Temposchlucker

 We found three levels of observation: Swamp Hummock Eagle Swamp The swamp observation is guided by trial and error and candidate moves. It highly depends on coincidence and the complexity of the position. The best thing you can do is to swim to the closest hummock. Hummock Hummocks are ideas. You will find an explanation of what ideas are in the previous post. No matter where you are in the swamp, you start with the first hummock. Essentially you can work in two directions from your hummock: towards the beginning and towards the end. The power of it is that it prunes most other possibilities while you are thinking. It surpasses trial and error when the complexity increases. In an ideal world, you develop a sense for starting at the right hummock at the beginning of a sequence. Eagle The eagle gives you things like: Piece awareness Pawn structure awareness Color complex awareness Endgame transition awareness It guides the overall strategy during the game, but it fails in the detail...

Preface  Long ago, I don't remember quite when, I posted about a position where it took me 5 minutes before I shifted my attention from the target to the defender. I worked by trial and error back then. Nowadays, looking at the defender has become second nature. So I made definitely progress. The following phase, is to dynamically shift my attention along the line of logic. How does that look like? Black to move 1k5r/1b1r1p1p/p3p2B/2b1P1p1/4q3/1RRN1Q2/P4PPP/6K1 b - - 0 1 Firat, B. vs. Kinsiz, O. Step 1 Target: Qe1# Defender: Nd3 Step 2 Target: Nd3 (the defender from the previous step!) Defenders: Qf3, Rc3 Step 3 Evaluation of 1. ... Rxd3 2.Qxd3 Target: g2 Defender: none (Qf3=pinned!) Step 4 Evaluation of 1. ... Rxd3 2.Rxd3 Target: Qe1# Defenders:none Looking for counter attacks Step 5a Counter attack 1 1. ... Rxd3 2.Qxe4 Target: Rd1# Defenders: none relevant Step 5b Counter attack 2 1. ... Rxd3 2.Rxb7+ Targets: g2 is no longer threatened =>Qf3 is not longer pinned , Rd1# is post...

The last tournament I identified three areas where I suck: Openings (150) Endgame (150) Vukovic gap (250-500) Estimated maximum rating gain between parenthesis. Openings This weekend, I analysed my failures in the opening of the past 1.5 year. I worked out the necessary improvements and put them in a database with the Chess Openings Wizard (COW, former Bookup), so I can train them. Endgame Endgames are currently on the backburner. Vukovic gap I approach the kingside assault from two (three) sides, the beginning and the end. Positional play (beginning) Mates (end) Endgame transitions (end) It turns out that with building a positional framework, I opened a can of worms. Currently I have tens of XMind maps, and try to make something consistent out of them. It doesn't come easy. While working on color complexes, I stumbled on another endpoint: endgame transitions. I cannot predict where matters are heading. In July, I have my next tournament. At least I will have fixed my openings by t...

 I finished the autobiography "Rebel Queen" of Susan Polgar lately. The Polgar experiment always has been my main inspiration for my quest of getting better at chess as a plateauing adult player. I never had the inclination to learn more about the Polgar experiment, because I figured that it wouldn't work for adults anyway. Because if it had, I'm sure somebody would know it. So far, I had extracted two conclusions from the Polgar experiment: Any child can be a prodigy with the right education Being good at chess is like learning a "trick", since a child can do it The proof of the latter I considered to be true because of Susan Polgar, who gave a simul of 1131 games in 17 hours with a score of 99%. Meaning that she had used about 2.5 seconds per move at average. Given that she had to walk from board to board in the meantime, that would imply that there is no thinking involved. Since there was simply not enough time for thinking (system 2). Reading the book to...

 How do I find my way in the Vukovic gap (the moves between the middlegame and the forced mate)? It turns out that there are a few things that are pretty constant: the LoA landscape (lines of attack). This is a position from the same game as in the previous post. The LoA landscape The diagonals form a pretty constant factor. If the black king is going to be assaulted, than these blue diagonals will probably play a role. Somewhere between move 10 and 30. The same applies for the knights. There are a few squares on the kingside that are more likely to play a role than others. And when a rook or queen appears on h3, it is probably going to be dangerous. Defenders that are cut off from the kingside The black pieces like the Q, N, B and R will need a lot of time to assist in defending the king. Counter attack Black might cause trouble by attacking the white c and d pawn. If white can support these pawns long enough, he might delay the black counter attack sufficient to press his own age...

Yesterday, I saw two IM's commenting on a game between two grandmasters. It was about the middlegame. Both commenters approached the position with the positional rules they had learned in their youth. And everytime they proposed a variant, the evaluation bar of the chess engine didn't approve. (I wonder how long commenters will show an evaluation bar in the future) I wanted to investigate the Vukovic gap from two sides, the beginning and the end. The middlegame and the mate. I wanted to examine the middlegame with the aid of the positional rules that I learn from the Woodpecker method 2 positional play  . But seeing the two floundering IM's, I realized that matters are not that simple. Hence I'm trying a different approach. I got an account on DecodeChess  (DC). DC gives an explanation of a game with the aid of AI in plain English. I investigated a game between  Martin Olesen vs Walter M Buehl (1992)  Rating 2305 vs 2037. 1 blunder vs 5. Since I recognized none of th...

 The opening can be seen as a tree with many branches. But as long as you don't know what kind of middlegame you want to play, you are essentially clueless in the opening. So you just must first decide on which middlegame you want to play. The middlegame is a tree with many branches, which leads to many types of endgame play. At club level about 50% of the games end by a forced mate and 50% by an endgame. That are two main branches with a lot of smaller branches and twigs. When you start with the middlegame tree, you are essentially clueless when you don't know in which direction you want to go. So we let us guide by preference, taste, what we are good at and chance. That is a feeble base. Essentially we have no idea what we are doing. How can you develop a preference or can you become good at something when you have no idea what you are doing? Between the middlegame and the endgame, we have the "Capablanca gap". Capablanca said about it: "In order to improve you...

 So far, the following plans emerge:  Flank attack keep the center closed clear pivot point pawn storm sac a piece exchange defenders Preconditions: ahead in development keep your king save Restraint block mobile pawn take squares away prevent enemy outpost Pawn structure prevent damage repair damage (solve isolani or backward pawn) inflict damage (enemy). Especially as side effect of a beneficial trade prevent reparation (enemy) Bishop pair get it. But not at any cost keep it. But not at any cost open the position attack on the squares of the missing bishop put your pawns on the other color