The Chess Mind

One of the best and most enjoyable ways to work on one's tactics is by solving endgame studies, for at least three reasons. First and most obviously, we're using our mental muscles. Second, it helps develop our fantasy - our imagination. Sometimes tactics work in a stock way, as if taken from the pages of our basic exercise books, but not usually. (After all, our opponents know those books, too.) Third, it gets us into the habit of looking for our opponent's resources, as just about every study worth its salt will have at least one misleading try.

With this encouragement, have a look at this position:


Wotawa 1960; White to move and win

The solution will be given in a few days. A reminder: please don't comment proposed solutions. (I've blocked them from this post, but please don't leave them somewhere else.)

A couple of days ago, I came across this position from the puzzle section of Chess Today:

It's Black to move in the game Marzolo-Arencibia, Calvia Open 2007. What should he play? Please try to figure it out before proceeding.

My initial ruminations can be found here, but I'd like to add to those comments. A distinction was made between simple problems (used for drilling) and more complicated problems, and the question asked which sort a player should focus on.

I answered that one should work on both: the complicated ones have their value, but it's good to take a refresher every so often on the simpler ones as well. As it turns out, though, I didn't offer a rationale for working on the complicated problems, so let me rectify that here.

Success in a chess tournament is at least in part a function of two components: one's knowledge and one's ability to perform. The first is relatively static: one either knows the theory of a particular opening variation or endgame or one doesn't, and one either knows certain fundamental tactical ideas or one does not. The second component is more dynamic: it's the ability to solve problems at the board. That ability has many sub-components: imagination, visualization skills, mental flexibility, the ability to calculate quickly and accurately, psychological strength, endurance and so on. There's no single training exercise that will develop all those virtues, but solving tough problems will help with most of them. The closer to a game situation one makes the exercise(s), the better it will be for developing the relevant skill.

So what we have, then, is not a competition between two approaches. Rather, it's complementary: reviewing/drilling simple tactics is done for the sake of building and refreshing our knowledge base, and deeper exercises are done primarily to foster our practical abilities.

NQ, who may identify himself further if he wishes public acknowledgement for his useful question, wrote the following:

Hey Dennis!

First off, I really enjoy reading your blog and going over your analysis. I know that quite a few people look up to you, so I was thinking that at some point you may like to comment on an aspect of chess training that's relevant to most of your readership (i.e.: "improving" players) , namely the type of tactical training that we should do in order to improve our game.

I know, it's a groan-worthy topic, beaten to death, etc. The thing is, while I was able to find a lot of agreement on certain points (practice regularly, don't move the pieces, etc.) , there seems to be two opposing camps. One says that you should do difficult, or at least mixed problems. The other focuses on simple problems that, by drilling them repeatedly, become embedded into our gray matter. Is there a school of thought that you favor?

In any event, thanks a lot for keeping up such a fun and high-quality site.

NQ

First, thanks for the kind words. Now to your question: should we study difficult or at least mixed problems, or should we focus on drilling on simple problems? My answer, of course, is yes. (We should do both!)

But let me give a more specific and, I hope, helpful answer. For younger/less experienced players, those simple problems are also difficult,so they get a 2-for-1 special. Once the typical Reinfeld-level puzzle book has been mastered, it's time to move on to something more challenging. At that point, I think one should work on puzzles that are more challenging, but I also think it's good to engage in a refresher every so often. It's great to find subtle 11 move combinations, but it's less great if you're also missing basic tactics.

In sum: step 1: achieve competence with basic patterns (pins, forks, skewers, discovered and double attacks, common mating patterns, etc.). Step 2: branch out into more complicated tactics, but review basic themes (though not necessarily in basic books) every so often to keep those patterns fresh in your mind.

I'll give an approximate and non-technical explanation of why I think this is important. In my view elementary tactics aren't consciously found by us, but are delivered by our unconscious thought processes. We don't find them (I'd be shocked to learn of any player over 1600 (or, to be honest, any non-beginner at all) who explicitly looks for forks, then pins, then skewers, then x-ray attacks, etc.); rather, we find ourselves noticing them, or at least that it's a position where the idea "feels" present. Think about this common phenomenon: we usually drive down the street completely oblivious to the make and model of other cars, but there are exceptions. For example, if we've just bought a new car, we will in that case very easily notice other cars of the same type - and without actively looking for them. In some way, we've made that that sort of pattern - the pattern exemplified by that style of car - important to us, and because our minds have devoted so much attention to it, we notice that pattern all over the place. Tactics and other chess ideas work the same way, but as our attentiveness to a particular idea can fade over time, the occasional review is good.