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Tacit chess knowledge

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rtr1129
rtr1129
Jan 17, 2014
0
#1

Here is one way of breaking down chess knowledge:

  1. Explicit knowledge - Knowledge that is easily transferable from one person to another. An example outside of chess would be baking a cake, you just follow a recipe. Examples in chess are opening theory, endgame technique, and various anecdotal knowledge like the 3-vs-3 pawn break.
  2. Tacit knowledge - Knowledge which is not easily transferable. A non-chess example is facial recognition. It's not easy to explain how you recognize thousands of faces, you just do it. Chess examples would be developing a feel for initiative, maintaining tension, and various pattern recognition.
Explicit knowledge is what most of us learn first. It makes sense, because it is relatively easier, because there is a straightforward path to acquiring it.

But there seems to be a danger in learning explicit chess knowledge first, because it's a rather prescriptive approach. You aren't learning how to think about chess. You are only learning a bunch of anecdotal knowledge that you try to piece together when you play. You could spend years developing bad chess habits this way. Your reason for everything you do is "because I read it in a book", and you can't think for yourself. Then once you plateau, you will probably be craving the tacit knowledge you lack, but you have been playing a prescriptive game for so many years that bad habits will be hard to break, and you may be forever stuck at the explicit knowledge ceiling.
 
So it seems that focusing your efforts on acquiring tacit knowledge first will give you the highest ceiling. You can always add the straightforward explicit knowledge later once you have established good chess habits.
 
But what makes up tacit chess knowledge? How do you learn to think about chess in the correct way?
tooWEAKtooSL0W
tooWEAKtooSL0W
Jan 17, 2014
0
#2

I think tacit knowledge would just come from experience. So as long as you play a lot of games while studying openings/tactics/strategy etc, you should get the best of both worlds.

rtr1129
rtr1129
Jan 17, 2014
0
#3

Yes, but there must be a mental framework for chess. For instance, here is something along the lines I am looking for. See Yaroslavl's first reply in this thread:

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/game-analysis/what-the-was-he-playing-and-how-did-he-win?page=1

He talks about the 3 advantages in chess, and methods of exploiting an advantage in space. This seems very valuable in the big picture. I know the work required to be able to use this kind of knowledge OTB requires studying many master games, but surely someone has fleshed out these elements. Sure there is material, time, and space, but are there more? And how do things like initiative fit?

MasterDuffer
MasterDuffer
Jan 17, 2014
0
#4

I suppose it's much like learning any complex skill. At first, when playing games or analysing positions, you need to think about what you need to think about. With enough repetition the process becomes automatic.

alec104
alec104
Jan 18, 2014
0
#5

You guys make Chess sound like it's a complex physics or math test.

Instead think of Winning Chess and Combination play like music with beautiful tempo flow and harmony all coming together like this.........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ptfyhBjXj8

MasterDuffer
MasterDuffer
Jan 18, 2014
0
#6

Not everybody can play music like that.