And the difference is made by the lines of attack. When it comes to SEEing, I cannot stress enough the importance of PoPLoAFun. It al starts with a clear picture of the LoA's (lines of attack). Let's get concrete.
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| White to move |
rnq3kr/1b4p1/p4bp1/1p4N1/4p3/2N1B2Q/PPP4P/2KR1R2 w - - 4 22
Let's have a look at the lines of attack and the points of pressure.
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| White to move |
A LoA is the line of attack between an attacker and a target. The attacker Rd1 attacks the black King and Queen via the PoP (point of pressure) d8. It is a double attack. This is for system 1 the stuff to SEE. It sounds complicated verbally (system 2) but in the realm of SEEing (system 1) it is ultra simple.
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| White to move |
- Attacker: Rf1
- LoA: f-file
- PoP: f8
- Targets: K and Q
Simple to SEE. The black bishops blocks the f-file
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| White to move |
- diagonal h3/c8
- diagonal e6/g8
- h-file
PoP: e6
All simple to SEE.
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| White to move |
- The skedaddle squares f7 and h7
So the black King is in danger of een Anastasia's mate.
The black Queen is overloaded due to her FUNction to guard both the points of pressure e6 and d8. e6 and d8 are not in contact. Which means that when the black Queen takes on d8, it no longer guards e6 and vice versa. Verbally complex, but easy to SEE.
The black Queen is overloaded due to her FUNction to guard both the points of pressure e6 and d8. e6 and d8 are not in contact. Which means that when the black Queen takes on d8, it no longer guards e6 and vice versa. Verbally complex, but easy to SEE.
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| White to move |
The black Bishop is overloaded too (FUNction). He must guard the points of pressure d8 and f8. Easy to SEE.
All pieces that effect no LoA are indifferent to the combination and can be ignored:
- White: Nc3; Be3
- Black: Ra1; Nb8; Bb7; Rh8
This prunes the tree of analysis drastically. Even the fact that the white Queen and Ng5 are en prise or B.A.D. can be ignored.
I hope that I have made clear that the SEEing of PoPLoAFun is essential for every combination. It prunes the tree of analysis and is the way to make the position simple.
EXCELLENT!! SEEing (using System 1) clarifies and simplifies the path to be followed to the climax. You made it crystal clear!
ReplyDeleteWe have discussed Master Weteschnik’s notion of the status examination previously. There are critical components that of this process that you have made extremely clear with this example.
First, Weteschnik stresses the ‘importance’ of examining EVERY piece and pawn. As you have demonstrated, there is a ‘pruning effect’ as a natural consequence of looking at the PoPLoAFun – which is missing from his description.
Second, SEEing can take advantage of known patterns, in this case, Anastasia’s Mate. One (or more) known pattern(s) may occur at any stage during the examination process. When I read the title of this post and took a first glance at the position, the RCCM did NOT jump to the climax and scream out Anastasia’s name. Instead, what came out was “possible back-rank mate” – which temporarily occluded the Anastasia’s Mate pattern.
Third, SEEing the PoPLoAFun followed a natural progression toward a Principle Variation, similar to GM Tisdall’s ‘variation processing.’ The order in which the PoPs and LoAs are recognized are not important – as long as you SEE them all.
Fourth, the means to the final end become very clear after SEEing the various PoPs and LoAs of the critical pieces. The process involves occupying or clearing the PoPs by using the LoAs, forcing the overloaded defender(s) to choose which defense they will give up.
Fifth, the usual tactical THEMES/DEVICES M-A-Y be useful recognition devices, but they are mostly descriptive rather than prescriptive. We recognize them as we play them, instead of use them to find the correct move(s). The first such device is a fork, which is totally obvious. Not quite so obvious is the deflection of one of the two overloaded defenders from the defense of a PoP. This causes a “fork in the road” going forward. Much more obscure is the possible interference of one defender capturing on the initial PoP, and taking advantage of that interference to decoy the king away from a PoP. And at this point, the RCCM screamed out Anastasia’s name in ecstasy.
