Author: Albert Silver
Date: 06:53:40 07/24/04
Go up one level in this thread
On July 24, 2004 at 09:22:28, Robert Pawlak wrote: >Albert, > >I found this statement to be the most interesting: > >"When performing the tests, the players calculated and manually recorded >variations for all the candidate moves. Thus the entire process of calculation >was recorded. This helped me greatly in my later work with these pupils." > >Based on personal experience, I think that this step is one of the most >important in terms of improving calculation ability. > >Bob I actually used to do this when I was actively pursuing the game. The number of high ranked (2200+) players I gunned down via tactics or more efficient calculating was not insignficant. I didn't have anyone guiding my steps, but I wanted to try and spend 20 minutes just calculating a complex position and see how well I was doing. After spending a lot of time, and having reached a conclusion of sorts, I would then write down my choices and everything I had seen, plus any reasons I had supporting or rejecting a move. The idea was to understand as much as possible, make a choice, and know why I had rejected another move, even if this was summed up by something like 'gives the opponent too much counterplay' or whatnot. It was quite revealing the number of holes in one's vison that came up, just replaying the moves on a board without the use of an engine. I'd then recheck with an engine, though this was in the mid to late 90s. The writing down of the variations and moves can probably be broken down into two stages to improve one's vision: 1) You write down the moves *while* you are calculating. This removes most of the effort to remember what one has calculated (not all memory effort is removed because you still have to remember how the position looked in your mind), and will help you organize your thoughts to learn to structure your analytical tree. 2) You write down your moves/analysis *after* you have finished calculating (be honest in not adding moves you suddenly see while writing), showing the full process of calculating and reasoning for further scrutiny. I never did 1) and only 2), but since my game is rusty as hell, I will no doubt use it to help get it out of the rut. I have some absolutely *great* books of self-study positions for this purpose, "Modern Chess Self-Instructor" by Viktor Pozharsky. For anyone interested, be warned they are *tough* (for 2100+ IMO), but quite cheap: $35 for 3 volumes (http://store.convekta.com/shop_model.asp?gid=146&sView=Catalog). Albert
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.