Improving the thinking process
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If you already have a coach, it might be best to ask them to clarify.
Noubisch wrote:
If you already have a coach, it might be best to ask them to clarify.
Then the OP would likely have to improve the emptiness of their bank account?
Aug 10, 2018
0
#4
pdve wrote:
My coach says I must improve my thinking process. How can this be done?I find that the moment I read a deeply annotated game my thinking process becomes better. Perhaps this is the way?
have you tried getting a new brain?
Aug 10, 2018
0
#5
Because I started chess by playing nothing but 3 minute games (and this is all I did for years), my thinking process was pretty bad.
What helps a lot, IMO, is taking some position (I used tactic puzzles that were very hard but not impossible for me to solve) and writing out all your analysis on paper. This can easily take 20-30 minutes. Then compare your analysis with the solution and check everything you wrote down with an engine. Pay attention not only to the moves you missed, but when your evaluation was wrong. 5 basic evaluations black winning, black better, equal, white better, white winning.
After I got used to this, I'd do the same thing but timed. Instead of 20-30 minutes give yourself 5 to 10 minutes per position and just do the best you can. This will help you be more efficient. One thing I was doing wrong was calculating too deeply or calculating the same things over and over. When it's timed, you're more deliberate. You find candidates, and you try to calculate them well the first time though, and you try to render an evaluation as soon as possible so you can move on to the next line or puzzle.
Aug 10, 2018
0
#6
Yeah, that's the tricky thing. You can't just list candidates in the beginning.
It's a chicken and egg problem. Do you render an evaluation and make candidates first or do calculation first? The answer is you do a little of both, then a little more of both, and each step enhances the other. The better your calculation, the better your evaluation and candidates. The better your evaluation and candidates, the more efficient your calculation is.
Klauer wrote:
One step is knowing more. Yes, reading annotating games is right.
Another step is solving tactical problems and studies.
I'd think the process refers to generic assessment. There are so many marketed I have no idea what his coach means by it...but its more like "What are my opponents threats?",etc...it has to with playing himself or others vs playing the board. Thats my guess.
Preggo_Basashi wrote:
Because I started chess by playing nothing but 3 minute games (and this is all I did for years), my thinking process was pretty bad.
What helps a lot, IMO, is taking some position (I used tactic puzzles that were very hard but not impossible for me to solve) and writing out all your analysis on paper. This can easily take 20-30 minutes. Then compare your analysis with the solution and check everything you wrote down with an engine. Pay attention not only to the moves you missed, but when your evaluation was wrong. 5 basic evaluations black winning, black better, equal, white better, white winning.
After I got used to this, I'd do the same thing but timed. Instead of 20-30 minutes give yourself 5 to 10 minutes per position and just do the best you can. This will help you be more efficient. One thing I was doing wrong was calculating too deeply or calculating the same things over and over. When it's timed, you're more deliberate. You find candidates, and you try to calculate them well the first time though, and you try to render an evaluation as soon as possible so you can move on to the next line or puzzle.
@Preggo_Basashi,
I like the idea of writing everything down. This will also force oneself to think. What I generally do is stop at some variation and then move the pieces around on the board and see where some variation I want to explore is going. Right now I am working with Paata Gaprindashvili's excellent book 'Critical moments in chess'.
What the horse describes with writing down all your analysis for a position, is exactly what Yusupov teaches. Then even better, he has the critical lines already done for you to compare with. Even better with Yusupov, you learn to recognize when you need to go deep, and when more shallow analysis is enough. You fill up a page, go to the solution and he has two lines. Or the opposite can happen.
Really any book with good annotation of positions would be good for training that aspect.
As for candidate moves, Silman is big on finding the imbalances first, THEN coming up with candidate moves. For some people, that comes pretty automatically. For others, not so much.
Preggo_Basashi wrote:
Because I started chess by playing nothing but 3 minute games (and this is all I did for years), my thinking process was pretty bad.
What helps a lot, IMO, is taking some position (I used tactic puzzles that were very hard but not impossible for me to solve) and writing out all your analysis on paper. This can easily take 20-30 minutes. Then compare your analysis with the solution and check everything you wrote down with an engine. Pay attention not only to the moves you missed, but when your evaluation was wrong. 5 basic evaluations black winning, black better, equal, white better, white winning.
After I got used to this, I'd do the same thing but timed. Instead of 20-30 minutes give yourself 5 to 10 minutes per position and just do the best you can. This will help you be more efficient. One thing I was doing wrong was calculating too deeply or calculating the same things over and over. When it's timed, you're more deliberate. You find candidates, and you try to calculate them well the first time though, and you try to render an evaluation as soon as possible so you can move on to the next line or puzzle.
Curious. Did you ever get discouraged or frustrated doing this?
Aug 11, 2018
0
#11
SeniorPatzer wrote:
Preggo_Basashi wrote:
Because I started chess by playing nothing but 3 minute games (and this is all I did for years), my thinking process was pretty bad.
What helps a lot, IMO, is taking some position (I used tactic puzzles that were very hard but not impossible for me to solve) and writing out all your analysis on paper. This can easily take 20-30 minutes. Then compare your analysis with the solution and check everything you wrote down with an engine. Pay attention not only to the moves you missed, but when your evaluation was wrong. 5 basic evaluations black winning, black better, equal, white better, white winning.
After I got used to this, I'd do the same thing but timed. Instead of 20-30 minutes give yourself 5 to 10 minutes per position and just do the best you can. This will help you be more efficient. One thing I was doing wrong was calculating too deeply or calculating the same things over and over. When it's timed, you're more deliberate. You find candidates, and you try to calculate them well the first time though, and you try to render an evaluation as soon as possible so you can move on to the next line or puzzle.
Curious. Did you ever get discouraged or frustrated doing this?
Only when I got the answer tooooootally wrong.
I had a set of problems once I spent about 4 hours on, and got just about everything wrong. That was very discouraging, and I was a little depressed and stopped doing chess stuff completely for a few days. But after recovering emotionally I realized those were positions I learned a lot from.
Umm... so yeah, you have to be careful. Yusupovs books give a lot of good material for exercises like this (and of course you don't have to buy all 9, just get 1).
But for tactics I was using this book
https://www.amazon.com/Sharpen-Your-Tactics-Sacrifices-Combinations/dp/1880673134
The puzzles have between 1 and 4 stars so you know how difficult they are before you start.
(although also it gets harder as the book goes on, so a 1 star puzzle in the beginning might be a simple mate in 1 or 2, but a 1 star puzzle in the middle of the book is more like a 2 star puzzle.)
Aug 11, 2018
0
#12
There are books - good ones by Dan Heisman - as well as YouTube videos about the thinking process. There's a nice simplified method here with references to some books:
https://pathtochessmastery.blogspot.com/2012/01/simplified-thought-process-that-works.html
My coach says I must improve my thinking process. How can this be done?I find that the moment I read a deeply annotated game my thinking process becomes better. Perhaps this is the way?