Visualization

This series is a part of the search for excellence since my first log, and have found discomfort in classical methods and modern methods that I have researched that is popular in chess literature and culture. Methods proposed from the extremes of the Russian School of Chess and the fast-food methods proposed such as by De La Maza, I was left feeling at large unsatisfied. So in this series what I wanted to do was to share with you some of my findings, confusions, and opinions about what I believe is the foundation of chess excellence - visualization.

Many authors have tried to define the word "visualization" in chess literature. I had often looked for a sort of "conclusive" answer to it, and although many author addressed the problem of developing this visualization ability, there is still much confusion about a word that is repeatedly seen in chess literature. It is often confused with calculation, tactics, combinations, and pattern recognition. Now I will choose a few authors whom I think are the leading or are current modern writers of this subject, and present some of the problems which I feel are present in their methods.

For example, Dvoretsky's books in general are fantastic in giving such precise definition of such chess terms, but often the suggested methods of training are either not addressed, or Dvoretsky already assumes that the reader already had acquired the basic abilities due to his target audience of his books. Consider a player like Ivanchuk, who at an early age was already capable of calculating moves in his head, by staring into the blank air. If his message is "canon" so to speak, then the target audience is not accessible to a vast majority of chess players.

Ivanchuk - known to have advanced abilities at a young age.

In his "School of Chess Excellence Tactical Play", he very well defines the varying tools necessary to excel at tactical play - visualization (here it is again) and ability to calculate deeply. However his exercises are aimed at already accomplished players capable of handling volumes of calculation further than your average player.

In Aagaard's "Excelling at Chess Calculation", he suggests that an issue with many players is that that they want to improve their results - but often the book is aimed at a level above which they currently perform. He suggests that they do not have the abilities to tackle the particular tools (such as Kotov's Think like a Grandmaster's tree analysis technique), but that this ability can be trained.

I found this all dandy - but he does not actually particularly SUGGEST how this training can be done (besides the two magical three words you can see in a stock tactics / studies books - "Solving MANY Exercises"). Then he talks about the calculation process and its pitfalls, which arguably should be placed after his (lacking) discussion of visualization.

White to move... Perhaps Aagaard expects a little too much out of club players?

The first 10 pages of his book tries to persuade that you have to have a certain level of tactical ability before tackling positions that require refined calculating abilities. Ironically his previous work that also tackles calculation called "Excelling at Combinational Play" contains exercises that are incredibly difficult. However in the prose, he uses very simple examples to illustrate the elements of successful combinational play. This creates a very jarring effect, since it is similar to introducing a child simple arithmetic, then giving him exercises on calculus. How this is acceptable in a chess book is somewhat baffling to me, and it should not be in this manner just because chess literature in the past (and even now) are very cryptic.

Both books by Aagaard include good information about the process during the calculation, such as blind spots in calculation which may include intermediate moves and quiet moves that are easy to miss. They are very helpful tips during calculation, and many of these micro-tips deserve praise as the author explores his own games where he had failed to utilize these techniques.

In the remaining chapters of his book "Excelling at Chess Calculation", Aagaard tackles visualization (why he introduced the topic then talks about it later 60 pages later is beyond me, although I understand his reasoning - there is some confusion in calculation/combinations/visualization to be interconnected, but he also fails here), and how players calculate. He offers a trick called "Stepping Stones" (a fixed position in your mind and you calculate from there), but he never at one point clearly defined what visualization is, and its relevance to the only technique he offers to help the student calculate. In his defense, he writes:

"Stepping-stones have a lot to do with focusing and visualization. You could argue that you need to improve your visualization ability before you can use stepping-stones. But actually I see it as a chicken and egg question: who cares which was first when you can get fried chicken?"

So to my disappointment, most of the prose in this book talks about the calculation process - but not how to particularly develop these skills (beyond the study of tactical exercises), and visualization at large seems to be a vague topic.

It is interesting to me because it is commonplace for many people to solve literally tens of thousands of chess tactics puzzles, but remain somewhere in the 1500-2000 range even after extensive time dedicated to studying tactics. Maybe they need to study other parts of the game, openings, endgames, middlegames, psychology, whatever it is, but it's possible to still see very basic tactical oversights in their games (and mine included).

1. Is it the quality or difficulty of the exercises?
2. Are the problems in these books too difficult?
3. Is there a collection of slightly EASIER but still out of comfort zone exercises?
4. And who gauges this?
5. Are authors holding out, or are they merely already incapable of reaching out to the club player?
6. Are these authors slightly off the mark? (or way off!)

It is a possibility that the answer to any of these are yes, seeing they are already accomplished Grandmasters/World class trainers, but none of these questions answer the problem that persists: both authors advocate that you need "visualization" as the core to your development, but in Aagaard's books, he does not clearly define them, nor offer a (good) solution to develop visualization. And in Dvoretsky's works, the material is largely focused on players who are already developed where this is not an obstacle.

I came to some interesting conclusions on my own after a lot of research, which I will post later...