Program Minimum

Evidence based chess training

Welcome back to Chess in Small Doses, a Substack focused on adult improvement in chess. Today I’m taking on a question. How much training do I really need to improve my performance? The knee-jerk answer is: “it depends”. What I have come to understand is the answer for most of us is: “Less than you might think”. Let’s get into it.

Know Your Limits

Being an adult improver at chess means a lot of things. First of all it means I have responsibilities other than chess. Directly because of that I have limited time and energy for chess. How I choose to use it is part of the challenge of being an adult (endless choices leading to endless existential crises). As James Clear said, our lives inevitably get more complicated as we get older. Any study plan that adults can use must first start by building a stable structure that incorporates the two largest constraints on our lives, time and attention. If I have limited time (and I do), and limited attention (now more than ever) then I need to design a training plan that takes those into account. Humans appear to make their best decisions when they intentionally limit their options. I’m going to take advantage of that and fit my training into the spaces I do have in my life.

This leads us to a simple question that has a very complicated answer. How should I spend my limited time if I want to improve at chess? To get to the answer we need to use 4 concepts: The Pareto Principle, Minimum Effective Dose, Maximum Tolerated Dose, and Parkinson’s Law

(Notice I did not use the word “best” as in “what’s the best way to train?” or “what’s the best way to study chess”? Searching for the best way of anything is just perfectionism disguised as curiosity. Arthur Ashe once said: “Start where you are. Do what you can. Use what you have.” That works very much for chess here. Just start.)

1. Pareto Principle

There are some things in chess that have been more impactful to my improvement than others. I am no expert, but after 5 years I know what has and has not worked for me. Most things did not help much, some things helped very much. Turns out this is a famous ratio otherwise known as The Pareto Principle. Credit here must go to GM Noel Studer (and Tim Ferris) who both helped bring it to my attention. If you’re not familiar with the idea, the Pareto Principle is that 80% of the outputs depend on 20% of the inputs. In chess terms, a minority of items studied will lead to a majority of improvement. Alternatively, much of what we study won’t lead to improvement sadly.

Now what those impactful things are will depend on level. But I trust GM Jacob Aagaard when he said “….if you're below 1800, you don’t have (tactics) sorted”. That seems like a very good place to start for me. (I will personally argue that anyone below 1500 doesn’t have visualization sorted, leading to missing tactics and threats.)

2. Minimum Effective Dose

The concept of the minimum effective dose (MED) is one I am familiar with from medicine. The idea is simple, but the MED is the smallest amount of input required to achieve a desired outcome. If you get the outcome with a limited effort, it would be wasteful or counter productive to do more. A good example would be boiling water, where heating past the boiling point is wasted energy. Not everything in life has such a critical threshold, but the point is well made. Whenever we wish to achieve an outcome, it’s well worth asking what is the minimum effective dose for maximum impact?

Strength training has taken to the MED and it’s incredible how little actual training you need to get physically stronger. What is also astounding to me is how much overlap there is between improving physical skills and mental skills. The concept of spaced repetition is based on simply repeating a MED at various intervals, producing a response from our memory. My chess training will heavily depend upon the MED concept. In chess I think it’s clear that tactics is the most important thing for most improvers. So what is the MED for tactics? The easy answer is: if I’m improving then the dose is at least sufficient. If I’m not improving I can adjust the volume, frequency, or intensity of my tactic work. Importantly, each session must be significant enough to generate a response.

3. Maximum Tolerated Dose

The idea of doing less to achieve more is alien to many of us. In fact, most of us operate with the idea that if a little is good then more is better. I have absolutely struggled to live with doing less. If left to my own devices I will often switch from “smarter, not harder” to “no pain, no gain”. I think it’s the trust factor for most of us… we just don’t trust that we’ve done enough. However, that often leads me to flirt with the maximum tolerated dose (MTD).

The MTD is the highest dose we can tolerate and not have side effects. Too much of anything is toxic. The difference between medicine and poison is simply the dose. If we push ourselves too hard for to too long, we not only become less effective but we lose our motivation to do the training at all. There is a therapeutic range for any training and if we go past that, we will be harmed. The signs of overtraining are lack of progress and loss of joy. Should I hit that limit, the best response is usually to just do less (or stop completely) until it’s fun again.

