i need ex-lax for my constipated chess-brain
i play a game of chess and i lose. this is pretty much standard. when i go back to try and find out where i went wrong, i can’t see it. then someone points out “oh, if you just moved your bishop here you would have won” or something similar, and only then do i see it.
my chess-brain is constipated, locked up, can’t see ALL the moves possible. i will say to myself before a game “ok, this time, i will look at EVERY possible move, but then when i play, i freeze up, i can’t see any moves, so i make the wrong one.
there is only one ex-lax that i can think of to fix this:
i will set up a position on a chess board, then physically writing down EVERY MOVE EVERY PIECE CAN MAKE. i will do this over and over, with various chess positions taken from various games (not mine, master’s games). doing this, while tedious, will, i hope, train me into the habit of looking for every possible move, SEEING every possible move.
and i’m not even thinking about the consequences of the move, what the board will look like after the move, what the opponent can do. i just want to see all the options i have.
i have today off, i can do whatever the fuck i want to do today. i am currently in my pajamas as i write this. this evening, as i eat dinner, i will still be wearing the same thing i am wearing now. i’m not gonna waste my day off getting naked and wet and cold in a shower, no sir, that time will be spent studying chess and looking at porn on the internet.
um….the point is, i have all day to do this, so this is what i shall do today. i hope it works.
Blue Devil Knight said,
December 3, 2007 at 10:24 am
Hmmm, that seems insane. [Turn on Batman (Jim West version) voice, "Yes, Robin. So insane it just might work!"]
Have you tried the attack training module in Fritz? It’s not what you are talking about but it does make you click on every piece that could be captured, regardless of whether it would be a smart capture or not. I found it helpful.
Not seeing moves is a big problem. The thing is, you simply can’t consider every move. We have an uconscious prefilter based on our experience that determines what moves we’ll even consider reasonable. The GM intuition. They only consider one to five moves. Other moves don’t even get on their radar, their intuition is so good, their intuitive feel for the game they are in as it has developed.
So I think it often isn’t a matter of literally not seeing the moves, it’s a matter of filtering them out before they’re even considered. They are not even on your intuition radar. I am just starting to see my intuition radar changing. For instance, when I first started I would never even consider pawn moves after the opening…until the ending. It was some weird block I had. Now that I have developed a crappy intuition, I usually consider central pawn moves on every move because I understand how important they can be. My intuition chunk always wants to look at them.
And my intuition tends to get better and better with time. (Note: it still sucks hairy Ron Jeremy balls, but it is better than nothing). So playing and experience, with postmortems to really think about and imprint on my head “Why the fuck did I miss that move?” are key here I think.
I wonder if, instead of looking at every move, we could get a sense for moves we tend to overlook. E.g., I tend to keep my Knights on their home square too long (I don’t know if this is t rue actually but you know what I mean). One good way to build that is to go over master games with the cover and guess method. You could even write down TYPES of moves that you failed to consider (even if you guessed wrong, if you considered it that’s OK), and maybe get a sense.
Writing down every move just seems inefficient. “Yes, Robin, but so inefficient it just might work.”
Unless you were kidding about that. In which case I’m a jackass.
Blue Devil Knight said,
December 3, 2007 at 11:13 am
I should clarify one of the many unclear things I said:
“their intuitive feel for the game they are in as it has developed.”
I mean the intuition during a single game. One move 20 of a game you have built up a great deal of intuition about what is important in that particular game. Yes, there is also intuition based on years of experience or whatever that helps guide how we look at a board. But there is also something about following a game through and building up a feel for it. That’s one reason I think the cover up and guess method is good as it forces you to slowly build up this sense during individual master games.
wang said,
December 3, 2007 at 12:14 pm
YIKES! Every move? I don’t know how beneficial this wil be for you in the long run. There are some positions where you might want to do that, but move 10 of a Sicilia probably isn’t one of them.
