Here's Why I'm a PATZER

This English Indian talk is all Greek to me!

Is this baseball by any chance?🤣🤣🤣

I have to write a post soon, that will touch on some of these subjects.....I am currently studying Gelfand's book, Positional Decision Making in Chess.....

Anyhow, bets wishes to everyone. Too tired to write anything else right now.

No, baseball is one of those sports where the American League winners call themselves world champions, even though nobody else took part!!😂. It is the game with the 2nd biggest global television sports audience in the world. I would try to teach it to you, but neither of us has that much time on our hands!!

Umesh, you're absolutely right here.

For an average player to improve, and contrary to what they typically do (tactics, endgames, etc. - which all isn't bad per sei), the key is how to make an update to that intangible mindset, the way of thinking, what you call gut feeling (or reflex, or second nature, or force of habit) that resides somewhere in dark places and depths of our subconscious mind.

It is something like an update to chess mind's operating system. As we know, an O/S is hidden from our view, but is essential for the proper functioning of machine and doing all useful job for all our applications.

Now the million dollar question is, how to make an update to intangible chess mindset effectively?

Are there any drills for it somewhere, anywhere that you know of?

Maybe some electric shock treatment would work?🤣🤣

Bob Staake for Washington Post

Clever? Ha, I doubt it, it's only because I'm not so 'nov', but somewhat 'star' (here 'star' doesn't mean 'a star' like in English, but 'old' in Slavic, starý in Czech )

But that doesn't stop me from making mistakes all the time (the same like in my chess).

Ask @samcopeland and the hockey guy @simonMTL who stripped me off of my top blogger status as I posted a photo that could have potentially made harm to them (but it didn't)

Or chessom's spying software that ensures the purity, the morals and proper behavior and vocabulary on the site, which I have failed few times as their filters flagged me, taking my words out of context (what else could you expect from "smart" software?).

True, I am a sort of a feline species, a tiger cub Pawn, but not sure even nine lives would save me before I am banned from the site

My humble thanks mate

Kamalakanta, you mean something on Patzer's positional decision-making in chess?

Yep! That's how bad it is!

Always a pleasure 👍

Software is always defective, has bugs, here there is something quite different.

The software is not defective, it is thinking deficit of its creators. The coders were just doing their job and incorporated the ridiculous, definitely flawed policy. The "policy makers" are to blame.

I was commenting something on engines (one of my favorite topics) and gave an example from early days of computing when they fed a software with "out of sight, out of mind" to a foreign language, and back. And what they got?

I'll scramble the metal-a-- answer so as not to be flagged again.

Its response was "Invisible Id1yod". And it was enough, one word taken out of the context and I got flagged.

So much for smart software, smart creators and smart policy-makers of chesskom

And folks, all our lives, our credit score, medical and insurance data, etc., are all vulnerable to someone's, something's mistakes and smart decisions to follow, that would harm you in a much more profound way than flagging out here.

Scary, huh?

Welcome to the machine!

I was just preparing my first morning coffee, about to answer your comment

Umesh, all you say is absolutely correct, I totally agree. That is the typical way of approaching the improvement thing, as is also prescribed by Grandmasters in their books, articles, video lessons, etc.

But I think you've had enough time here on the site to realize that I'm always thinking differently, against every commonplace accepted by all

For example, my chess teaching doesn't start with the moves. Instead it start with a Concept, that of Force and how chessmen get into contacts and use the striking power (=relationships). Once understood (and it is a sooo simple a concept), they come up with how pieces move on their own, by themselves, without being told (I thank Caissa immensely for making things easier for us as lines of force and lines of movement coincide).

Excuse me for a few minutes...

I see you're a little bit impatient. How old are you? You must be much younger than me

Well, to continue, while I was thinking about the new approach in how to start teaching a complete beginner, I consulted lots of material. Every day at lunch time, I would go to a near-by Barnes & Nobles bookstore for some food for thought. So in 2016 I came across a book that gave me the idea how improvement should work.

The book is, Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise, written by Dr Anders Ericsson, a Swedish psychologist and Professor at Florida State University who is recognized as a researcher in the psychological nature of expertise and human performance. He worked with Herbet Simon, remember Chase and Simon who wrote the seminal 1973 work that (together with de Groot's Thought and Choice in Chess) has become part of the canon of cognitive psychology in chess.

So what does Anders Ericsson say?

There is a moment of suspense...

Well... em... erm... the best thing is to read the book!

I would never be able to explain things as well as the author

Ok, here's real briefly (maybe the subject is a good idea for the blog?).

All you previously said about the improvement is okay. But not all practice gives results as you know.

It seems the most effective way for improvement is to upgrade the hidden, intangible, operating system supporting all our action in chess (check comment #28). The point, again, is to change mindset.

Ericsson is proponent of so-called "deliberate practice." You pick one weakness and work on it until it becomes second nature, reflex, habit.

There are two things here.

What are these things, the first candidates for improvement? What they may be? Ericsson isn't of much help there (as he, I suppose, is not so strong in chess and deeper understanding of the game to be able to say).

Secondly, once you chose the right thing to improve on, what would be the right method for it!

Umesh, makes sense so far?

seems i am a patzer :), just did not know that