Training Program for the Untalented

In any case, this thread is not about a specific untalented player who has no business teaching chess. Rather, I’m looking for people to share ideas on how to teach such people. Players who spend regular time studying chess for years, but never rise even to the level of average club player. My suspicion is that such players have major defects in their game. How do we identify and correct these defects?

Questions about the imposter prof’s chess channel should be directed to one of the threads specifically about him.

Experience, as I thought should have been clear. I did not offer statistics. I’ve had much tougher games with 1200ish players OTB than I have had with 1700ish in correspondence.

I believe pfren is wrong about talent--but also right! There are plenty of people who work like dogs and never reach the level they dream of. Masters never become IMs, IMs never make grandmaster, and GMs never make it into that elite circle at the top. 

But talent, or the lack of it,  is NOT the reason that most of us don't get better in chess, or on the violin, or at golf. There is such a thing as talent, and it puts a ceiling on how much we can accomplish. But most of us never come close to that ceiling, so it's almost irrelevant who much "talent" we have

I'd have to say I agree with most of this. Not everyone can attain world champion status; otherwise, everyone competing in the Olympics would win gold. And while there are those with talent that don't have the self-discipline to push themselves to their peak, there are those with minimal talent that will never achieve any form of "greatness" no matter how hard they push themselves.

I have seen this while in the Air Force and while working in civilian life. Talent is no guarantee of success. Hard work and talent are required. However, no amount of hard work can compensate for the lack of talent.

I often tell people that I have no talent at chess, and that all my (somewhat limited) success is due to hard work. Of course, I might have reached greater heights if I had started younger, trained smarter.

Also, while playing 150,000 blitz and bullet games from ages 40 to 60 has given me immense experience that helps in certain situations, it has done even more to build and reinforce defects in my game that go back to childhood. “Deliberate Practice” (a term from the work of Anders Ericsson) would have targeted these defects with training exercises from the beginning.

I’ve learned my own defects by watching my own failures repeatedly. Even in blitz, my play is often too fast, my tactical vision too shallow. In longer games, I usually have plenty of time on my clock when I resign. I make these errors even though I point out to my students how the highest rated players are usually the last ones to finish their games.

For those who want to understand the role of talent vs. training, I highly recommend Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise (2017) by Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool. This book summarizes in plain language the life’s work of the scholar who has done more to illuminate the subject than anyone. Ericsson died earlier this summer, and it was only a month or so later that I learned about this book from the blog on this site of @RoaringPawn. I have been reading Ericcson’s scholarly work for about a decade or so, and that’s why you’ll find me arguing with people who think they understand the subject from the superficial fluff of Malcolm Gladwell.

I’ve been playing three blitz tournaments per week at the slowish time control of 5+2 since mid-July. All of my opponents have been lower rated, which brings out another defect in my game—playing to the level of my competition. Peak arrived a bit over two weeks ago. I’ve been targeting the defect of my haste and shallow thinking. This morning I used 56 and 44 seconds on two successive moves early in one game. I missed a mate in one on move 19, but had a clearly won game by move 16 and did win. I won all four games this morning. Only the second time I achieved that in this event. Also my score of 10-1-1 this week was my best week to date.

First, define "major defects". I would get them to annotate a game (prepare for in advance for memory issues) and go from there. I'd try to get an idea what and how they've studied. Afterwards, a test (or series of tests) to determine what's been learned and maybe what needs to be unlearned.

At some point, you'll need to consider the cost of the investment. Are you going to spend the next couple of years (700+ hours) getting someone to be an "average" player?

Some will take less time than others, but you don't know until you've started.

You mentioned Silman, his endgame book has structure based on rating ranges. I like the concept and think it can be applied to other phases as well.

Yes, my thoughts exactly. I remember you mentioned these books in your training material recommendations years ago.

I've often thought about making a card game out of it

No, really.

Because... I want to simplify the problem in front of them. In chess, at least as a beginner, when someone captures your knight, you're not allowed to be creative and dream of sacrificing it. You're required to recapture. Every time.

So the rules would be something like, I play a certain type of card. Doesn't matter, lets say it's red, face up. When a red card is face up, the other player is required to do the same, or they lose 1 point. If you lose 3 points the game is over.