I would recommend doing some tactical puzzles, an annotating your own games. When yo uannotate you can look at several moves that you filtered out during the game. I have found this most enlightening, as I see the types of moves that I normally filter out. Like BDK, I often canned pawn moves in the middle game for some reason.
Analyzing your own (STANDARD) games is probably the best way to see what is going on in your melon.
gorckat said,
December 3, 2007 at 12:48 pm
i will say to myself before a game “ok, this time, i will look at EVERY possible move, but then when i play, i freeze up, i can’t see any moves, so i make the wrong one.
Get out of my head! I do that all the time, too.
BDK: For instance, when I first started I would never even consider pawn moves after the opening…until the ending. It was some weird block I had.
I have that now.
The exercise of writing all moves down (for a single given position) is called a Stoyko, I think. There’s an old Novice Nook on it, iirc and Heisman recommends them as a part of study. He says it should take 45 minutes to 2 hours to write out all possible variations you can visualize without moving the pieces and then evaluate each of them (who’s better, by how much and why).
Rocky said,
December 3, 2007 at 1:31 pm
I have a similiar problem. So what I’ve been doing is using chesstempo to practice looking at every possible move. chesstempo is great in that you “think” you’ve found mate … it might be mate in 3 or something. But the real answer is mate in two. So the challenge is to find the very best moves and the only way I’ve been able to do that is by looking al ALL checks, captures and threats.
Edwin said,
December 3, 2007 at 2:10 pm
…studying chess and looking at porn on the internet.
What better way to spend the day.
pollychess said,
December 3, 2007 at 3:18 pm
Looking at some of the games I played this weekend could be considered pornography. Some of the moves were so bad they were obscene.
blunderprone said,
December 3, 2007 at 3:19 pm
BDK… I think you meant Adam West… he used to have to take valium to keep from laughing so much during takes becuase of the silly costumes.
Chessloser… don’t forget the leaches. I think it would help with the purging while you embark on your new … regularity.
blunderprone said,
December 3, 2007 at 3:21 pm
oh… and i forgot…. Tactics is the bran of chess… it helps keep you regular!
YµRokewL aka Brechstange said,
December 3, 2007 at 4:58 pm
Hey buddy….your chess is so wrong ! Dont write down every move ! Just look for a plan and if you have no idea, just ask your pieces, where they want to be on board. Look for you badest piece and then look, where it would be better. The problem is, you have no chess-patterns in your brain. You have no winningplan. Thats what i saw in your games ! You just move your pieces and sometimes you see something tactical like “…if i take, he takes, then i take back….”. Thats all you do !!!! Chess is more than just to wait for a tactical chance ! You dont know, how the pieces can work together and you play with your pawns like a checkers-player. If you want to play one good chessgame in your life, then start to learn the game ! You told us that you’re often train for chess. Sorry, but i cant believe you. You do nothing for chess ! You just play games at ICC and sometimes you read a handfull pages of an Openingbook. THATS ALL !!! STOP to think about your rating ! Your number shows nothing !!! The result of your games are just like a roulettegame. Start to think about position you like. Just play versus the computer some handicap-games, where you have King,Queen and two rooks and the computer just have the King and the Queen. Try to win this handicap-game and you will get a better feeling, how pieces works together. There are so many ways to learn chess.
ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS TO START !!!
yk
Edwin said,
December 3, 2007 at 10:45 pm
You do nothing for chess ! You just play games at ICC and sometimes you read a handfull pages of an Openingbook. THATS ALL !!!
yk: Did he tell you that or is that what you THINK he is doing? I mean, there’s nothing wrong with criticism, as long as you get your facts straight. Sure he could probably do other stuff, but he’s just starting out in this chess self improvement scene. It took me quite a few years myself to find “stuff” i like to think works for me towards improving. How did your games look when you first started?
