Visualization pt. 2

(Hmm, if you haven't read part one I would go ahead and read that first.)

I think the way I personally define visualization should not be revealed with caution - as they were an integral part of breaking my plateau, and I have a personal connection with it. While personally I think this discussion offers something different terms of what has been discovered by traditional means in chess literature and science, I still firmly believe that the elements of chess improvement too very dynamic to have any static view on chess. So I went ahead and used some sources to help us without my firsthand opinion

A few things that came to mind during this search for the definition of "visualization", and this article Whos Doing the Playing? assisted in helping me put the pieces together.

As Aagaard effectively put it - solving exercises is an excellent way to improve your ability to calculate, visualize, and improve many different facets of your game. This statement is absolutely spot on - but there lies an inherent problem (which is discussed in part 1) in this thesis.

To recap, there seems to be a foundation of skills that you must be able to acquire or inherently possess (which Rune Vik Hansen supports as a product of nature than nurture) before engaging the process of "calculation", which authors such as Dvoretsky ignore altogether, and many other authors that unsuccessfully in my opinion try to tackle.

Vik-Hansen includes many hidden truths in the psychology of the mind - how it operates, and why people excel in various activities. While his discoveries aren't really a beacon to chess improvement itself, it is possible to deduce certain possibilities that can be derived to fix some of his assessments, which would otherwise be an impassable road block in ones chess improvement. If you read clearly the Introduction and the sections on conscious memory, acquisition of chess skills, it is clear that there were players such as Fischer or Carlsen where operatives relevant to "visualization" happen subconsciously.

If there is some underlying skill set is required before engaging in the training of calculation itself, I believe it would make sense to acquire these abilities which is believed to be for many, one of generic inheritance.

Vik-Hansen discusses inherent differences between say a prodigy - and a person who insists on working incredibly hard on the game, and for Nakamura fans, he is an example of a player purportedly only to spend 1-2 hours a day on chess if he FEELS like it, and still is capable of maintaining a world class rank. But quickly put our telescope on our hero, the club player who has spent many years of his life accumulating chess wisdom, and we can already see the difficulty that is exclusive to our passion to the royal game.

The question will always be for me - How to use all of this arbitrary knowledge and combine it to something that can actually assist in the search for chess excellence?
It is primarily the discovery of a concrete method which emulates the processes of subconcious of capable players such as Carlsen, Ivanchuk, and Fischer as described by Vik Hansen.

Yes, this guy calculates looking at the ceiling

Perhaps it is a fruitless search, and perhaps the method I have personally derived is not one of use- but it is a worthy question posed to the reader- What is my ethos? What are these "methods"? What is visualization? Is it genetically inherited? If it is (or even if not) is it attainable through hard work?

The answer to this question lies in how you form your own answer, because perhaps there is no one single answer. However if we look back to Richard Reti, and players such as Lajos Portisch, a significantly small number of players have been able to achieve the highest levels from hard work alone - but is it the work of a philosopher who have found an answer to this discussion? Or was it the sheer amount of work that was to be done as proposed by the Soviet Chess School, Dvoretsky, or Aagaard? Or is there some other discussion that is capable of encompassing "visualization" in itself?

While I cannot provide a sufficient answer for my credibility (perhaps it is more credible for a Grandmaster to have a confirming definition of all of this) , nor can I divulge such methods as I personally believe ones own the search for the answer of trying to define "visualization" and development of this skill is a fascination that should reap dividends.

At the end, I believe the answers posed in our lack of definition of visualization can we examine at the roots - the psychological nuances of how we interpret information - and why certain information is with-held much more quickly, whereas some other forms of patterns are not recognized with extended study.

For the "mortal" chess player, is there importance to find the answer to such a simple question? What is "visualization?, and how can it be developed?

After reading many books on these topics (Road to Chess Improvement by Yermolinsky, Rapid Chess Improvement by la Maza, Excelling at Chess by Aagaard, Excelling at Calculation, by Aagaard, Secrets of Chess Excellence - Tactical Play by Dvoretsky) I came to the conclusion that these books suggest that only by extensive study can we be able to cultivate such skills.

I felt that they all offered a piece of the answer to defining "visualization", but they all seem to suggest something that is impractical for the majority of chess players, which includes methods of just sheer amounts of work. Perhaps this is the answer, but perhaps working more intelligently to a focused effort to define "visualization" can we ultimately understand chess.

Just some food for thought, there will probably be a part 3 when I finally spill the beans of what and how I personally define "visualization", and some lost soul reading this will get something out of it. But perhaps what I am revealing is more untruth, which this untruth was misguidedly increasing my playing skill in dramatic fashion.

