we learn chess subliminally

Originally posted by Talisman
Enlighten me Wormwoood. When you say drill are you simply referring to going over tactics puzzles de la maza style or something else?

I believe everything you wish to learn properly at chess, needs to be drilled until it becomes second nature to you. that goes for tactics, endgames, openings and calculation alike. anything technical (in any discipline, not just chess). conscious thinking is too slow and error prone.

drill everything until you can't get it wrong. and even then revisit it at times to make sure you still got it.

Originally posted by Proper Knob
This thread reminds me of the famous Thomas Edison quote -

'Genius is 1% genius and 99% perspiration'.

no if that was true then you would not have my 15 rating points that you just took! i shake my fist to the air, is there no justice i cry! wah! wah!

Originally posted by wormwood
I believe everything you wish to learn properly at chess, needs to be drilled until it becomes second nature to you. that goes for tactics, endgames, openings and calculation alike. anything technical (in any discipline, not just chess). conscious thinking is too slow and error prone.

drill everything until you can't get it wrong. and even then revisit it at times to make sure you still got it.

this is the ultimate, being able to make decisions without thinking, based on pure
intuition and a built up chess muscle brimming with chess wisdom. Here is a rather
excellent example, X3D Fritz v Gary Kasparov, 2003 , black to play




Andrew Soltis writes :

Kasparov spots an idea, he can play 1...f4 followed by 2...g5 and ...g4 sending an
avalanche of pawns reigning down on whites king, But 1...f4 is a major decision. It
gives up the opportunity to open the f file (...fxe4) and therefore limits black to one
basic kingside plan. Thats risky! After 1...f4 the game would likely end in two ways,
either black delivers mate on the kingside - or he gets crushed on the
queenside.

At least one strong GM thought the pluses of ...g4 outweighed the minuses.
Kasparov rejected it immediately!

'without a light squared bishop such attacks never work', he explained after the
game. He felt he did not need to calculate variations. He knew without much
thought that 1...f4 would fail, an excellent example of using ones intuition.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
this is the ultimate, being able to make decisions without thinking, based on pure
intuition and a built up chess muscle brimming with chess wisdom. Here is a rather
excellent example, X3D Fritz v Gary Kasparov, 2003 , black to play


[fen]r3r1k1/1ppqn1b1/p2p1npp/3Ppp2/PPP1P3/5N2/1B1N1PPP/1R1QR1K1 b - - 0 1[/fen]

Andrew Soltis writes :

...[text shortened]... w without much
thought that 1...f4 would fail, an excellent example of using ones intuition.

Wouldn't that be an example of experience rather than intuition?

He knew it doesn't work without a light squared bishop because he's seen it fail so many times.

toet.

I see I got a mention about games you know and memory.

My party piece at one time in the late 70's was throwing someone a book on
opening traps, they would pick a number and I would tell them the trap opening.

We could then go though the opening and I would finish off the trap.
New Traps in the (Chess) Opening by Horowitz.

I was tested on this many times like a circus freak with a 99% success rate.
There is 170 of them. They are grouped in openings by alphabetical order so
it is quite easy. the Sicilians start at 127.

75 is the Norris Gambit (only one) I remember because I was pals with
Alan Norris during this time. We use to play chess till dawn in the club and
even meet up in our lunch breaks to play chess in a cafe. Completely chess daft.

People were stunned, this was the effect I wanted for some reason.
Good players just shook their heads.

(now I'm not even 100% sure I've got the title right. It does say Chess).

Afraid of a lot of what I knew is still up there rolling about but pulling it
down on like a tap is hard and often impossible.
Age and far too many drunken nights have taken their toll.

Somethimes a postion can download a whole host of stuff, other times I look
at game I know I seen before and something is telling me about it but
I cannot quite recall what. Frustrating.

Try it yourself.
Get a friend to look at your games and pick a random position.
Then get him to pick three other postions not from your games and you
have to spot which one came from your game.

Good Luck. I would not put money on me seeing one of my games.
(unless one side is losing very very badly).


Of all the games I've written about I've not yet written about the same
game with different notes and not recognised it.
But I'm sure that will happen one day.
It happened to Fred Reinfeld it will happen to me.

The patterns and ideas are still there (sometimes), good games I can usually
pull down. Though nowhere near as fast and instantly as I use to.

Some of the games I've seen on here I could never reproduce because some
of the moves are so illogical.

Think at one time I could do the Logical Chess thing but only with the KP openings.
(I only skipped through the 1.d4 games in that book getting to juicy bits).

