quoting one article on the subject
"Adrian de Groot, a psychologist in the 1960's became very interested in the use of chess as an educational tool. He began studying the thinking behavior of chess players in Russia. In particular he observed that there was a significant difference approach between those who highly skilled and experienced in chess to those who were new to the game. Initially de Groot assumed that the Grandmaster's superiority lay in their ability to organize well and to memorize concrete lines of play. What de Groot found was quite different: Grandmasters did not rely on superior memory skills. Grandmasters were not any better at recalling randomly placed pieces than novice chess players were. The Grandmaster however was able to take actual chess positions and in an astonishing 5 seconds recognize a complex chess configuration and decide on a successful move. How were the GM's able to give accurate, well thought out evaluations in so little time? It seemed that GM's (but not novices) were able to recognize familiar configurations, and associating them with appropriate moves and plans.
Recent research in the late seventies and early eighties in the US has confirmed these findings. Researchers concluded that meaningful knowledge is stored in memory in the form of networks and patterns, and these patterns provide the roots essential for recall. Thus the expert and GM players were able to remember and recognize chunks of information. In chess these chunks are visual representations in which particular configurations are recognized. These relate to and often cue prior successful responses or pattern responses. What is an involved long sequence of decision making of information for novices, is processed by experts in "one go". It seems that other experts such as dancers, athletes and musicians operate mentally in much the same way. Responses are efficient and fast as understanding and experience are recognized and recalled in the essential structure of the activity. It seems that chess players develop complex but efficient structures for memory storage and management."
if you have ever analyzed a position with GM then you should know what I am talking about. How often do they actual pause to calculate.. or is it just a streaming discussion of possibilities and then the occasional "oh wait, that doesnt work"
Originally posted by nimzo5That quote isn't relevant at all. And to be honest, I think you don't know what you are talking about. Obviously GMs do calculate for every move, and they do it "more" (whatever that means) and much deeper than the 1900-2200 range players you have mentioned.
quoting one article on the subject
(...)
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if you have ever analyzed a position with GM then you should know what I am talking about. How often do they actual pause to calculate.. or is it just a streaming discussion of possibilities and then the occasional "oh wait, that doesnt work"
Originally posted by philidor positionHow much "thinking energy" do you think Kramnik will need to spend on beating you?
That quote isn't relevant at all. And to be honest, I think you don't know what you are talking about. Obviously GMs do calculate for every move, and they do it "more" (whatever that means) and much deeper than the 1900-2200 range players you have mentioned.
Originally posted by philidor positionthe quote is entirely relevant to thread.
That quote isn't relevant at all. And to be honest, I think you don't know what you are talking about. Obviously GMs do calculate for every move, and they do it "more" (whatever that means) and much deeper than the 1900-2200 range players you have mentioned.
From what little I can get from your posts, you seem to be debating semantics without following what Varenka was talking about. It's hard to tell since your main point is that it is obvious that GM's calculate which has nothing to do with the discussion.
Originally posted by philidor positionI did some training with GM Kiriakov. At one point, I set up a hardest difficulty level puzzle from Anatoly Lein's book. I spent about 20min working through the problem trying to find the right combination. Kiriakov walks up, looks at it, knows the answer within 5 sec.
And GMs don't do that?
I asked him if he really calculated it that fast, he said no, he listed off three pieces of information about the position and said that moves xyz had to be the answer.
Acc. to De Groot and other studies this is not calculation and uses a different part of the brain.
Originally posted by nimzo5Yes, many problems can be solved in exactly this way, there are always some telltale signs in a position that give away the solution move(s) without any need of looking checking out everything
I asked him if he really calculated it that fast, he said no, he listed off three pieces of information about the position and said that moves xyz had to be the answer.
Originally posted by nimzo5Excuse me but how is this not relevant?
It's hard to tell since your main point is that it is obvious that GM's calculate which has nothing to do with the discussion.
"Interestingly, there have been studies that show stronger players do less calculation (see De Groot etc on this) in fact it is players around 1900-2200 who do the most calculation during a game of chess."
"Of course a gm should be able to calculate much deeper- but I think the study (and there have been several) that a gm calculates far less frequently (not depth of calculation) during a game than does an IM etc on down. At around the expert level (2000 fide) they found that a player is calculating on nearly every move. This goes down as the rating goes up."
