Play first, study later

Proposing a theory of chess improvement for adults

Welcome back to Chess in Small Doses. Today I finish the series of posts that began with the review of a book. With What it Take to Become a Chess Master I argued that visualization is the key skill that enables all the others. Then it followed with Breaking Through The Wall where I explored deliberate practice. Today I propose a theory of improvement for adult improvers. There’s so many options on how to structure our practice that I feel the simplest and most powerful steps have been overlooked. We need to play first and study later. Let’s get into it.

We have a problem

I have a confession to make.   Much of what doctors do isn’t evidence based, it’s our opinion.   Granted it’s an educated opinion, but its opinion nonetheless.   Officially we call this consensus guidelines.  We don’t do this out of malice, but out of need.   In general we lack hard, quality evidence about what is the best treatment.

Of course this is because good research is hard to do. It requires money, expertise, and time.   To make matters worse, science in general is suffering from a replication crisis.   Often the biggest findings turn out over time to be overblown or don’t hold up to scrutiny.  With the evidence we do have, can we just broadly apply it to everyone?   Many research studies only use male subjects for multiple reasons. This makes the research easier to finish, but obviously not better.   The end result is that much of what we do in medicine is like giving everyone a medium shirt.   It’s the most likely to fit but oddly, probably not the right one for you.   Afterwards we try to tailor the shirt so it fits better.   They don’t call it practice for nothing.

Chess Consensus

Chess has the same kind of problem.   There are a lot of opinions but not a lot of evidence.   Chess improvement as field in general has a complete lack of good solid research on how best to teach people chess.   There’s a lot of observational data and individual stories, but the plural of anecdotes is not data.   You can tell that chess improvement is the land of opinion since there are schools of thought (somewhat like philosophy) that focus on different aspect of the game.  Study tactics, practice endgames, forget openings, start with pattern recognition… etc.   However, if 20+ years of medicine has taught me anything it’s that consensus guidelines are usually 50/50.  Meaning about half of what is recommended is likely beneficial and half is not.   That’s potentially a lot of wasted time, money, and effort.

The current consensus was best summarize by Ben Johnson in his excellent book, Perpetual Chess Improvement.  In it he cites 4 pillars of chess improvement:

1. Tournament games and their substitutes

2. Game Analysis

3. Calculation and pattern recognition

4. Coaches, chess friends and mentors

This is essentially the path I have taken and would in general recommend.  But much of this is from direct observation and expert players who have already surpassed critical levels.   How applicable is it to everyone?   Hard to say.

Most of the science and research around chess (and there is a lot) is focused not on improvement but whether chess helps other things.   Secondary outcomes like focus, math scores, memory, cognitive ability in seniors, and achievement in school have all been looked at.   Much of what we’re told to do comes from learning science.   The book Make it Stick notes the power of spaced repetition and interleaving.   The book How we Learn noted research that shows we retain more material if we take the test first and then study afterwards.   Both of them highlight that time spent studying a single subject is often wasted since our brains tend to not remember information this way.   (And yet we still try cramming subjects one by one.)  As helpful as this is, none of this is specific to chess.  I have a problem with the consensus guidelines and our approach to chess improvement in general (but not you Ben, you and your book is awesome).

Not a knowledge contest

My problem is that I and many adults start out treating chess like a knowledge contest.   We buy books, we study courses, we watch videos, and get coaching.   The options honestly are overwhelming and many people get lost, switching from resource to resource.   We try to prepare for games like we would a test.   We focus on openings since so many of us have no idea what to do.   Adults, unlike kids, are more apt to read an instruction manual than just play with a new device.   It’s in our nature.   I too have done all of this.   Honestly I did it for years long before I got “serious” about chess.   I read Amateur’s Mind, bought a book Chess Openings, and The Ultimate Chess Puzzle Book way back in 2000.   They helped… but not really.   The great vulnerability of this knowledge-first approach is that we tell ourselves the story that we’re improving when we’re really not.

