Dan Heisman and Thought Process

There are so many topics I would like to blog about but there is only so much time in a day, I have a job, friends, and I also devote quite some time to study and practice/stream chess, so it is a struggle to decide what to write about in this blog. I have a small notebook, a paper notebook guys, where I jot down ideas. I have notebooks for everything, I must have 10 around only for chess... one where I copy puzzles, one to bring with me if there is any random thing I must write, one where I write summaries or headlines from videos and podcasts, one where I copy puzzles, and so on and so forth.

So, since there is so much to write, let's write of the thing that makes me more passionate, and that's the last thing that took my attention.

After a podcast from Daniel Lona in his The Chess Experience, I got curious about the person that got interviewed. It is Dan Heisman. Oh boy, how much I discovered, and I just started to scratch the surface! It is like having found the holy graal of chess!
Here you can find the podcast:
https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5idXp6c3Byb3V0LmNvbS8xOTI3ODE5LnJzcw/episode/QnV6enNwcm91dC0xMDE2NDM0NQ?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwiw192nqev4AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQFw

They talk in depth about the thought process. So, getting the right thought process, it is something that is abstract enough to be able to learn it without books full of diagrams. Let me check the books from Dan.

In Kindle you can see previews of so many chess books, only with the samples you would have material to check forever, annotated games to go through for years, without buying a thing. But in reality the great thing is that you can read a chapter or two of a book and decide if it is worth buying it, because no matter how much you trust somebody suggesting you a book, it could be the wrong book for you or the wrong time for it.

I downloaded then the free sample of A guide to Chess Improvement: The Best of Novice Nook. The book got me literally hooked. Few diagrams and clear enough, nothing that gave me a headache. The book is a collection and reorganization in an organic way of articles that Dan wrote for Chesscafe. You can probably find all articles online but you have to subscribe or buy single articles and this is not so easy, while the kindle version of the book costs less than 10 euros.

How to say that? I love the way of saying very clearly things that are very obvious but that were not so clear in my mind, like that to improve at chess you must add positives (learn new things or improve at some skill) but also remove negatives (like blunder less). There is a lot of literature about adding positives, but there is not so much help about removing negatives. Such an easy concept, yet seeing it that bright in front of your eyes is amazing. And the whole sample (I have not buyed the book yet, but will probably do it soon) has quite some of these obvious but not so clear enough concepts. You can find the book here and check it out yourself:
https://www.amazon.it/Guide-Chess-Improvement-Best-Novice/dp/1857446496

Dan is posting here on chess.com and also has a youtube channel. I stumbled in the youtube channel in the past but did not stop because I could not see his face and the videos were not so compelling visually, yet he has such good way of making difficult concepts so clear that I decided to double check the first video that came out. And this is the first video I checked out: The 7% Solution - Study the Right Things
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV5888a3puQ 

Great content. You happen to check with him a pawn ending and a situtation when a square has two defenders and three attackers. One of the attackers is pinned, but since it is pinned by a defender, it is like if it were not pinned! Together with solving some tough positions and teaching you some chess lessons, he tells you how a coach can help you learning also while not teaching you, but helping you to focus better your learning. He calls what you learn during a lesson with a teacher the 7%, but this 7% ignites you to learn the remaining 93%.

The 7% that you learn in class is:

• having epiphanies... you know, when something finally clicks and you understand something that you didn't even know it existed until one second before
• erasing misconceptions... we all have some thoughts that are not so correct, especially in the beginning we need to simplify everything and chess is such a complex and wonderful game

The 93% you have to do yourself in-between lessons but where a coach could help dramatically are, among others:

• not caring about rating
• helping you to play the right opponents, like people that want to learn like you and are open to analyze games together, study together, and do post mortems (other committed students at your level, something I am struggling to find and could in the end join chessdojo training program when having a club, a blog and a twitch channel won't be enough and I will start stalling with my learning)
• playing the right time controls
• analyze better
• learn from books more effectively

This said, I suggest you to check out whatever material from Dan Heisman, and if you are half as passionate about me about the content he shares, please drop me a line here on via private message about epiphanies you had. He is a great teacher. And I immensely love when somebody can teach and pass to others their knowledge.

Just let me link Dan's chess.com blog for reference:
https://www.chess.com/blog/danheisman/