercises that don't are a problem for me. In this stage of my development that doesn't seem a useful thing to do. It must be the other way around, 84% of the problems must go wrong. Otherwise I simply spill too much time. I didn't found a practical way to get more difficult problems with Chess Tempo. CTS is even worse. Due to the fast mouse handling of my fellow solvers the presented problems are very leightweighted. If you forget the clock your rating will drop and the problems will become even leighter. As if you are powerlifting with 2kg a dumbell. I decided to settle for Intensive Cour...

In my previous post I concluded (if you read between the lines) that the only training that actually worked made use of the verbal capacities of the brain. In order to check my findings I started to solve problems at Chess Tempo while describing the characteristics of the position and the moves by speaking out loud. "Ok, here I see that the king can be driven away towards my own pieces. I must prevent that he escapes via d6. I can prevent that by Nc4+. I can safely play that since his knight on b6 is pinned" etc., etc.. I take ample time to describe everything that is going on in the position before I play through the solution. After all what I want to learn is to recognize the elements of a combination in every position. Of course the experiment isn't conclusive yet. But I noticed 3 intrigueing things. In the period I had my greatest ratinggrowth I felt sharp . During the circles I have hardly felt that. But during these new exercises I felt sharp again for the first tim...

I was somewhat reluctant to post this article. But what the heck, truth is more important than dogmas! I'm rethinking everything that has happened during the last 3 years of blogging. The greatest improvement in rating I made in the 3 years before I started with the circles. I gained about 170 points in that period. I studied TCT and Polgars brick without repetition . The last 3 years, while I did the circles, I gained only 65 points. There are people who think this is due to the law of diminishing returns. I have ingrained all important tactical patterns, it boosted my rating with 235 points and that's it. I have to live with that. Any efforts in that direction aren't going to bring me much further. I have to learn to live with the limits of my brain. I simply can't belief that. Since a simple test at Chess Tempo shows that I'm not so good at tactical pattern recognition at all! I'm sure I operate way below my potential. If I'm right that means that the met...