These are your quotes.
And I said, in response to these, that GMs do calculate on every move, and they calculate incomparably more than non-master players.
and I was talking about in-game situations, not some CTS type of blitz solving.
Originally posted by heinzkatHe doesn't have to spend much energy. He doesn't have to calculate much against me because I am rubbish at chess and he can beat me blitzing blindfolded. Yet, Kramnik still calculates more than I do.
How much "thinking energy" do you think Kramnik will need to spend on beating you?
I wonder if you have ever watched him analyze his own game in a press conference right after playing it, without having consulted engines. I can't believe I'm discussing this right now. Kramnik calculates more than me and you heinzkat, and on a good day, if he is sharp and well prepared, I believe he can calculate even more than nimzo5.
let me summarize my point. It's not true that the stronger you get, the less you calculate.
I don't deny the existence of pattern recognition, GMs have much more of that, and that allows them to evaluate positions much more quickly. That is what makes their blitz games still very high level games. But during a STC game, they go very deep anyway, calculating huge chunks of variations. (They do that in rapid games too.)
Just watch a few live games on this corus tournament, you'll notice they spend a good amount of time even for obvious recaptures and stuff, and watch a press conference, you'll see how much they calculate, and that will be only what they share in the conference.
One thing to bear in mind is the amount of preparation a grand master does with his games - the most elite ones will have their openings memorised 20+ moves deep into the game and are ready to pounce on the slightest inaccurate deviation by their opponent to create a position where they have a big advantage and a good chance of winning. This also depends on the opening you use, in some very sharp lines there tend to be only a narrow choice of moves to consider and people rarely enter into such positions without good theory. A more positional game can take extra calculation to find the most accurate move - as there will be a much greater choice of sensible looking ones - but also the chances are good that the white players will have good control of the position and it will rarely stray far from other games which they have already seen and can recycle their ideas and analysis from previous attempts.
This said, however, if you ever go to a fide rated event - it tends to be the opponents who are most evenly matched who will go on the longest, rather then those where there is a big rating gap and the weaker player tends to be overpowered.
Although, I notice in the 4ncl that if the masters are playing an opponent who is weaker then themselves and the position is relatively level they will almost never accept a draw and are quite prepared to grind out games for upwards of 6 hours in order to try and generate winning chances - especially the more positional ones where a small advantage can take a long time to turn into a full point.
Originally posted by philidor positionthe discussion was on visualization- chunking specifically.
Excuse me but how is this not relevant?
"Interestingly, there have been studies that show stronger players do less calculation (see De Groot etc on this) in fact it is players around 1900-2200 who do the most calculation during a game of chess."
"Of course a gm should be able to calculate much deeper- but I think the study (and there have bee ...[text shortened]... players.
and I was talking about in-game situations, not some CTS type of blitz solving.
If you don't understand that when faced with a decision the amateur has to do more frontal lobe thinking than a master does- go read up on it and then post. It's hardly a contentious argument.
Check out the Nakamura video on his win vs. Van Wely three days ago. Many of his explanations are based on intuition - if he feels there's nothing, there really is nothing even if you check out all the possible moves. If there is something, alarm bells are ringing everywhere. Sub-1800s are too weak and ignorant to do the calculations, sub-2200s are extremely gullible, so they do all the calculations, 2200+ can normally just rely on their instincts (based on a sense of mastery) to handle such situations.
That's about the explanation I come up with, combined with nimzo's quotes 😉
Originally posted by heinzkatOK, we have reached a point where we clearly differ. That's always a nice point to reach in discussions. I think the opposite of the above. I don't think they rely on instincts at all, and dive into deep calculations. Instincts play a role on which route to take, but they do build the route first.
Check out the Nakamura video on his win vs. Van Wely three days ago. Many of his explanations are based on intuition - if he feels there's nothing, there really is nothing even if you check out all the possible moves. If there is something, alarm bells are ringing everywhere. Sub-1800s are too weak and ignorant to do the calculations, sub-2200s are e ...[text shortened]... h situations.
That's about the explanation I come up with, combined with nimzo's quotes 😉