Temposchlucker

BK said: It is not at all clear that it is easier to improve by a fixed percentage on harder problems than it is on easier ones. Back in the days of the Bain Experiment, I found that reducing my solution times by a fixed percentage for my first pass through the first batch of problems gave a good fit to my solution times on the first passes through the later batches of problems. That appears to be roughly right for Woolum too. I advocate to train every specific task that you have to perform in a specialized way. Optimized for that specific task. Preventing diminishing returns. The first thing to do is to determine which tasks we are talking about. Every tasks has its own specialized sets of patterns associated with it, and if you don't find out which patterns to learn, chances are high that you don't learn these patterns at all. First task: 20 tactical elements. The first task we have identified is that we have 20 - 30 elementary tactical themes, depending on t...

. . . . In order to enhance the speed of solving tactical problems as much as possible, I work with high rated (2300 - 2400 std rating) problems. These often take me half an hour to an hour to solve. If I can speed that up to under 3 minutes, I'm 10-20 x faster. With easy problems it is much more difficult to speed up the same percentage. 3 minutes is the average time you have per move in a long OTB game. Another advantage is that when you need an hour to solve a problem, you can use a stopwatch and a logbook to write down what it is what you are actually doing and what exact costs so much time. My search algorithm is actually developed for duplo attacks and not for traps. And it shows. Whenever I have to chase the king, I'm starting to consume time and to make errors. (I consider a mate to be a special instance of a trap.) This means I will have to work out a separate search algorithm for chasing the king. I will make a set of high rated mates with >4 ...

In my quest to define an intelligent search algorithm for positional chess I had to swallow another disappointment. I bought the book Chess Blueprints: Planning in the Middlegame of Nikolay Yakovlev. I intended to make flashcards of the 188 blueprints he provided. Until I discovered that the author didn't computercheck his book. What's the use of learning the blueprint of a positionally won game when in reality you are loosing the exchange in that particular position. I didn't expect that anno 2010 (the date of publishing). So once again I will have to think for myself. Let's see if we can find a natural hierarchy for chess moves. What do you think about this: Tactics. Targets. Invasion points. Open lines. Space. Tactics. In the end, you will win a game by executing a tactic. If there is a tactical combination around, it usually has the highest priority. Fisher said: Tactics flow from a positionally superior game . How does that work? How does one...

. . . . . . . Since my new approach to study tactics my FIDE estimated ATH increased from 1798 to 1844. The graph above gives you a clue how to interpret these figures. 46 points in one week, not too shabby! My new approach doesn't cover long king chases very well.  I'm very bad at it either. Maybe I must find an apart search algorithm for that.

Cure tactical flaw. In the previous post I found a major flaw in my approach to tactics and I belief I have found the way to cure it at the same time. The flaw is that I act as a headless chicken when investigating a tactic. The cure is to look in a systematic way. I expect that it will take a few months to cure. Preventing radio silence. Since I don't want to have a radio silence during these months, I will think out loud about the ensuing step. Can we deploy this method to positional chess too? I see no reason why not. Today I read all my posts I have written sofar about positional play (quite a lot!). What is the goal? The first problem we have to solve is to find out the core of the matter. My breakthrough in the previous post came about when I realized that I must be on the lookout for one of the six methods to gain wood. Without one, there can be no gain of wood hence no tactic. Can we find an analogy in positional play? In my blogposts I found no less than six d...

The move order problem. In the previous post and its comments we saw what the core problem is when calculating. We recognize all kinds of patterns, but we have trouble to find the right move order due to the vast amount of possibilities. It takes too much time to investigate all possibilities. Brute force. Munich proposes to solve this problem by brute force. This means that he still wants to investigate all posibilities by trial and error, but tries to speed up the process by learning all kinds of patterns by heart. Search strategy. What I propose here is to add intelligence. Can't we find an intelligent strategy here that outperforms the brute force method? I have tried the brute force method myself for years and walked into the law of diminishing returns. If we are able to prune branches we can speed up the process by not calculating some lines. In stead of running around like a headless chicken (which is my usual state when in trial and error mode). Of course I can...

Let's have a closer look how the basic elements add up to the total combination. That might give us more insight what the effect is of training of the basic elements only and if that is sufficient to see the whole combination. Let's take the following 1900 rated problem. . . . . White to move. See the solution here . I recognize the following targets: king and rook Attacker: Queen Attacking square:d5 . . . . The attacking square d5 is defended by 3 pieces: . . . . Which leads to the following question: can I remove those 3 defenders with preservation of tempo? I can threathen and take the bishop with tempo via Ne5, Nxc4. . . . . I can get rid of the black queen and the knight by sac'ing the exchange with Rxe7 . . . . Which adds up to the complete combination: 1.Ne5 Qf8 2.Nxc4 bxc4 3.Rxe7 Qxe7 4.Qd5+ wins the rook. As always perfect fitting in m...