I and many other adults walk this path and fail to achieve expertise.   We are following the consensus guidelines (mostly) but often fall off the path.   I have come to understand why, and I believe the why really matters.   The main reason I believe is that we don’t really understand what chess improvement is or how to achieve it.   We don’t have good evidence about how we get better or what is required.   Even if we do follow the guidelines closely…how should we structure them?   What should we do with our time?   Play and analyze?   Take a lesson?   Here too I finally have answers. Without hard quality evidence from research I will do my best to clarify the situation.

The answers are grounded in the nature of chess. In the book The Zugzwang Method, the author notes that chess is a zero sum game.   Any mistake you opponent makes puts you at a permanent advantage (if you recognize it).  The opposite is true as well.   Being down a piece is a very easy way to lose a game.   Since chess is mostly a game of mistakes, this gives us a formula for improvement.

Improvement = Good moves - Mistakes^X

I propose to you a “chess improvement hypothesis”.  Improvement can be defined as all your good moves (or decisions) minus your mistakes. Then to improve at chess then you can either:

1. Make fewer mistakes or;

2. Make better decisions.

I believe that reducing mistakes is far more important than making better decisions.   Mistakes set the floor, where as decision making sets the ceiling.  Because mistakes and blunders can become permanent features of our zero-sum game, our mistakes contribute far more to the outcome than our best moves.   I’m not sure how much more to weight it but I believe it’s multiples.   I would love your feedback but for me it’s at least 2-4 times more important.

I believe this makes intuitive sense.   Many professional coaches talk about reducing “mental errors”.   In the US, football coaches know how much a turnover can change the tone of a game.   In racing, mistakes by the pit crew are devastating.   Whatever sport you look at, reducing mental errors or mistakes is the main focus of training.   Still, far too many chess players (in my opinion) spend time trying to raise the ceiling compared to elevate the floor.   I can understand, it’s not as “sexy” as making great moves.   Even worse, do people even know how to reduce their mistakes?

Mistakes and Cognitive Load

Many of our most impactful errors come when we make glaring mistakes, otherwise known as blunders.   If you look over you game and ever wonder what you were thinking, it’s likely you’ve had one of these moments.   There is strong evidence that humans can only pay attention to so much.  Once you exceed the 7 +/- 2 channels of working memory then the brain stops being able to track all the information.   That’s when cognitive errors take place (like missing a gorrilla).   The brain starts to filter out information it thinks is not relevant or, even worse, just completely ignores it.   It’s not the only reason people make mistakes, but it’s a big one.   Reducing our cognitive load is the simplest and most powerful step in reducing mistakes.   There are many ways we can do this but most of them are things we can control.   

• Reduce distractions.   Attention divided is no attention at all.   If you need proof, try listening to two people talking at once.   Or simply watch how other people drive when also looking at their phones.   If you’re playing chess and watching the kids, you’re doing neither well.   Reducing the amount of interruptions and distractions while playing will lead to fewer mistakes.

• Improve focus.   There is a crisis in some ways where people are finding harder to focus.   We have ways to improve our focus through better sleep, meditation, exercise, or practicing with timed exercises.   

• Play the same openings.   Over time you get familiar with pawn structures and the ideas in the middle game.   You have a catalog of prior games to use.   Maybe boring, but you will become familiar with what to do.

• Work on pattern recognition.   The more you can become familiar with common chess patterns, the less you have to think about them.   Familiarity with common patterns will greatly help players avoid mistakes or recognizing their opponents mistakes.   Books like Everyone’s First Chess Workbook, courses like Checkmate Patterns Manual, and even the recent 100 Tactical Patterns You Must Know are all examples of quality general resources.

• Simple blunder check. Chess is still hard even if you do all these things.   Use a simple blunder check before each move by just looking to see if all your pieces are defended.  Again, it’s so hard to win down a piece.   Just a simple check of your pieces to see if anything is hanging will help you stay in the game.

Please don’t take my word for truth.   Recently GM Noel Studer wrote how he gained 200+ points by reducing distractions and playing with focus.   It works for anyone with a brain.

