Metacognition

A lot of what beginners (including myself) want to know is "How do I improve?" In education training*, we learned that the most successful students are those with good metacognition. What does that mean, exactly? Students who can understand whether they understand something tend to succeed.

Recently in chess, I've felt I have some key deficiencies preventing me from advancing. I know at my rating, everyone will say "tactics trainer is life. Stop asking." Yes. I know. I do. Especially since I took a mini stint away from chess, where I didn't study much - my tactics are super rusty!

That said, I'm convinced I can do a few other things as well. Why? Because I've found there are other things that I don't understand or do, no matter how much I play or study. I'm apparently not a natural at this game, and what works for a lot of people might not be enough for me. 

So, how am I changing things up?

Visualization

After going through hundreds of puzzles, where I speak the names of the moves before I make them, I still have immense trouble visualizing the board. In fact, I only can visualize moves while staring directly at it. I don't know which squares are light or dark, or which diagonals connect what squares - let alone the area of influence of a knight.

To this end, I've previously:

• Said the coordinates of moves as I make them in puzzles. Useful! And ongoing. But not enough.
• Said whether squares were light or dark along when saying the move. Annoying. Not helpful.

Why do I know these weren't enough? I asked myself "how am I trying to visualize the board?" If you asked me "is g5 light or dark," I'd literally think, "well, white-on-the-right, so h1 is light, so g1 is dark, so g1, g3, and g5 are dark, therefore, g5 must be dark." That's not visualizing. That's exploiting the structure of the chess board to derive the answer.

I needed something more drastic. I got out the pencil bag and got to work.

The three sheets in the blog post image now sit on my fridge. Every morning, I want to learn just a little more of the board - which squares are which, and how they interconnect. After making this sheet, I've learned which square g5 is. I can see it. I can point to it by name, and name it if you point to it. I recognize its very important relationship in connecting white's dark-squared bishop on c1 to black's queen on d8 in many an opening motif (involving a rather-nervous knight on f6).

I got something! Results! I will keep up with this method of trying to learn my way around the board.

A word on tactics...

Tactics are vital to chess. Everyone knows that. But a very strong player once told me to study mate-in-two puzzles in particular.

"Ye old bookes of mate-in-two's are antiquated, tactics trainer is lief and also Jesus." -- Everyone ever.
"I know people tell you to study general tactics, but mate-in-two's really helped me when I was starting out." -- That same super strong player tho.

(Note: if you have told me personally to stick to general tactics puzzles, this is not an affront at you; I'm just laughing at the ubiquitousness of the recommendation, including online.)

I got a hold of the Polgar 5334 book, and dove in. Well, I started with the first 306 mate-in-one puzzles, because I'm a completionist. I've since gotten through about eighty mate-in-two puzzles, the first twenty of which I found brutally difficult. I've noticed it changes how I think.

With the tactics trainer alone, I previously:

• Aimlessly searched for material advantage.
• Did not consider what either player was trying to achieve.

In mate-in-two puzzles, I feel like I:

• Approach the board with specific objective, and calculate toward that end.
• Need to grasp the influence pieces hold over space on the board.

I haven't played rated games online recently, but feel like my attitude in OTB chess has stepped up a notch. It's not consistent, I'm not great, and this is all pretty new, but I feel like I am learning.

Recently, I've noticed myself doing things like:

• Identify that I want to place my bishop on a square, what my opponent might do to dislodge that bishop when it arrives. Then, make preparing moves to support the bishop move.
• Identify that my opponent is attacking me through a specific square, set the goal of defending that square, and muster my forces about it.

Goals like that feel pretty new to me. Even if I don't make the right plans, and I don't make plans in every game, and I still need to study tactics... this is new. I like it!

So. Metacognition. You need to ask yourself whether you're really learning when you sit down to study. No matter how much something works for another person, everyone at your club, or ninety-nine percent of the internet, you need to see whether it works for you.

* No, I don't teach chess. LOL. Look at my rating.