Having played a recent tournament it became clear that the way I think was consistently the cause of errors during the game. It’s tempting to think that studying tactics, openings and endings is the cure all….but I don’t believe it is.
A fascinating and undoubtedly important subject for adults who have developed bad habits of thinking.
In fact, the checklist should be as simple as possible, differing according to whether it is the opening, the endgame or the final. In the case of a tactical move, the process remains the same. This checklist will differ from player to player.
Training blitzes will help to quickly work out the usual flaws, and combining this with a method of spaced repetition will make the whole thing a bit more complicated, but will also make it more interesting. You could also take inspiration from the bold/unbold method developed on Chessmood. Work of Dan Hesiman's explanations of the thinking process in his ‘Guide for chess imrovement’, as well as Mr Soltis's "Check-list of Grand-Masters.
I believe I also suggested use of a checklist in a comment on an earlier post. At that time, I requested that someone confirm my understanding that printing out a checklist to put beside the computer would be a form of cheating. I don't think anyone responded at that time, so I took it that my assumption was correct and I always put away anything connected to chess before I play a game online against a human.
The fact that a chess master is suggesting using a list makes me question my assumption. But I'm wondering exactly what the rules are. If we're allowed a checklist, does that also mean we can have an opening book beside the computer? Surely not, but where is the dividing line?
The rules on Chess.com forbid "Books, Opening Databases, or Any Outside Help". I suppose a checklist might fall under "outside help" but I don't think many people would object to this. I probably wouldn't use it during an event with prizes, but for an ordinary online game I don't think it's a big deal.
Thanks for your response. I hadn't looked at the Chess.com rules for a long time, and realized that I had remembered my interpretation of them but not the actual words. Looking around a bit, on a page called What do I need to know about Fair Play on Chess.com?, it has a table called Common Mistakes. It's a pop-up without a precise URL that I was able to find, but I got there via https://www.chess.com/?help=show
One of the items is Using your own personal notes in Live. The explanation includes the sentence: "A good rule for live chess is to use only your own brain."
That suggests to me that "outside" means outside one's own brain. Otherwise, I could write my own opening book and use that, claiming that, because I wrote it myself, it wasn't outside help.
I did not find how to quote excerpts to point back at it. So about the analogy with economical system wisdom or proverb, from when there were actually others to consider that did not work.
what others? is my reply. It might have been another capitalism strain that was being compared with some defunct alternative (and I mean gone, no more. red color does not do the economical system).
I am not sure all the schools of thoughts and nuances and goals of such economic systems have been conserved through economic disciplines, with its proximity to actual economic forces that might have preferences, we might have observed a shift in the past century, that might not fit in the quote. The comparison was based on a basic undefined concept, or past possible ones, of capitalism and the "others". And now we are stuck with one school of thought that has been dominating without being explicitly dissected as such, as I propose the mechanism of the possible science being coapted or co-opted or both by the very actors that might favor that latest strain. I would say, it might have taken root in the 1980s. And exponentially been accelerated worldwide and fractal-ly in all our socio-economical tissues. But with the exponential explosion of inequalities that the system has always been known to contain or bring about, and that needed constant revisions. Since economy is not an empirical-theory wheel of science, more of a humanities or social scince, which requires the presence of co-existing shool of thougts not the manipulation of one strain into dogma. All those within capitalism. The quote needs updating.
Sorry for the off-topicism. I just thought it would be appropriate given the times. and we are not just talking about chess. But i understand the secondary aspect of using that quote, not to throw babies out the windows (bathwater stuff). I hope I did not break anything.
I suggest this be done during the portion of human chess activity called study. As time controls and such de-incarnated possibly deep protocols, might not mix well. And I don't do well. I think it is best to do what you suggest, but through self-introspection, that it be part of teh learning, and sure be exposed to each items in those checklist and more importantly the reasoning or argument behind be part of the helpful communication intent, not recipes to follow. Also during study chess, not time controlled chess, well not while adding other chess challenges such as better player notch on the otherside, or new chess opening territory with actual changes in board information and ideas to discover. and win later.
ok now that's out of the way as reactions from self centered experience with such external knowledge-based proposition. I can agree from my learner expertise from the patzer end of this question, (:), that the goal of watching own thoughts might be where I agree. And these types of methods don't need to be complete or exhaustive, for those that can deal with such imposed sequential processes while looking at the rich information of the board and being in the chess bubble of its imaginable mechanical possible futures (adapt to learner level, of course, what imagination X evolving chess vision can be). It might very well be that it is just the self-checking that is useful. We might never know though.
And now I can read the development. This kind of thing does need to be addressed as it is or was dominating in the main implicit theory of learning if one is to view written literature as representing the community main culture regarding learning, or maybe improving.
The tweet was from my friend Kabir Bubna (@KabirBubna) he's doing a PhD on skill acquisition and well worth a follow :)
Thanks, good catch!
