first vs second-order decisionmaking

what is going wrong in my thinking, when i blunder in and out of simple forks after playing a mostly decent game?

how do i change how i think about moves before i do them, rather than only understanding them once im in game review?

well, after analyzing a couple forks in todays game, ive realized how i need to change the way i weigh options as a game progresses. basically, in the later parts of games i need to switch from prioritizing second-order decisionmaking to prioritizing first-order decisionmaking.

a prototypical example of a fork i didnt see coming

getting toward the endgame with honk goose, ive been eyeing these center pawns for ages. i want them so bad, and for many moves i have been applying pressure that honk goose keeps wriggling out of.

now honk goose has moved the e pawn so that it is no longer protecting the d pawn! finally! time to attack, right?

here im thinking: okay, im finally gonna get a shot at attacking this pawn, after ages and ages. if honk goose moves the pawn out of the line of attack, the knight will be undefended. worst case i move my rook over to the a file to protect my pawn while i go for promotion. what could go wrong?

knight c2 is what could go wrong. which if i spent 20 minutes on this move looking at every theoretically possible move in response, im more than capable of seeing eventually. but in this case i made the move and my rooks got forked. 

against an opponent like honk goose, this means the game is lost.

thats the kind of fork situation im used to. what can i do besides just spending longer calculating each and every move and every possible response?

well, it was in considering another poor choice earlier in the same game that i think i found my answer.

blundering not into, but out of, a fork

earlier in the game this annoying knight did another fork, of two pawns, that i felt too prematurely fatalistic about.

am i destined to come out of this position forever down a pawn? is this where ive lost the game?

the goose aggression is just too scary. i think to myself: i have already blundered! i will lose one of these pawns! pick which one to save, and say goodbye to the other.

well, first i tried to delay by threatening the other pawn and a check, but goose was smart enough to defend:

having failed at my brilliant counterplay, i decided better to lose the isolated pawn and keep the a/b pair together. moving a pawn forward improves the position of the pair, making progress toward promotion and making the b pawn less vulnerable in the meantime. so if im gonna lose a pawn, i might as well improve the position of what is left.

i did consider the move i shoulda made, threatening the center. but after some trades id still end up down a pawn, and now i dont even have a pair that can protect each other. and when ur down material, trading is generally bad, right?

so i made the wrong decision and the game went from even to goose having an edge.

when not to reduce calculations to abstractions

the answer isnt that i shouldve spent 20 minutes calculating every possible combination of moves for even deeper into the game. endless calculations of possibilities can be a massive waste of time when u dont use the results of ur calculations in a useful way.

i had already taken the time to calculate, and concluded i lose a pawn no matter what path thru that maze of calculations i take.

but heres what i was thinking, as a result of my calculations: option 1 is lose a pawn and improve other pawns, option 2 is lose a pawn and trade down material while already behind. easy choice, right?

but notice im not directly comparing my two choices. im only comparing judgements of those choices, judgements that bring in ideas like trading and improvement.

maybe theres a name for this kind of thing in chess, but i might call this a “second-order decision”. thats what we do every time we choose moves based on an indirect metric of who is winning. second-order metrics include: material gained/lost, development, tempo, light squared weaknesses, etc.

a first-order decision would be based on just looking at the literal position on board, considering only the literal rules of the game. a game is winning if u can deliver a checkmate, regardless of material or anything else.

second-order thinking is really useful when the board is relatively full. it makes it possible to weigh complex positions, reducing myriad possibilities down to qualities that can be reasoned about, using shorthand rules that most generally hold true.

but as u get into the endgame, the number of possible futures shrinks. big picture thinking is less necessary, and first-order thinking become possible.

what i should have done, at this point in this game, was compare the actual positions i would end up in. when i put aside the story about pawn improvement and material imbalance, and just ask which literal position i would rather be in, its obvious which of these two i prefer:

the second one is just so much better. yes im down a pawn, but i wont be down for long. the game is even.

i think im capable of finding the right move in this kind of situation, next time, because i will remember that when there are this few pieces on the board it is time to stop thinking only in second-order metrics for my endlessly calculated lines, and start looking at each potential position for what it is.

letting go of stories and living in the moment

thinking about this lesson, i realized that i had made a similar mistake when I got caught by that other fork, and can give myself more actionable advice for next time than just "always spend some extra time to calculate and check for every possible fork possible."

the move i made was based on second-order ideas like “attacking” and “defending”, and i was motivated by this storyline where i finally had a shot at a pawn id been putting pressure on for a long time.

well, the position of the board doesnt care how long i spent pressuring a pawn before it moved, or how badly i want to have a shot at it.

i definitely have made that kind of mistake in thinking before. i think to myself: “this is my best chance” to do something ive been trying to do, comparing the move not to the other moves available on the board but comparing it to earlier or later moves that dont work at all. sure, taking a pawn and losing a point right now is better than taking a pawn and losing 5 points last move or next move, so from that perspective, now is the best time. but… maybe i should compare the move to the actual moves on the board now, and let go of whatever it was i hoped to do.

i dont think its wrong to organize ur moves into stories, and to play chess with passion and desire for certain outcomes. i think its necessary when the board is super complicated, and a generally useful tool for understanding a game as it progresses. it would be difficult to learn or enjoy chess if on every move u had to look at the board with completely fresh and dispassionate eyes, as if u were clicking into a new chess puzzle from someone elses game, without knowing how the position got there or what the player had been planning.

but if, in addition to thinking “i want that pawn so bad, maybe here is my chance to attack while it is undefended,” if i had also spent a moment to objectively look at the actual position on the board that would result, i might have seen the glaring vulnerability.

basically, here is what my brain was doing:

complicated! im calculatin! im a billion iq honk strategy honk!

heres what i shouldve been thinking:

so simple, so calm.

if im looking at this position as if it were a chess puzzle with black to move, without knowing anything else about the game, i see the fork right away.

closing thoughts

is this an obvious lesson? maybe to u. its easy to advise "look for attacks" on every move. but its quite another thing to actually put a finger on the subtleties of how ur particular brain "looks" and "sees" and "watches" for the things that we of course are not literally looking at with our eyeballs.

for me, ive noticed that in my calculations i tend to reduce the possibilities down to these abstract second-order concepts, losing the board itself. and i can improve my decisions by identifying those moments in the game where it is more possible for me to "see" the game with fewer simplifying abstractions, because the game has simplified enough.

i dunno if that makes sense to anyone else, but if i ever manage to beat honk goose u will know its working.

heres the full game: