Shut up and calculate

A couple years ago I decided that my daily job wasn’t fulfilling enough and I quitted.

Since then I became a professional chess player/coach and with more time in my hands I have been wondering , what made me special? What was the key to success in my approach to this small but endless squared world? I was never really like Hans Neimann who aims to be the best. I was just having fun and didn’t go pro as “I didn’t care” that much to achieve greatness. But as my first coach would say to frighten my parents when I was barely 11 years old “Àlvar has a killer instinct”.

Another hint to solve the first question relies on me always having problems with time management. It was so hard to make a decision. I would never say something like: “This looks good enough”. I was always unsure and asked myself “but why is that other move not good?”, “but that other move is not that bad”. It definitely wasn’t practical but I was constantly calculating much more than my colleagues. I would get into time trouble every game so I eventually developed a very good instinct to navigate into those waters. Always trying to refute my own first instinct, always trying to see what was my opponent's next idea. 

Sometimes I would be surprised when my opponent resigned being a simple piece down. “Still wasn’t that easy” I felt. Still there were questions to ask. That was my main drive. I found a motto that summarizes my approach and that could be useful to you guys:

Shut up and calculate!

“Shut up and calculate” is a phrase attributed to physicist Richard Feynman, and is often used to describe his approach to theoretical physics. He would say that you need to do the “hard work” and gather information by doing the math first, talking about theories later.

I didn’t know I was giving similar advice to chess improvers. The concept is very simple: Give another move.

Everytime you see yourself “explaining” the position,  “justifying” why you are better or why it is a good decision for you, check one more move. Check their next move always, check your next move even. Every time you feel comfortable and you imagine yourself giving a discourse justifying your actions in court, just say to yourself:

Shut up and give another move.

Obviously when we are playing some blitz or faster time controls it is indeed tricky to find the balance between thinking and playing. So this advice is especially useful when you are training on your own. Push yourself a bit harder.

You found the solution to a puzzle? Great, try to answer: Why are the other moves not winning?

Are you unsure you solved the puzzle but it feels “enough” time was spent? Great, flip the board and check through the point of view of the defender. (This especially is applicable to chessboard training, but you can also do it by just focusing more on the defender part and putting yourself in their place).

One pattern I have seen pretty often with students is how they limit the depth of their calculation. They put a brake into improving their visualization/calculation skills. Sometimes you need to see deeper to understand.

“It was risky!” Well, checking a couple more moves wouldn’t hurt, right?

“Felt drawish!” Tell me, how would you exactly get the draw?

“And White wins” Finish it, concretely. 

“I resigned. I was lost” Let them finish you off. Maybe they are unsure how.

“I was winning! It’s unfair” Was it winning if you didn’t see how?

After 68. Rh8+ Black famously resigned in “1-0 (68) Vallejo Pons,F (2707)-Santos Latasa,J (2576) Leon 2018” as 68. … Kxh8 69. Kxg6+ would mean promotion in the next move. Or does it?

You will reach a point where words don’t matter, the position explains itself .

Don’t be in a hurry. I really love the approach of Rafael Nadal to training. He would recommend to hit a ball and then run back a few meters and then go back to hit the next one. Keep yourself permanently on the move. It’s basically the same thing in chess. Whenever you see yourself making an assumption try to refute it and try to ask, what if my opponent just stays quiet?, what if my opponent goes for the counterattack instead?, what if I’m just paying attention to the most desirable outcome and I'm getting driven to play a move just because a line works? Many questions can be asked and the constant thrive for “the next step” and getting ahead of your opponent is what will make you improve in the long run.

In the same fashion I recall a phrase from the weightlifting champion Lidia Valentin pointing out how, making training be a hell or very difficult, would make competition much easier and especially enjoyable.

You need to realize if you see a cheap trick, maybe your opponent does as well. Then what? Maybe you make the job much easier for them and you missed a simple way to continue to allow your opponent to make mistakes.

Depending on whether you choose to calculate deeper, or just the bare minimum, will partly determine your skill-ceiling. And then it will be incredibly hard to reverse the habit.

Let the moves talk and do the explanation.

I wanna finish with a recent example in a classical game of how powerful this system can be. From the following position on move 17. … Qd7 in 1-0 (31) Alonso Rosell,A (2563)-Martinovic,S (2546) Bundesliga 2023 I thought of 18. Kh2!? and calculated until 30. … b5! in the following diagram. Which was all the way correct and the best defense for Black. My opponent missed some details and lost. I managed to achieve this after seriously training calculation and decision making for a whole week nonstop.

What’s stopping you? Shut up and calculate.