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...

Rapid Tournament

Here's an interesting loss, although I think part of the reason of the loss was that it was really really quick. I also didn't understand how the modern defense works, and missed some interesting chances.




I was down to the last minutes and lost on time. I'd post my wins but they were rather uninteresting. Maybe I should ditch these weekend swiss.

Update: This game was part of a relatively successful tournament scoring 2.5/4 against expert opposition. For theory buffs, 10.e5! secures a decisive advantage heading into the endgame. For example, 10...Nc5 11.0-0-0 dxe5 12.Bxc5 Qxc5 13.Qxb7! heading into a razor attack with upon proper defense leads to a lost endgame. However the game turns into a dynamically equal game where white is outplayed.

The Ball Is Still Rolling (and small review of Dvoretsky's Analytical Manual)

Haven't posted in a bit.

Back to back OTB tournaments coming... I'll be posting games and results here. My time currently had been occupied working and basically in this time with the economy this bad, trying to be a chessmaster can arguably be digging your own grave!

I purchased Mark Dvoretsky's Analytical Manual, and this book is sheer self esteem killer. It is a very difficult book not only by its sheer analytical content, but the work on the reader's part is very demanding. If your skills in analysis are weak, then trying to analyze deeply will take much time on your part, but that is the purpose of this book really - to highlight your analytical weaknesses and fine tune your intuition.

 Just from the first article, it is easy to get lost in the complications and spend hours analyzing over 100 variations maybe 15 moves long each. A lot of the earlier games are like this - looking for a true verdict of the game because the computer often cannot. Much of that content isn't too practical if you were to take the whole game as a training method (perhaps if you are already IM/GM this might be different), but each segment of analysis can be treated as a training exercise, which the author himself duly suggests.

The more practical material of this book is in the middle of the book, where you can simply take the moves and stop at the diagrams and try to think along the lines of the titled players. This is a superb training method advocated by Mark himself and certainly much more practical. But most of this book are gems you have to unearth yourself, lazy/busy quick fix readers should try to find something else that has much more practical content, because this book does not mess around. 

To sum it up, you don't read the book, the book reads YOU.

I digress, I'll post my games this weekend.

Tickets and... Money

Bleh, my tournament plans have been blown since my already tight budget, and what was left of what I could spend went to a speeding ticket.

This got me thinking about the issue of whether or not chess is really "cheap" to play. Proponents of the game will tell you that it is a relatively cheap game to play and enjoy, and will not cost as much as an Xbox, sports equipment, the list goes on.

I thought about how much I was spending on tournaments, and this is the money I had to pay play in a local tournament. (This is all US dollar amounts.)

USCF Dues: 40$

State Federation Dues: 60$

Tournament fees: 20-60$

Now, this is taking consideration that I don't even own a very nice chess set - one of those cheapo ones that barely get by in tournament play. Also, I don't even own a personal clock. Let's see how much some of these things would cost.

Chronos Clock : 100$

Nice set: 30-40$

Cheap clock: 30$

Cheap set: 15-20$

I suppose this a lot of this is static, and some of the fees are only yearly, or monthly. But look how much I spent in one of the bigger United States Events. I suppose it is correct for it to cost a bit more, being the "national" open and all, but there isn't much stronger competition around where I live so I have to travel to these things just for some exposure to stronger opponents.

National Open:

(I had already invested in the "standard static" equipment.)

The Commute : 100$ in gas

Housing: 200$

Tournament Fees: 120$ approximately

This doesn't really take account to all the expenses, but its already a picture of how much it may add up just to play chess. Take in account I went to VEGAS with a budget that small  (just enough to eat, stay there, and play chess, and an occasional drink) and barely scraped by.

I suppose it isn't TOO bad compared to other things, like poker, but damn, speeding is the last thing I thought that would have affected my game.

Tabiyas

Hmm what are tabiyas... it's kind of like the battlefield where two players will play when the resulting position comes up from a few very standard moves of theory (thats my guess, I'm sure I'm missing something here.)

Apparently, my openings suck really bad. I noticed from annotating some of my older games, that I was fighting back from slightly worse positions, or even near lost positions and getting out of the struggle with an advantage. I think this is going to be bad for the future development of my chess, but this is no easy task on top of a normal training schedule, and on top of a "normal" life.

My coach stumped me on about move 5 into the French Defense, which kind of pissed me off because I didn't want to engage in a long theoretical debate for the duration of the time we spent together (a lot of the ideas are covered in textbooks and database dumps). But he made a good point - why do your openings suck so bad?! 