For fun, I went to Chess Tempo and looked up Anastasia's Mate puzzles. It occurs 1187 times in the CT tactics puzzle database. (On lichess, there are 2859 examples. That does NOT mean that lichess is over twice as good as CT!!)). I looked at the first example (problem 27) and found 23 comments. The most. amusing thing is that there was disagreement over whether the puzzle was an Anastasia's Mate or not. Some wanted to categorize it as a Smothered Mate. Others could not accept it because the final move (giving checkmate) was with the knight, rather than the rook.
ReplyDeleteIt's NOT about pieces-on-squares. It ain't about the specific ORDER of the moves. It's about the conceptual pattern(s) to SEE! Those pattern(s) are the abstract roles that each piece plays and the interrelationship between those critical pieces. Getting stuck playing word games does NOT advance our CHESS SKILL!
Talk about missing the mountain because of being focused on the mole hill!
Sadly, we all do it, one way or another.
PoPLoAFun is in fact terra incognita in chess. It plays a role in every move, except for the first moves maybe. And we were struggling with transfer! Every piece has its own character of LoA. The Queen combines the bishop and the rook. A PoP is a pivotal point where the direction of the LoA alters.
ReplyDeleteThe tree of scenarios is the battle for the lines of attack and the points of pressure.
If we are able to categorize the battle for the lines of attack, we might make considerable progress. And the beauty is, it all can be SEEN once you know what to look for. We'll SEE!
When I first started studying GM Averbakh’s concept of contacts (courtesy of Momir Radovic’s blog and articles, and much later, GM Averbakh’s book Chess Tactics for Advanced Players), I thought that it was the conceptual foundation that I had been missing. I rapidly understood that it was too low-level to be useful over-the-board. On the other hand, in Dr. Lasker’s Lasker’s Manual of Chess, MOTIFS seemed to be too high-level; there was no means to teach us how to SEE. Unfortunately, the usual tactical THEMES/DEVICES and checkmate patterns are primarily descriptive, without any connections to put them together.
ReplyDeletePoPLoAFun fills the gap right in the middle of the ‘Goldilocks zone’, providing the conceptual bridge from low-level moves to high level strategy! For the first time, I can really understand and appreciate how tactics can be subordinated to and supportive of strategy!
I feel like the proverbial blind man who has just been given sight!
Thank you!
So if Loa comes first are we talking LoaPopFun ?;)
ReplyDeleteYes, you are quite right. I already thought about that. In fact, I didn't use the PoPLoAFun method hardly anymore in practice. The reason for that was that is was mainly a system 2 exercise. But with this new approach based on Tai Chi and SEEing, the method emerged all by itself again, due to observation.
DeleteAnd indeed, the order changed, starting with seeing the LoA\s first, then then PoPs and then the fun. The reason I don't change the name, is that we are relatively used to it, and that it is a work in progress.
For the tournament preparation, I changed from openings preparation with the Sniper and the Dzindzi Indian to the Jobava, Leningrad and accelerated dragon to endgame study to mates to basic tactics to advanced tactics to PoPLoAFun. Just due to observation of what happened during my games and my study. There were moments that FunLoaPop would have been the right name to coin.
Since I don't know what new insights tomorrow will bring, I propose that we keep PoPLoAFun as the name to use. I suppose this blog is already hard to follow as it is if you haven't followed it from the beginning.
For me it is an exciting journey, but I can't blame readers when they have to suppress a yawn every now and then.
Some day I will end up with color complexes or something like that, I presume.
DeleteRobert if you would like to find an interesting contrarian view on calculation vs seeing check out Willy H book Move First .Think Later
ReplyDeleteThanks for the recommendation - I always love contrarian viewpoints!
DeleteGrandmaster Jesse Kraai reviews the book Chess Tactics from Scratch and discusses what makes a good problem.. https://youtu.be/IVB_IDry2mA
ReplyDelete