Liquid Egg Product said,
December 4, 2007 at 7:40 am
yk, you did come across as harsh. Remember, chessloser is a beginner, playing less than a year. This observation was interesting: “The problem is, you have no chess-patterns in your brain”), but remember he hasn’t had a lot of time to really internalize such things. (He does seem to have a few mate patterns down based on some of his games.)
chessloser, no one actually analyzes or looks at every single move during a game; it’s impossible. What ends up happening is that players have an instinct as to what move or moves are likely to be best in the position and analyze those. Right now, you don’t have enough experience to have a very good instinct, so you have to calculate a greater variety of lines to be effective.
The more you play, the more “obvious” some things will get (like knowing without explicit calculation when a piece is en prise, or would be if you moved it to square X), so more lines will look unreasonable without having to spend time on them.
These other people have good advice that I don’t need to repeat here.
chessloser said,
December 4, 2007 at 8:03 am
Blue Devil Knight – no, you are never a jackass. i was serious though, but it was only an excersice for one day, to break whatever weird crust formed around my brain. it was overkill, i know, but i wanted to overdo it to kick start my brain. maybe it was a waste of time for anyone else, but it helped me. i tried the attack training mode on fritz, it wasn’t happening for me, i will try it again.
wang – it’s not something i’m gonna do regularly, just this one time. i need to play slow games and analyze them, like you said…
gorckat – yeah, the stoyko…that’s what i was kinda going for. now that you mention it, i remember it, thanks….
rocky – is chesstempo a computer program?
polly – hahaha, bad chess as obscene porn…excellent!
blunderprone – tactics, yes….you know i was thinking of doing those damn circles you people talk about….
yurokewl – wow, tough love. you are right, i often don’t have a plan, i need to fix that….
Rocky said,
December 4, 2007 at 9:30 am
chesstempo.com … tactics my friend; tactics. Use the ’standard’ option and take as long as you like.
YµRokewL aka Brechstange said,
December 4, 2007 at 10:55 am
Tactics are the most important things in chess, if you are a beginner and want to become a better player. I recommend the software “Personal Chess Trainer” (www.personalchesstrainer.com). I use it since 2004 (the year i started to play chess) and my rating gone up up and up. Now i have an USCF of 1956 and i can say, the Personal Chess Trainer helped me and still helps me. Its like to become a hitman. If you know 1000 ways to kill a guy, its easy for you, to see one of these ways at the beginning of a game. Every opening is like a weapon. You have to find out, what weapon is the best for you and then learn, how to use the weapon. I saw your games and i can say: “STOP PLAYING SICILIAN WITH BLACK!”. This opening is to dynamic and one wrong step will cost you a full point. Its better for you to play openings with static pawnstructures, where you have a better look for tactics. On 1.e4, just play e5 and try to hold the pawnstructure static. Play normal moves and hold your position. In the ratingarea between 1000 and 1600 its just a question of time, when your opponent will make teh BIG MISTAKE ! Once again > Play normal moves ! Hold your King safety and let your opponent make the last mistake in the game.
yk
BTW:
I luv your website and i am happy to see you playing chess ! I am a fan of you and all i want to see is you as a winner ! Thats why sometimes my words sounds a little bit hard. But i will not say sorry for that ! You can become a good chessplayer.
@Edwin
I played my first chessgame three years ago. It was vs. a 16xx rated player. I won this game. My first rating in germany was 1612. Its three years ago. I played for 2 years a handfullchesstournaments and after that i stopped to play tournaments. I played 2 tourneys in New York and one tourney in Czech. Since the last year i just train every day chess and play no tournaments. I will play my next tournament, when i am sure, to have the solid skill of a 2000-DWZ rated player.
