Truly insightful. You have articulated what I have been thinking for some time. May I add that grounding this thinking in prophylaxis by asking the first question, “what is my opponent trying to do?”. Has certainly helped me.
Good luck with your book. I have enjoyed following your journey immensely.
Thanks. That's a great way to ground our thinking. I've been using the "What is that?" trigger - trying to label their move as attack, defense, maneuver, or mistake. I'm not sure there's a best way, but clearly doing something like what you do is a best practice.
Great post! I agree with the primary thesis of playing a lot and using mistakes to guide your focus in study. As a corollary, I'd suggest that many adults need to be playing faster games online. Not necessarily blitz (and certainly not bullet), but at least rapid. Learning from mistakes is to some extent a volume game, and it's extremely difficult to get the necessary volume through OTB tournaments alone.
Thanks! I might agree about the volume approach. I guess it depends. What time control does the student care about to bring focus and their best effort? That would be the games I’d suggest they practice. For example, no matter how much I try I just don’t focus with blitz. Rapid is good too, but I’m trying to practice slowing down and having long thinks.
I’ve really enjoyed your posts and use them as a chess trainer to better understand my students and what they struggle with. And I’ve shared some of your insights with a few of them as well. I hope your book writing goes well and that you come back once in a while to write a little about chess as well.
I see more and more clearly how adult improvers can use chess to improve their psychological skill set also for other areas than just this board game. It is one thing to understand what one fails at, but a whole other challenge to improve on it when one is under pressure in a live game. It’s like we get possessed and don’t understand our thinking at all afterwards ;-) It’s brutal!
Your writing is inspiring. I have read and re-read your posts, especially the last three. It's exciting to hear that you have gained what's necessary to take on this next challenge. I wish you success and hope you will drop a knowledge/insight missive here every once in a while. I am grateful for your efforts to help us (me) improve.
First thank you for your posts. Endless information. Makes sense for the need to take a break and play some chess. This is the best article on improvement I can recall reading in a long time. Will refer to it often when needing redirection from all the choices and information overload for improvement out there that will distract me from playing which is the reason I picked up the game just over 5 years ago. Great comparison to medical insights and treatment choices as well. Thank you again.
Doctor Nick - Thanks for another great perspective on chess improvement. All of your posts have been spot on and full of very useful insights and ideas. You will be missed here, but all the best in your next writing adventure. Also wishing you continued improvement on your chess journey.
I'm sorry to hear you're stopping your posts. I have really enjoyed them. I too think there's a lot said about chess psychology but most of it isn't really psychology and chess, if you see what I mean. There is a real dearth of research. There is a lot said, for example about, how to spend most of your time on tactics (e.g. as in the Woodpecker or de la Maza) and how they lead to improvement, but I have never seen a study comparing the benefits of doing two hours a day (say) on tactics compared with a control decision of doing two hours a day on chess in general. Anyway good luck with the book and thanks for the emails.
A fantastic post as always. I have recently also came to the same conclusion that playing (reps) is so important. I act a little bit differently in my post game losses or wins. What I have started to do is put each and every mistake or blunder into my own chessable courses so I can run those mistakes through their spaced repetition. It has been working extremely well.
Great article Nick. I can’t believe I’m only finding your work when you’re about to stop!
The point about not making mistakes really stand out, as being a doctor who played a lot of chess as a kid, those of us who did well tended to have a similar mindset. This was mainly not losing material, as when you think about it you only need to be up a single pawn to win a game as it can be converted to a Queen or Rook.
As a basic foundation, one can get away with just learning at least two things.
1) Learn a basic checkmate pattern – K+Q/R vs K.
2) Learn about the opposition and how to convert K+P vs K games.
Then during games, whenever you are up material, exchanging pieces and winning more material to get to a winning pawn endgame becomes a viable strategy. Or if you have a winning attack that you don’t have time or skill to calculate for an elaborate checkmate but can see a way to simplify to a material advantage you have the option of taking that path.
To me this is the Chess equivalent of first principles.
Then one can look at devising approaches for not blundering pieces or winning material through tactics, puzzles, opening prep etc. For a lot of us that was the winning formula. At a certain point your opposition will get stronger to the point where this doesn’t work, as they don’t blunder material. Then one has to start to think about developing positional strategies or other methods to gain an advantage.
On the flip side, you can also rely on others snatching material to your advantage too with openings like the Queens Gambit or Vienna Gambit being great knowledge checks for beginners as they lead to early traps if Black is greedy and unprepared.
probably one of the best adult improver articles i have read Dr. Vasquez, thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to write.
Thank you Gus, it's been a pleasure and a passion of mine. I hope you've found it helpful!
I really appreciate your perspective as a MD. Great posts!
Thanks Martin! Best of luck to you and your pursuit!
Truly insightful. You have articulated what I have been thinking for some time. May I add that grounding this thinking in prophylaxis by asking the first question, “what is my opponent trying to do?”. Has certainly helped me.
Good luck with your book. I have enjoyed following your journey immensely.