 

I noticed when I was studying a variation in the Dragon Sicilian, the main tabiya was considered to end with your typical Yugoslav position with the bishop on c4, and then rook on c8. However I ended up having a bunch of Be2's instead of Bc4's which made it slightly confusing, especially from the fact that I had spent much of my time studying the "main lines". 

Even worse as an e4 player, Black often opts for these really stupid sidelines that work in rapid games, such as a really ugly a6 b5 plan, or some immediate Na5 action, and in some lines white has already pushed h4 or even h5 and some he hasn't even touched the h pawn.

My god it is brutal losing some of these caveman attack games to 1200 - 1500 players. I don't even know how it happens, as Bobby Fischer once said, any patzer can pry open the h-file and throw the kitchen sink and hope to win. Unfortunately it seems like a complete self esteem killer to be much stronger overall (if game wasn't blitz and razor sharp I think the theoretical gap would close a bit).

I guess it pays to understand all tabiyas of a certain system you want to play, in my case in the dragon, the battlefield consists of trying to equalize in the meek Be2 lines, and aiming for sharp play with the black pieces in the classical Yugoslav line with Bc4, but then it begs the question - how important is the opening? 

Is it worth it to sacrifice this time rather than to study tactics, middlegames, endgames? I don't even feel sometimes that it's possible to actually calculate anything in the Dragon, you kind of just make a guess and hope it ends up well... bleh, watching me wade through these craptacular sidelines in blitz makes me want to puke, but losing I suppose weedles out a lot of the bad lines.

I was playing some themed blitz with an 1850 player, and it seemed like after the opening tabiya was reached, even if theory was met, both players were really on their own devices, and whoevers tactics were superior really mattered in the end. I sometimes feel that some of these sacrifices though, are way too standard, and it almost feels like luck when one side wins. It's kind of an odd way to play chess if you ask me - it's somewhat of a lottery when it's this sharp, and both players can't calculate worth their salt. I suppose it's a sharp mix of intuitive tactics, some calculation, and some positional ideas all imbedded, and I can say that most club players are incapable in all these areas, which really does make some opening tabiyas feel like a lottery drawing.

Anyway I suppose analyzing a ton of these games might help, it looks like even a lot of strong players were felled by just opening knowledge in this line alone... maybe it's time to ditch my desire to play c5, or maybe have it as a surprise weapon.

And I was Rybka...

I was thinking over some opening lines instead of actually training (I suppose general opening studies is training...), and decided to play a bunch of themed games against a 2300 rated blitz player named pollock. I also play on FICS, and I had encountered him, and thought of him as a general nice guy. I had asked him some questions regarding opening play, and he had a lot of insightful ideas.

I was asking him if he wanted to help me learn some Sicilian tabiyas, and he accepted. My rating on FICS is about 2200, but on ICC I was rated about 1400 in blitz because my mouse was broken when I had played all my provisional games. We were to play some games in the Sicilian Dragon where neither of us were booked up, but he was getting torn to shreds in the tactical melee, and decided to start using his main opening weapons because he was angry at losing.

In our unrated games, the score was heavily in my favor in the themed games. He started getting angry and started switching move order to try to confuse me and played really offbeat Sicilians, when he agreed to play themed games in the Sicilian Dragon. 

In this game, I suppose he had enough of losing, and he moved to his main weapons in the Ruy Lopez for no apparent reason, and barraged me with insults, which I find hilarious.

On about move 19, I receieved the message:

pollock: you are computer assisted

mkeaton: that is pretty flattering but i am not cheating

pollock: ive reported you

mkeaton: go ahead, im not even cheating

pollock: dont worry i already reported you

mkeaton: lol... this is extremely flattering...

On move 41, I think he went absolutely mentally berserk, believing that his assumption that I was a computer. He sent a large amount of obscenities and I sat there laughing. I think this bodes well for my chances for Candidate Master, if I can play like Rybka ;).

It's surprising to me how some people are extremely friendly when they think they are better than you, standing on a high horse. I suppose I'm not any better but I don't like double standards. This same guy was telling me how to play chess a few days ago, and upon losing a few blitz games, goes berserk and calls me a bunch of obscenities.

On a lighter note, Vojislav Milanovic has revealed himself to be quite adept deadpan humor and sarcasm.

voja(IM): alright i need you to send me your latest losses from tournament games or standard games from ICC

voja(IM): it should be an easy task 

mkeaton: i havent lost in the last few tournaments ive played

voja(IM): im sure you can look for them

mkeaton: no really, i don't remember losing a serious tournament game since vegas, which is almost me not losing this whole year.

voja(IM): well, you dont need lessons from me, you are already world champion :)