Originally posted by Mephisto2
1. all comprehensive IQ tests have some elements of time in it. Not all tasks, because for some of them, time is irrelevant (e.g. detecting subtle differences in assertions). But processing speed is an essential element of intelligence.
2.no player without a far higher than average memory can reach the top. A non-monster player like Boris Spassky can st ...[text shortened]...
You might think that I am not in total agreement with your assessment. You are right 😉
I'm not gonna touch the IQ religion any further, it's just time wasted. and anyway memory is a much more interesting subject.
I'm sure you can easily reconstruct slow games you played 2 weeks ago. probably any (personally) important game over the years. unless there's something like 10 uncritical moves shuffled in huge time trouble or something. you must remember your stem games by now, together with a great many relevant games. there are not that many candidates at any single point, and you probably know even without looking which
kind of move you tend to choose at such positions. then you add the memory imprint of intensively focusing for minutes on every single one of those relatively few options.
for example, there's not much of a chance I'll forget the dragon I recently resigned against gatecrasher, ever. even though most of the moves were played months ago. because it's the opening I've worked the most on, and because I made a stupid mistake between mixing Kb1 lines with Kc1 lines. the richter-rauzer against backfrom1994 I might forget, because I haven't played nor worked on its theory like on dragon. so far I remember it far too lively though, but I expect that to mostly fade away in time.
I understand you've been playing for something like decades, right? so you must have built up a huge database of games relevant to your specific openings by now. adding a new game you play shouldn't be much of a problem, unless you're trying something completely new.
muscle memory in a nut shell means 'skill'. it's the reason why a right-handed person can throw a ball with his right hand, but completely screws it up with his left. all the information needed to move all your hundreds of bones and joints by contracting hundreds of muscles
just the right amount, is stored into youyr brain as a 'motion model' or pattern, which can be executed instantly. conscious thinking is Slow and Restricted, it can handle only 4-7 items at a time, which doesn't even cover your own pieces let alone everything that's happening on the board. so we train things until they go to into 'muscle memory', and can be executed when needed. like mating with queen against a rook.
in fact KQkr mate is a perfect example. consciously thinking it through is extremely difficult AND slow, where as after training it thousands of times it can be blitzed almost without thinking. the 'hand' knows where to go, and your rational mind drags behind thinking 'mmm, right, that DOES look okay indeed, and sort of feels familiar'. you don't calculate anything, you just move your hand until BLINK a light goes off and you see the rook drops or one of the basic forced mates appear. at which point you realize your hand has already taken the rook, without waiting for your conscious mind's okay.
every blitz game goes like that as well, especially in the opening and ending. when it doesn't, you lose on time if you insist on thinking the positions through at any level except the most superficial one. there's just no time for conscious thinking, it's a luxury that guides the trained technique stored into muscle memory, which is the real work horse under the hood.
13 Mar '10 17:06
Am I too old to get good at chess?
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