I do that as well. That's what happens to me most of the time. Sometimes I even see the end position before I start calculating! Intuition translates well over the board. You may not see any obvious tactics, but your intuition tells you to look harder. Then you might find a combination you wouldn't have seen otherwise.
Intuition v. Calculation
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Maybe intuition is some sort of subconscious calculation? Perhaps our conscious mind cant really work that far ahead? I don't know, I'm nowhere near your level but sometimes i just feel for it. Of course this only works with players at my level (sometimes).
The mind is a very complicated computer. I saw a video on Fischer that suggested he may have suffered from some mild sort of autism. I don't know maybe he just uploaded all the knowledge and let the multi core processor in his brain make the call. Maybe that instinct is just how our brain delivers results of calculations too complex for us to grasp consciously.
Who knows these things.
Intuition is a big part of calculation. There are beginning moves to sequences that weaker players simply would never even consider making.
But you are also correct that the ability to calculate accurately (and most importantly, being able to EVALUATE the resulting position in your head without ever moving a piece) is what separates the 'great' players from the rest.
I find that I can calculate and make all the moves, but when it comes to evaluating the position, I often cannot. It turns out many times that I have the better position (I guess this would be the thing you are calling "luck"), but the fact that I cannot tell someone else why my position is better, given the sequence I have calculated, is what I am concerned with.
To be a strong player, one needs to be able to do both - calculate and evaluate.
I think your building strength in your intuition is your growing experience of the game. You have played the game so much you know which moves are best based on the potion.
AnthonyCG wrote:
Intuition comes from experience. It's like how the old fisherman always knows where the fish will be.
Ha! My dad would love that quote since he is a fisherman... and refuses to play me in chess anymore lol
Aug 15, 2009
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#7
I think both go together. Intuitation tells you what to calculate. With less to calculate you can see farther.
good post
AnthonyCG wrote:
saidh wrote:
Also, intuition does not come from experience. The exact definition of intuition goes AGAINST expereince because it's meant to be a natural idea with no real logical explanation.
I think there is a connection, otherwise it could be argued that someone who has never played chess before could just know what the right move is. And definitions can be found as we are taught when taking standardised tests. We may not know the definition of a word, but we may know similar sounding words that may have a close likeness in meaning like "rewrite" for example. If we don't know what this means we can split the word apart. We know what writing is and we know the prefix re- means approximately "to do over" so we can guess that the word has something to do with writing something over again. I think this is similar in chess.
Yeah I am inclined to agree with Anthony. I will give you an example.
Now granted, if I looked at this problem long enough, I think I would have figured it out... but with tactics trainer, you get more points for solving quicker. I knew that sac worked for some reason.
Here was the problem. It's a relatively easy 7 move combination... but given the ticking clock... I couldn't see 7 moves through the whole thing but Nxf3 was screaming at me. If it weren't for experience in games and problems... I don't think the Knight sacrifice would have been a thought to come to my head... but I immediately just thought, this has to be right, the King is Naked... something must happen.
A GM example of this is with the game of French GM Maxime Vachier Lagrave. He said that he did not see the Queen sac would work, but his intuition led him to sacrifice the queen.
Intuition is what Petrosian was famous for. He could sense danger in a position before it was actually there, and planned for it accordingly.
Intuition maybe isn't the best word for it, as Saidh seems to be saying. But we will call it that for the sake of this forum, since it has already been called that.
I think of intuition as a form of subconscious calculation. It has benefits and drawbacks vs. conscious calculation, in the types of mistakes and errors that may come up.
I think intuition grows with tactical ability, and experience. You recognise (maybe subconsciously) patterns and positions. A previous poster talked about guessing correctly, you just KNOW it's going to work. I think you get better at it the more you play...
"Intuition" in chess is almost a term of art in that it has it's own idiosyncratic meaning.
It often is used to describe moves that are, as ivandh says above, a result of a great deal of concious work that has been assimilated and can be called upon subconciously for a familiar position, or a position with familiar elements.
It's what the masters have called having a "move on your fingertips."
