The dust settles a bit

 Now the dust settles a bit after the tournaments, it is time to answer some questions.

Papa Polgar put three of his daughters on a chess diet and proved that he could turn some random girls into grandmasters. That raised a few questions:

• Do his ideas work for adults?
• If not, why not?
• If not, can we alter his ideas so that it works for adults?

Ad 1: Do his ideas work for adults?

No. We tested this with quite a group of people: the Knights Errant. We found the following.

• Adults that do not plateau at chess and who have never  been exposed to tactics will grow about 250 rating points and will then plateau. It doesn't make any difference which method they used to become exposed to tactics at all.
• Adults that do plateau at chess and who have never  been exposed to tactics will grow about 250 rating points or less and will then plateau. It doesn't make any difference which method they used to become exposed to tactics at all.
• Adults that have been exposed seriously to tactics and plateau will not grow in rating points. No matter the method they use.

Ad 2: If not, why not?

This question puzzled me for quite a long time. I found the answer this week. There is a difference between becoming exposed to tactics for the first time and to become exposed to tactics for the second time or more. I can remember the first telephone number from the telephone we got 55 years ago. But I can't remember the next telephone numbers quite as well. The same holds true for the license plate of the first car my parents got, and my first bank account number. I can still remember them, but I can't remember the numbers of the second car or second bank account.

Maybe, it even has little to do with age. So I postulate the following: for learning something for the first time is less energy required than for the second time or later. Possibly due to interference. The previous memory must be erased, and the next memory must overwrite the previous. If you use enough energy, you remember the last, if you don't use enough energy, you remember the previous.

So chess prodigies grow until their twentieth year and then their rating starts to stall. When they learn something new, like endgames or positional play, their rating grows again, until they stall again. It becomes harder and harder to find new areas of chess that yield success, and their rating flattens overtime.

Ad 3: If not, can we alter his ideas so that it works for adults?

Yes, we can. The following points are crucial:

• The area of concern is the ABC of tactics. Mates, duplo attacks, traps, preliminary moves, promotion tricks.
• In order to absorb a pattern in system 1 you must work slow, and focus with sufficient attention. You must overwrite the old patterns with enough energy.
• To focus the attention during the absorption process, you must verbally write down the different tactical elements of the combination. 
• The stopwatch is crucial for measuring whether a pattern is absorbed in system 1. When it doesn't retrieve within 3 seconds, it isn't absorbed.

In total there are about 400 hours needed to get the ABC of tactics right.

We can test this idea that the age plays no role the coming years. As plateauing adults, we should grow no less faster than child prodigies, given the same amount of time and the right training.

In order to absorb a pattern in system 1 you must work slow, and focus with sufficient attention. You must overwrite the old patterns with enough energy.

This is where people usually fail. We don't understand the importance or we are too lazy. Since it fails in system 1, tutors, mentors and chess coaches tend to overlook it. Child prodigies have no trouble here because they absorb the material for the first time. When they become grandmaster or chess coach later, they are not able to tell us about this problem, since they didn't encounter it.