Part III: When thinking is a problem in a thinking game.

Chess is a thinking game, but thinking can be the problem.

Does LeBron James think about dribbling when he dribbles a basketball?  If he thought about the delicate coordination between bouncing the ball and running down the court, would he be more or less effective?  Dribbling is a fundamental skill that LeBron learned from a very early age.  It’s one that he practiced for his entire life.   It is second nature to him:  it’s a skill embedded deep in his subconscious.

Chuck Knoblauch was a former all-star second baseman for the New York Yankees.  As a second baseman, his main role was to throw to first base to get the runner out.  It’s an aspect of the game he learned through Little League; one that he had perfected-- that is until he didn’t.

One day he overthrew first base for an error.  Then came an another, and then another.  Once, he threw so poorly his throw sailed into the stands and hit Keith Olbermann's mother in the head.  He began to analyze; he began to deconstruct everything about his throw.  Yet, this former all-star player, could no longer do what he could easily as a child.  “Thinking” became the problem.

Understanding that, with every skill, there are two forces that can either collaborate or conflict.  I call these forces the conscious mind (or thinking) and the subconscious mind (sometimes called intuition).  When the subconscious mind can perform a task correctly, it is best that the conscious mind gets out of its way.  The subconscious mind is quicker and is less prone to mistakes—if properly trained.  Conversely the subconscious mind cannot perform critical analysis, which is the job of the conscious mind.

To review, I repost this diagram from my previous blog:

Also, in my last post, I presented this example from one of my games:

I played the unfortunate Bxc6??.  It was like the queen came from the 5^th dimension through a wormhole to take my bishop.

What was so annoying about this game was that it wasn’t like I blitzed out this move, nor was it an isolated incident.  The intermittent nature of this problem made it extremely difficult to solve.  I was beginning to think I must have killed too many brain cells in my past and my old age was starting to have a deleterious effect.

Determined to find a solution, I consulted a number of experts, read a number of posts, and tried a number of remedies.  Most of them were along these lines:

• This happens to everyone, even GMs: Yes, but knowing this doesn’t help.
• Do a lot of simple tactics: This will help, but I think my solution is better.  I will have a separate blog post on tactical puzzles.
• Post a sticky note next to your computer to remind you to check your pieces: This is actually not a bad solution.  it seemed to have helped at least one person I know.  My fear is that this remedy will instead teach me to ignore sticky notes.
• This is a problem that will go away as you get better: May be true, but maybe I cannot get better without solving this problem.

While I was doing my research, I coined the phrase “board blindness”, and its opposite, “board awareness.”  Awareness is a subconscious act.  One does not think to be aware, it’s the Spidey-Sense that everyone has.

As stated earlier, chess has both conscious and subconscious component skills.  Since board awareness is a subconscious aspect of the game, the problem became obvious.  My conscious mind was doing, imperfectly, what my subconscious mind should be doing.  Moreover, the solution became obvious.  I just had to find the correct tool to train my subconscious.

So how do you train your subconscious?  As stated in my earlier posts, training your subconscious as a kid is far easier.  What about somebody who's a half century old?  Can you really teach an old dog new tricks?

The answer is, yes.  For example, even at 50, as long as you’re physically healthy, you can be inserted into an assembly line job, and learn it.  The reasons are as follows.

• The skill is important:  The assembly line is your job and if you can’t cut it, you’re fired.  That’s important.  In chess, no such threat is available, but if you’re reading this, you’re making a serious attempt to improve.  Make sure you, at least do this:
  This is a default setting in chess.com.  Please remove this training wheel at your earliest convenience by going into Settings/Boards & Pieces/Show Legal Moves.  Keep this on, and your subconscious will no longer deem it important to learn board awareness.
• The skill is performed under duress or time pressure: Time pressure is important because too much time allows you to think.  As discussed earlier, the goal is to bypass your conscious mind which means, no thinking!
• The skill, although can be complex, can be done without any judgment or critical thought:  This goes along with the above bullet point.  The subconscious cannot handle judgment or critical thought.  Our drill is not going to involve this at all.
• The skill is repetitive and performed many times in a day. This helps reinforce the importance of this skill.  Playing games, and reinforcing this skill is crucial if you want to keep it.
• The skill is subject to continuous improvement. This means a measurable improvement in accuracy and speed.  Lacking this, we run the risk of repeating bad habits and mistakes.  We’ll get into this a little more in a future post.

I believe all these criteria are needed to successfully train your subconscious as an adult.

So, I found a training tool that works perfectly.  Chessbase has a software called Fritz.  In it, there’s a training module that presents a static position, and your goal is to mark, as quickly as possible, every piece and pawn that can be taken.  Once you identify every single piece correctly, a new position appears.  No pieces are ever moved.  Another similar drill has you mark every piece and pawn that is unguarded and yet another has you mark every piece that can give check.  Strangely, I’ve looked for this training tool elsewhere either on the internet as an app or a site, without success.  (Chess.com developers, are you listening?)

Performing these drills was a revelation to me.  Even though I’ve been playing this game for years, solved thousands of tactics, I found myself stuck a number of times trying to figure out which piece I did not mark.  I often found it to be a pawn at the end of a long diagonal, or a piece at the end of a horizontal attack from a queen or rook (just like in my game).

I worked this drill every day for at least 15 minutes or until I got a satisfactory score before doing anything else.

After a couple months of this, my board blindness all but disappeared.  I only now drop pieces under the panic of time pressure, which is quite understandable.  Problem is solved—until of course I start thinking about it…

Next up... Tactics!

This article is part 3 in a 6-part series about playing and learning chess at 50+.

If you enjoyed these articles, please leave me a nice comment.  It will encourage me to add more content.  Thanks for reading.