This is an awesome post PM. Thanks!
Aug 16, 2009
0
#15
Robert Fontaine (2567) vs. Maxime Vachier Lagrave (2595)!!! Men what a game.
saidh wrote:
No, saidh is saying that intuition is the perfect word for it but that the posters are using the term incorrectly.
Your intuition doesn't "grow" as some people are saying, your ability does. Your intuition is simply a sense of knowing where to look, impending danger, possible opportunity etc. with no rational base (For the media crowd: Spidey Sense). What they're talking about is ingraining patterns into your mind and then having a vague sense of them in novel situations. This is wholly rational: it is conditioning, practice, second nature, etc. Intuition is not secondary, it is primary.
Ah my friend, but there seems to be a bit of a hole in that logic. I do believe that intuition can be developed...you played a semantics game and said "refined."
Intuition is unexplainable... I agree, but everything comes from something, even if it you can't explain where it comes from. I think you mentioned earlier that capablanca was intuition... but he had to learn how the pieces move first and play games!
i am terrible at both things
I have a similar problem I can usally find the best move for my opponent. I have trouble playing through complicated board positions.
Completely agree that good chess intuition is subconscious calculation, you only need to be looking at a board tired - occasionally you will spot the flickers of shadowy movement as the pieces nip about, brought from the back of your brain into your eyes in your half-dream state, even though the weary conscious voice has only gotten as far as "Maybe this piece..."
Sometimes, I get this effect when looking at chess books. If I turn the page to a diagram of an opening I am familiar with, as my blurry eyes try to focus on the position, I watch (in a split second) all the men hop from their homes - in order - to arrange themselves in accord with the diagram.
Another factor is unconscious pattern recognition, a bit like Deja Vu - "hang on..." your brain is telling your mind, "...we've seen this before! And while you've been sleeping, I've been working on a better reply..."
Agree with that tonydal, tactics trainer *forces* you to find, see, or calculate the combination that you *know* must be present. There are times when I'm doing tactics where I think "boy, if I wasn't told there was something here, I wouldn't find it", and other times where I get something wrong where I think "I'd definitely find the right move in a game, I was just trying to be too flashy because it's a tactics problem".
Anyhoo, I think people are getting too bogged down in the semantics of what intuition is supposed to mean exactly. Seems like it's a player's gut instinct, and it also seems logical a player's gut instinct will improve the more experience he gets.
Intuition can help guide you on to the right paths to calculate, help you see ideas that rote calculation might not, or avert you from dangers you didn't even know existed. On the other hand, you still have to calculate, and calculate accurately. Your intuition might tell you something, but unless you calculate it properly, there's most probably gonna be some kind of hole.
Intuition is no substitute for thorough calculation in the end - it's just the start.
I've always had a hard time calculation. I've come to grips that it is one of my weaknesses. Not that I can't think a head, but I have a hard time anticipating the best moves for my opponent sometimes.
Seems like I always don't consider that "one move" that will substantially change the character of the position for my opponent. We've all been there... Your opponent makes some move that you didn't consider.
I've been hitting the tactics pretty hard lately on tactics trainer and other software (endgames too). To my delight, I've been improving in that area a little bit, though I have a looooong way to go.
I'm at about 2400 in tactics trainer and my highest rating was 2504. So, just when I'm happy that I'm in the top 100 (lol)... I would go back and forth from around 2100 to 2400 for the most part.
I've notice that my "gut" feeling has improved. So I am guessing that it's intuition. At first I thought it was luck, but I've been consistently lucky with guessing for sometime. I've noticed that I have frequently "guessed" the right move and later solved the calculation. I keep working at it though because there is usually a forced series of calculation on tactics trainer so it's disappointing when I get a problem correct by intuition sometimes.
I guess the question is really... how does intuition translate in Over the Board play? I mean, intuition is good, but if I am not able to calculate a basic 5-6 move combo accurately (consistently) . . . that is cause of some concern. Anyone had any experience with this? Is better intuition a sign of better calculation to come? lol
You can see the actual problem below