Thanks. That's a great way to ground our thinking. I've been using the "What is that?" trigger - trying to label their move as attack, defense, maneuver, or mistake. I'm not sure there's a best way, but clearly doing something like what you do is a best practice.
Great post! I agree with the primary thesis of playing a lot and using mistakes to guide your focus in study. As a corollary, I'd suggest that many adults need to be playing faster games online. Not necessarily blitz (and certainly not bullet), but at least rapid. Learning from mistakes is to some extent a volume game, and it's extremely difficult to get the necessary volume through OTB tournaments alone.
Thanks! I might agree about the volume approach. I guess it depends. What time control does the student care about to bring focus and their best effort? That would be the games I’d suggest they practice. For example, no matter how much I try I just don’t focus with blitz. Rapid is good too, but I’m trying to practice slowing down and having long thinks.
Great post Nick, you hit the nail on the head. Good luck with the book, I look forward to it!
The funny thing is that after all these posts I could write an adult improvement book too! Maybe one day
I’ve really enjoyed your posts and use them as a chess trainer to better understand my students and what they struggle with. And I’ve shared some of your insights with a few of them as well. I hope your book writing goes well and that you come back once in a while to write a little about chess as well.
I see more and more clearly how adult improvers can use chess to improve their psychological skill set also for other areas than just this board game. It is one thing to understand what one fails at, but a whole other challenge to improve on it when one is under pressure in a live game. It’s like we get possessed and don’t understand our thinking at all afterwards ;-) It’s brutal!
Good luck with your book!
Thanks for your comment and I wish you luck with your teaching. We improvers just need to keep the faith that improvement will come.
Your writing is inspiring. I have read and re-read your posts, especially the last three. It's exciting to hear that you have gained what's necessary to take on this next challenge. I wish you success and hope you will drop a knowledge/insight missive here every once in a while. I am grateful for your efforts to help us (me) improve.
Thank you Anthony, that’s very kind of you. Wishing you best of luck with your chess!
First thank you for your posts. Endless information. Makes sense for the need to take a break and play some chess. This is the best article on improvement I can recall reading in a long time. Will refer to it often when needing redirection from all the choices and information overload for improvement out there that will distract me from playing which is the reason I picked up the game just over 5 years ago. Great comparison to medical insights and treatment choices as well. Thank you again.
Doctor Nick - Thanks for another great perspective on chess improvement. All of your posts have been spot on and full of very useful insights and ideas. You will be missed here, but all the best in your next writing adventure. Also wishing you continued improvement on your chess journey.
Thank you! It’s a grind!
Thanks for the very helpful post and links. Good luck with your book. Looking forward to seeing it when it's done!
I'm sorry to hear you're stopping your posts. I have really enjoyed them. I too think there's a lot said about chess psychology but most of it isn't really psychology and chess, if you see what I mean. There is a real dearth of research. There is a lot said, for example about, how to spend most of your time on tactics (e.g. as in the Woodpecker or de la Maza) and how they lead to improvement, but I have never seen a study comparing the benefits of doing two hours a day (say) on tactics compared with a control decision of doing two hours a day on chess in general. Anyway good luck with the book and thanks for the emails.
A fantastic post as always. I have recently also came to the same conclusion that playing (reps) is so important. I act a little bit differently in my post game losses or wins. What I have started to do is put each and every mistake or blunder into my own chessable courses so I can run those mistakes through their spaced repetition. It has been working extremely well.
Thanks! I updated the post with chessable courses mentioned. Keep up the good work on your Substack!
You as well.
Thanks, Nick, and all the best, John.
Excellent post. Thanks.
Great article Nick. I can’t believe I’m only finding your work when you’re about to stop!
The point about not making mistakes really stand out, as being a doctor who played a lot of chess as a kid, those of us who did well tended to have a similar mindset. This was mainly not losing material, as when you think about it you only need to be up a single pawn to win a game as it can be converted to a Queen or Rook.
As a basic foundation, one can get away with just learning at least two things.
1) Learn a basic checkmate pattern – K+Q/R vs K.
2) Learn about the opposition and how to convert K+P vs K games.
Then during games, whenever you are up material, exchanging pieces and winning more material to get to a winning pawn endgame becomes a viable strategy. Or if you have a winning attack that you don’t have time or skill to calculate for an elaborate checkmate but can see a way to simplify to a material advantage you have the option of taking that path.
To me this is the Chess equivalent of first principles.
Then one can look at devising approaches for not blundering pieces or winning material through tactics, puzzles, opening prep etc. For a lot of us that was the winning formula. At a certain point your opposition will get stronger to the point where this doesn’t work, as they don’t blunder material. Then one has to start to think about developing positional strategies or other methods to gain an advantage.
On the flip side, you can also rely on others snatching material to your advantage too with openings like the Queens Gambit or Vienna Gambit being great knowledge checks for beginners as they lead to early traps if Black is greedy and unprepared.
FYI the link to everyones first chess workbook goes directly to apple website and not the book
I’ll fix it. Thanks!