Having played a recent tournament it became clear that the way I think was consistently the cause of errors during the game. It’s tempting to think that studying tactics, openings and endings is the cure all….but I don’t believe it is.
Yes, I think sometimes we need to work on thought process explicitly.
A fascinating and undoubtedly important subject for adults who have developed bad habits of thinking.
In fact, the checklist should be as simple as possible, differing according to whether it is the opening, the endgame or the final. In the case of a tactical move, the process remains the same. This checklist will differ from player to player.
Training blitzes will help to quickly work out the usual flaws, and combining this with a method of spaced repetition will make the whole thing a bit more complicated, but will also make it more interesting. You could also take inspiration from the bold/unbold method developed on Chessmood. Work of Dan Hesiman's explanations of the thinking process in his ‘Guide for chess imrovement’, as well as Mr Soltis's "Check-list of Grand-Masters.
In short, there's a lot of work to be done !
What is the bold/unbold method?
The bold-unbold technique: no more forgetting what you learn; on chessmood.
I believe I also suggested use of a checklist in a comment on an earlier post. At that time, I requested that someone confirm my understanding that printing out a checklist to put beside the computer would be a form of cheating. I don't think anyone responded at that time, so I took it that my assumption was correct and I always put away anything connected to chess before I play a game online against a human.
The fact that a chess master is suggesting using a list makes me question my assumption. But I'm wondering exactly what the rules are. If we're allowed a checklist, does that also mean we can have an opening book beside the computer? Surely not, but where is the dividing line?
The rules on Chess.com forbid "Books, Opening Databases, or Any Outside Help". I suppose a checklist might fall under "outside help" but I don't think many people would object to this. I probably wouldn't use it during an event with prizes, but for an ordinary online game I don't think it's a big deal.
Thanks for your response. I hadn't looked at the Chess.com rules for a long time, and realized that I had remembered my interpretation of them but not the actual words. Looking around a bit, on a page called What do I need to know about Fair Play on Chess.com?, it has a table called Common Mistakes. It's a pop-up without a precise URL that I was able to find, but I got there via https://www.chess.com/?help=show
One of the items is Using your own personal notes in Live. The explanation includes the sentence: "A good rule for live chess is to use only your own brain."
That suggests to me that "outside" means outside one's own brain. Otherwise, I could write my own opening book and use that, claiming that, because I wrote it myself, it wasn't outside help.
I did not find how to quote excerpts to point back at it. So about the analogy with economical system wisdom or proverb, from when there were actually others to consider that did not work.
what others? is my reply. It might have been another capitalism strain that was being compared with some defunct alternative (and I mean gone, no more. red color does not do the economical system).
I am not sure all the schools of thoughts and nuances and goals of such economic systems have been conserved through economic disciplines, with its proximity to actual economic forces that might have preferences, we might have observed a shift in the past century, that might not fit in the quote. The comparison was based on a basic undefined concept, or past possible ones, of capitalism and the "others". And now we are stuck with one school of thought that has been dominating without being explicitly dissected as such, as I propose the mechanism of the possible science being coapted or co-opted or both by the very actors that might favor that latest strain. I would say, it might have taken root in the 1980s. And exponentially been accelerated worldwide and fractal-ly in all our socio-economical tissues. But with the exponential explosion of inequalities that the system has always been known to contain or bring about, and that needed constant revisions. Since economy is not an empirical-theory wheel of science, more of a humanities or social scince, which requires the presence of co-existing shool of thougts not the manipulation of one strain into dogma. All those within capitalism. The quote needs updating.
Sorry for the off-topicism. I just thought it would be appropriate given the times. and we are not just talking about chess. But i understand the secondary aspect of using that quote, not to throw babies out the windows (bathwater stuff). I hope I did not break anything.
I suggest this be done during the portion of human chess activity called study. As time controls and such de-incarnated possibly deep protocols, might not mix well. And I don't do well. I think it is best to do what you suggest, but through self-introspection, that it be part of teh learning, and sure be exposed to each items in those checklist and more importantly the reasoning or argument behind be part of the helpful communication intent, not recipes to follow. Also during study chess, not time controlled chess, well not while adding other chess challenges such as better player notch on the otherside, or new chess opening territory with actual changes in board information and ideas to discover. and win later.
ok now that's out of the way as reactions from self centered experience with such external knowledge-based proposition. I can agree from my learner expertise from the patzer end of this question, (:), that the goal of watching own thoughts might be where I agree. And these types of methods don't need to be complete or exhaustive, for those that can deal with such imposed sequential processes while looking at the rich information of the board and being in the chess bubble of its imaginable mechanical possible futures (adapt to learner level, of course, what imagination X evolving chess vision can be). It might very well be that it is just the self-checking that is useful. We might never know though.
And now I can read the development. This kind of thing does need to be addressed as it is or was dominating in the main implicit theory of learning if one is to view written literature as representing the community main culture regarding learning, or maybe improving.