Edwin said,
December 4, 2007 at 12:20 pm
yk: Good for you. But i did not ask if you won it or lost it, i asked how it looked. Meaning if you’re game was all that perfect. Anyway, now you say that he has to find out what weapon (opening) is best for him, and next you say that he should stop playing the Sicilian with Black and tell him he should meet 1.e4 with 1…e5. Then how is he supposed to find out what weapon is best for him? And you say “stop playing the Sicilian” based on how many games? And what’s wrong with dynamic? Maybe he likes dynamic. Say he plays what you tell him to play and he loses his first couple of games. Are you gonna tell him to stop playing 1…e5 with Black? As you say, EVERY opening is a weapon. And he has to find out for himself which one suits him the most. Personally, i think he should indeed do daily tactics training combined with strategy as in reading Pandolfini’s Weapons of Chess, which is a good place to start. PCT’s strategy training is cool and everything but i wouldn’t recommend starting strategy training without some explanation. PCT doesn’t provide that. Tactics don’t really need explaining.
Blue Devil Knight said,
December 4, 2007 at 12:26 pm
In general I agree with youperkewl’s sentiments though. Tactics and games tactics and games. My coach told me the same thing and it worked well. Though I have only beaten a 1600+ player once
“I played my first chessgame three years ago. It was vs. a 16xx rated player. I won this game.”
I find this hard to believe for many reasons. Was the 1600 player breathing?
Edwin said,
December 4, 2007 at 12:57 pm
…In general I agree with youperkewl’s sentiments though. Tactics and games tactics and games.
BDK: But yk doesn’t play games.
YµRokewL aka Brechstange said,
December 4, 2007 at 3:38 pm
@ Edwin
Chessloser said, he has problems to find the right moves. In dynamic pawnstructure-openings you have more moveoptions, than in blocked-pawnstructures. For a beginner its not easy to calculate with dynamic-pawnstructures. The pawnstructure is like a ladder. If the ladder have a solid ground and is not moving, for a beginner its easier to climb up to the top of the ladder.
@ All
here are the first chessgame i played in my live:
[Event "BEM 04/05"]
[Site "Frankenthal"]
[Date "2004.11.20"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Schulz, Guenter"]
[Black "A., B."]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "D05"]
[WhiteElo "1627"]
[PlyCount "106"]
[EventDate "2004.12.11"]
[EventType "swiss"]
[EventRounds "7"]
[EventCountry "GER"]
1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. e3 e6 4. a3 c5 5. dxc5 Bxc5 6. b4 Be7 7. Be2 O-O 8. O-O
Qc7 9. Bb2 Nbd7 10. Nbd2 b6 11. c4 dxc4 12. Bxc4 Bb7 13. Rc1 Qb8 14. Bd3 Nd5
15. Nc4 Bf6 16. Bxf6 N7xf6 17. Qc2 h6 18. Nce5 Qd6 19. Qd2 Nd7 20. Nxd7 Qxd7
21. Rfd1 Rad8 22. Qe2 Qe7 23. Bb5 Qf6 24. Rd3 Rc8 25. Rxc8 Rxc8 26. h3 Nc3 27.
Rxc3 Qxc3 28. Ba6 Bxa6 29. Qxa6 Qc7 30. Nd4 Rd8 31. g3 Rd7 32. b5 Kf8 33. Qa4
Qb7 34. Qb4+ Kg8 35. Nc6 a6 36. a4 axb5 37. axb5 Qc7 38. Qa4 Qd6 39. Qa8+ Kh7
40. Nd4 Qc5 41. Qe4+ g6 42. h4 Qd5 43. Qxd5 Rxd5 44. f4 Kg7 45. g4 Kf6 46. g5+
hxg5 47. hxg5+ Ke7 48. Kf2 Kd6 49. Kf3 e5 50. Nc6 exf4 51. exf4 Rxb5 52. Nd8
Rf5 53. Ke4 Kc7 0-1
I played it with black. Today i would never play this openingmoves again. You see in this game, how i wait with normal moves for a mistake by my opponent.