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But you can build on this to introduce threats (and expand it to fairly complicated cases, but lets stay simple for now). Lets say I threaten an undefended knight. Well there are two basic options:
1) Remove the threat (via defense or literally moving it)
2) Creating a threat of equal or greater value

So in this case we'd have something like a yellow card with the number 3. When such a card is played you're required to play a yellow card with 3 or higher, or a "removal" card (which represents direct defense).

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Once they understand the concept, then give them example games to notate. They have to mark each time there was a capture and then also each time there was a recapture. They have to mark when there was a threat, and then how that threat was handled (defense or counter), and finally they have to mark whenever a player failed to preform a required action.

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You can also use this for tactics, because again, I think it's useful to be explicit. Lets say I have a rook lined up with your exposed king. The only thing between is my knight, and it's my turn. What will I do? I will look for the most valuable piece my knight can attack. 

Or lets say you fork two of my pieces. I will try to have one of them escape by giving a check or creating a big threat or capture. If I can't then I will give up the one that's less valuable.

Again I think it's important to be explicit In situation A your options are 1, 2, 3, etc.

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If the problem is board vision, I've seen an exercise some coaches do with new children, and that's to place a piece on a board, and have the child answer "how many legal moves does this piece have?" and you do it for various pieces in various positions. It forces them to count squares too, which is a good introduction to piece activity... I know piece activity may seem irrelevant to emphasize to a student who can't hang on to their material, but in reality most moves of a chess game are not forcing moves, so even a total beginner needs to have some idea of what to do for those moves too.

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Just a few thoughts I've had kicking around for a while.

What we called talent is just about quick learner and slow learner. A slow learner can reach High ratings if he has Dedication for chess. Similar to other skills. 

A long time ago when the bunny studied (learnt maybe an incorrect assumption)  group theory, finite automata, formal proof, etc he wondered how much better it would have been to have learnt them as part of elementary math education. However at that early age perhaps most wouldn't even comprehend it.

So where did the education system start? With a lot of assumptions and hidden premises so that you can at least play the game. Later you learn the assumptions don't always apply and get a hint of the hidden premises. Some don't advance beyond basic arithmetic. Some can only do applied math. Some revel in theory. Some don't care.

Did it work for everyone?  Was it optimal even for the majority? 

The bunny forgot why he wrote all that. 

Reminds me of a numberphile video where the interviewer asks the mathematician something along the lines of
art teachers tell us we need more exposure to and appreciation of art, literature teachers say the same for books, history teachers advocate for history, so when you say the same for math what do you think makes your argument more compelling than theirs given that kids only have so many hours in a day?

This is of course completely unrelated to the topic, but his answer was that if a person is interested in art they know where to find it, they go to a museum. If they're interested in history they can go to the library, but math is mysterious, and people don't even know how a person can go about learning some of these beautiful things that have been discovered.

As a martial arts instructor (which requires training and discipline, just like chess), if I have a student who isn't showing any signs of improvement after a period of time or sign of talent I normally just take them to one side and tell them outright that there's no real sign of them improving, and that they're welcome to carry on but if I was them I'd maybe look at doing something else other than martial arts (or in this case, chess).

Anyway, @Ziryab I recall a story from the forums years ago about a player who struggled a lot to improve, but he honestly didn't know losing pawns or minor pieces was bad. In his mind only queens and rooks could realistically be expected to give checkmate, so during the course of a game losing a knight wasn't something to worry about.

So that's why I try to be explicit with things that may seem overly obvious to you or many others... when your opponent captures here are your only options... when your opponent makes a threat these are your only options... etc.

Seems pragmatic.

Well there way I see it, if you're not improving your wasting the coaches time when he could be teaching a student who'll improve and climb up the ranks, and you're wasting your time and money on something you maybe shouldn't be doing.

More pragmatic on the wallet would be to charge them more and put them on solo unsupervised drills forever.

Yeah, but as much as I love money that seems kinda scummy. And it gives you a bad reputation, so you'll end up losing money because potential clients have heard what you've done and decide to go to someone else.

A couple of people have mentioned the Steps Method. I happen to think they're great teaching tools. For a really weak player who wants to improve, the Chess Tutor step 1 software, possibly followed by the Chess Tutor step 2 will really help them improve

https://www.stappenmethode.nl/en/chess-tutor.php

So you're telling me you'd rather live in blissful ignorance thinking you're doing good or ok?

Yeah, makes sense.