He says something like one day a player grows up and learns how good 1.d4 is.
Think I said somewhere else I've tried hard not to grow up.
You cannot help getting good and then you grow up. (fight it) ;

-------------------------------

Dug up book.
New Traps in the CHESS Openings, Norris is no 75 and Sicilians do start at 127.

Tried some blind guesses and got 2 out of 4. Huh!

Originally posted by toeternitoe
Wouldn't that be an example of experience rather than intuition?

He knew it doesn't work without a light squared bishop because he's seen it fail so many times.

toet.

This brings up an interesting point. Is there a difference between use of memory and intuition? After all, what happens when you know something very well by repitition and have it memorized? Do you have to bring up the memory manually every time you use it? Of course not, or else finding the bathroom in the dark would result in multiple injuries every night. No, when you know something that well, you just do it. And isn't this automatic behavior what most people call "intuition"?

As cool as it sounds, I don't think it's that uncommon to be able to recall positions etc. I had this happen last night during my session with an IM. He had this position setup:




I am by no means a "strong" player but I could recall the players in the game, the move played and where you could find the game in "Think Like a Grandmaster". Of course despite all this, knowing Nd8 was played and lost by Flohr I couldnt find the best move in the position- 🙁

Part II

I'm not too sure about Fischer recalling all these games and page numbers
from Spassky's best games.

This is the sort stupid thing I did. Not him ,what would be the point?
I did to impress friends for a laugh, he played chesss and impressed the planet.

The man is surrounded by more myths than the Lewis pieces.

Fischer got the Spassky files from Bob Wade.
These were all Spassky games from 1955-1970 (from memory the exact years and
I have already pointed out how dodgy it is).

These were bound in loose leaf ring binders and it's is these that Bobby
would have dived into looking for holes.

Not much point in looking at there best games is there.
You want to study the grimy stuff the not so good games.

This gives you an idea of his amazing memory.
Well documented with source details.

http://www.howtoadvice.com/Chess/BobbyFischer

Capablanca.

As WW says loads of myths about this lad too.
Esepcially about him when he 4 years old and learning the game.

However, he was one gifted player, more so than other in history.

He did study the game but some of the stuff he played when he was young
had not been seen before so what was he studying?

Certainly not the openings as he often played placid safe variations,
his middlegame to endgame technique took over and he wrote the book on that.

His game as a 12 year old v Juan Corzo is incredible and according to
Chernev it only took him 42 minutes.

Capa is White.



I was reading some good stuff about Juan Corzo and his playing
strength on Winter's site.

http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/corzo.html

Originally posted by toeternitoe
Wouldn't that be an example of experience rather than intuition?

He knew it doesn't work without a light squared bishop because he's seen it fail so many times.

toet.

its an excellent point, although it seems to me that they are both factors which lend
themselves to what is termed, intuition, that is memory and experience. Here is
another rather excellent example, for Soltis writes:

Russian Konstantantin Sakaev, devoured a collection of Tigran Petrosians games. 'i
was very proud of it and told my mom, She decided to test me. So she opened
the book to a random page, and it was a moderately thick volume, and i had to tell
which game it was and how it proceeded. I had not intended to memorise it, but
somehow i knew it by heart.

This doesn't mean that it was important - or even useful - to know what Petrosian
played on move 27 against master so and so. Sakaev was absorbing ideas.



Petrosian - Smyslov, soviet championship, 1951, white to play

Here Petrosian played the stunning 1.d5! which makes sense when you appreciate
the possible outcomes. (1.exd5 e6!) etc

what Soltis writes is interesting for when young Sakaev saw a similar position, he
considered the move d5!, which was seemingly impossible,



Sakaev, Neverov , St Petersburg, 1995

Sakaev considered 1.d5 a la Petrosian, for he saw that 1...exd5 wins the queen, but
it struck him as quite playable thanks to his absorption of remarkable ideas

I thought that opening traps book had 175 instead of 170 traps.

Am I contracting amnesia?

Hi.

Forgot to add it does have 175, it had been a long while since
I had to recall them. I was typing the post on speck till I dug out the book.
Sicilian 127 and Norris 75 somehow stuck.
Talk about a headful of useless knowledge.

Re Fischer recalling a postion from someone's else's game after a few months.

A while back I met someone in Bells who played against me in a simul
I gave about 20/25 years earlier.
He reminded me of it and I said yes I recognise you,

"You should have captured back with your Bishop instead of a pawn."

"You can remember the game?" He was flabbergasted.

"Yes, a Two Knights, the lad next to you played a Sicilian and I mated him
in 10 moves."

The lad was astonished.

I went outside for a smoke and Ruxton told him I was only joking.
The lad laughed but he did confess he really did believe me.
That is how myths are born.