2 month before i played this tournamentgame, i had no idea about chess. I only knew how to move the pieces. 2 month i trained every day for 3-4 hours chess, because i had the goal to become a good chessplayer. This was in 2004. Now, 2007, i am still not a good chessplayer, but i can win games versus good players
yk
Edwin said,
December 4, 2007 at 5:52 pm
Well, my first game (and i went in cold turkey, meaning no training whatsoever) i got crushed by a scholar’s mate. And i’m not afraid to tell it. Unfortunately i haven’t recorded the moves to prove it.
Blue Devil Knight said,
December 4, 2007 at 6:46 pm
First tournament game ever is more believable. First game ever means first game. Ever. If you beat a 1600 in your first game ever he is in a coma.
YµRokewL aka Brechstange said,
December 4, 2007 at 7:31 pm
@ Blue Devil
Before i played my first tournamentgame, i played maybe 15 games just for fun with friends. I was a really bad player and lose piece for piece. Its a different to play chess and to understand chess. If i play backgammon or checkers, i feel not the same like in chess. I trained 2 moth chess with good books and videos and after that i felt, chess is not like other boardgames. Chess is more ! At the beginning i thought i have to crush my opponents. This was the wrong way ! I had to understand, that my opponent makes the same mistakes like i do ! The different was, i’ve made the mistakes earlier than my opponent. It was on me to play save moves and wait for mistakes of my opponent. Just like in my first game. My position was not very well and i tried to exchange pieces to hold the game draw. I remember this game very well and i felt, my opponent rated 16xx can play better with a knight than i do. So an knight-exchange is good for me. All i wanted is to hold the position and wait for a mistake of my opponent. The next step was to trust in my own play and trust in my moves. After i got this trust in my mind, i provoked my opponents to make mistakes.
Chess can be so easy, but its not easy to accept the reason of a lost game. I hear people saying after a lost game thigs like “…i lost because i had make here a mistake and there…..”. This is the WRONG way !!! You have to accept the good moves of your opponents, try to understand these moves and say “…hey..i lost because of THIS good move by my opponent.”.
We all make mistakes in our games and very often we will never see these mistakes, because our opponents aren’t see our mistakes. With every played game you will learn more about chess. You can lose 10 games in a row and feel very bad, but your day will come and you will win. You need to lose games to see strong moves of your opponent and understand your own mistakes.
Since 2004 i played 73 tournamentgames and lost 26 of it. I analysed every game and i can say, i will never do the same mistake twice. I learned more from my lost games, than from my winning-games.
A few month ago a i changed my response on 1.e4 from 1…e5 to c5. It was hard for me, because i learnd so many things about RuyLopez, Scotch etc. — With 1…c5 its over. Why did i changed my well known answer 1…e5 to 1…c5 ? Because i felt so often bad in every game. I felt, this is not my way of playing. Of course, i had many success with 1…e5, but this was !only! because of bad moves by my opponnents. If i play with black i want the same feeling like with white in the GPA. I never got this feeling with black (…ok..sometimes in the Marshall Attack).
The point is, to find positions, where you have fun to play chess. Sometimes it can be a research for live. I remember very well the time, where my opponents playing the Sicilian versus me and felt sooooo bad. I hated this Sicilian with white. After one year i found my way to handle this Sicilian garbage. If i play now 1.e4 and my opponent answers 1.c5, i feel so good !
Now you could ask me, if i think 1…c5 is garbage, why do i try to play 1…c5 myself ?!?! While i am learning the GPA, i had to understand the plans of black in the sicilian and i can say, black have all chances, to get a good game in every way. Its up to me, to know these ways. I know them for white and i know them for black and i wish, i would know all this things in other openings too.
I can win with white against the Sicilian versus a player rated 2200 and lose with black in the Kings Indian Defense versus a player rated 1600. But this is chess. I have to learn more, more and more !
A whole life is not enough, to become a good chessplayer ! But because of that, most of us arent good chessplayers ! And thats why, we will win games and we will lose games !
For the rest of our life !
yk