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Subject: On calculating: writing one's analysis

Author: Albert Silver

Date: 06:53:40 07/24/04

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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



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