Better decisions and skill development

Make no mistake but chess is hard.   No matter how much we practice or work on error reduction we’ll still make mistakes.   As GM Soltis said in his Catalog of Chess Mistakes, give amateur players a choice of moves and they’re likely to pick the wrong one. That’s partly because chess is a game of time based decision making. The less time we have, the worse our decision making becomes. Deciding on anything is an emotional process, but in chess it’s also a skill to develop.   Well, I should say skills.

After our opening knowledge is spent, we start to play chess on our own.  From that point on, we use three essential skills:   Visualization, Calculation, and Evaluation.  The key to making better decision is improving at these three skills. To do so required deliberate practice, which I have written about before.   

Much of what is available in the chess improvement world lands squarely in this category.   I would wager that the majority of articles published on chess improvement only focus on increasing skill.   Adult improvers can hardly be blamed for mistaking this as the most important thing.   However, most of the people writing that advice have already developed visualization and cut down on their mistakes.  I would suggest that adult improvers are not well served by that perspective, even though it’s well intended.

Play first, study later

If you agree with the theory that reducing mistakes is far more important than increasing skill then I suggest a simple structure for improvement.   Once you know the basics of chess, the I suggest you play first and study later (apologies to IM Hendriks).   The idea is simple -  we need a reason why.   

There is so much chess improvement information out there that it’s overwhelming.   When our brains don’t know what is important and what isn’t, much of it gets filtered out or forgotten.   Meaning you could one day be reading about tactics and then the next day see a great new strategy book or YouTube channel. Without a clear reason why you should pick one over the other, it’s easy to get distracted. It happens to all of us, unless we have our “why.”

For many of us, our “why” will come from failure. Losing sucks and it hurts.   In fact it hurts so bad we remember it.   This is the idea behind productive failure.   Trying something first, before you’re knowledgeable about it, will give you a better understanding and a greater retention of the material.  Losing is hard on the ego, but if you can change your relationship to losing you can learn faster and retain more.

Play first.   Play until you’ve lost 20 games or 100 (just a number I made up, but seems like a large enough sample for conclusions to be made).   Then analyze those games for the most common errors.   You don’t need to be thorough, just the most obvious glaring blunders.   

Succes is boring

When you play first and study later, you can create a virtuous cycle. Playing will help you identify your common mistakes. Once you know the source of your most common mistakes (it’s probably tactics), find a resource and get to work.   Study the material, try to see what you missed (if anything). Whatever you learn here is more likely to be retained. The loss associated with it provides the brain with the signal that this is important information.   Keep doing this over and over again, you’ll get better. In fact, make it a routine. Do it so much you get bored of it.

Also consider using Anki.   Each of these mistakes is a pattern your eye does not yet see.   You can review them periodically as flashcards to improve your long term retention.   When I do this, often the memory of the mistake I made comes back.   Alternatives to Anki include Lichess Studies, making your own Chessable course, or other flashcard software.   

Each loss or missed puzzle is an opportunity to learn. Try to find out what you missed and why. Come back later and review it. It will stick.

Goodbye…for now

I want to thank all of you for your readership, your comments, and for being a community. I have written now 45 posts since March 2023. I have struggled with chess and tried to discern what truths I could. I believe with these last three posts I have tried to light the way for others (and myself) to improve at this game we all love. Work on visualization, learn common patterns, play often, and with focus. Learn from failure, have it guide what you’re working on. Work more on reducing mistakes than increasing skill. Avoid general learning after you know the basics and focus on mistake specific learning.

However chess isn’t the only thing I’ve learned about with this Substack. I’ve learned how to write, what to do with ideas, and how to make them (hopefully) interesting. Along the way I have made a path toward something I’ve always wanted to do, writing a book. For 20 years I’ve been asking questions and I have found some answers. That book is what’s next for me.

So I will say goodbye, for now. I’m not stepping away from chess ( I love it too much) and will check in from time to time with updates. But my writing focus will shift. It is time I began working on the book that has been an idea in my head for the last 12 years. Until then, thank you for all your support and for all your interest. Wishing you good chess!

Nicholas Vasquez, MD