4. Parkinson’s Law

Parkinson’s Law simply states that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” Set a deadline for 2 weeks from now, it will take 2 weeks. Set a deadline for 3 months from now… it will take 3 months. There’s some complex psychology at work here but essentially human brains will always increase the task’s complexity and estimated workload based upon how much time we think we have for it.

I realized that when I set out on this journey, like many other adults I was not at all specific about what I meant by improvement or crucially by when? Of course we cannot control the ELO points, but the lack of a deadline meant my mind was free to make plans upon plans about how I was going to train everything. What actually happened was not much, because it felt so overwhelming. There just seemed SO much that I needed to work on. My mind was free to plan how to improve at everything, only then to be paralyzed by the enormity of it all. That’s Parkinson’s Law in full effect. (I had to hire someone to give me structure honestly.)

Oddly, Parkinson’s Law is also our savior here because it can be reversed. The less time we give something, the more likely we are to actually achieve it. Our brains shrink the estimated work, forcing us to focus only on what is essential. Have you ever waited until the last minute to do something, only to work like a crazy person and somehow still finish your work on time? That’s Parkinson’s Law in full effect.

For me this has a direct impact on my chess training. As I said in the last post, there’s more to learn about chess than I could ever achieve in my lifetime. But that’s not my goal. My goal is to get better. How do I do that? By giving myself less time to train, forcing myself to focus on only what matters most.

Fast and Slow

I believe there are at least two ways to train chess skills, and they both are needed. The first is training our intuition through pattern recognition. The more things look familiar, the easier it is to play and the less you have to think. For me this is entirely how I train my tactics, through mass repetition of basic, simple tactics.

The second is training ourselves to slowly think through a position and find a move. When pattern recognition fails, we need to become detectives and search for a good move that fits the position. Again, we’re not looking for the best move. Dan Heisman’s idea from The Improving Chess Thinking works here as we’re looking for the best move we can find in the time we have to look for it. So a second part of my training will be learning to slowly look at a position over 10-15 minutes to notice everything I can see.

Of course the best training we can get is actually playing games. Playing slower, classical games is the best approach for adult improvers like myself since it gives me time to think. Classical OTB games or their online equivalent work nicely here. Still, like training there needs to be fast and slow a games. Even in classical games you can get into a time scramble and have to shift to faster thinking. I can get the fast game experience that either by playing rapid or blitz games online.

It is critical to analyze every game (especially blitz) and look for moments where you didn’t know what to do. It’s the only way to learn what you don’t know you don’t know. One pattern I constantly seem to underestimate is the impact of pawn pushes. Before that it was a tendency to not finish development before I started tactical play. Only the pain of losing made these patterns important to me. Playing, losing, and analyzing is a critical aspect of my training. When I find those positions, I need a way to review them periodically. Anki slides and spaced repetition is that way for me but an interactive Lichess Study is just as good.

Lastly, I need a structure that gives me the MED for simple tactics, slow thinking, fast games, slow games, and reviewing positions. That structure needs to be focused, time specific, and limited. This is how I can put it all together while still living my life.

Program Minimum

Daily Simple Tactics

Through experimentation I have found that the minimum effective dose for me for tactics is at least 10 minutes. I need to solve basic, simple tactics daily (at least 5 out of 7 days per week) with as much focus and intention as I can muster. If I can go longer I will, but never more than 30 minutes (which includes time to check my answers). It is critical for me that I am 100% focused on the work and that I am writing down every possible line I see. Quality matters here much more than quantity.

That structure keeps the patterns fresh in my mind and there is a rhythm that’s easy to follow. I don’t have to fight my other responsibilities for 1 uninterrupted hour. However, I find there are many smaller windows throughout the day that can be used. So far so good, as I am improving. If that stops, I’ll experiment again with volume, intensity, or frequency.

Study Positions

A few times each week I try to add a 20-30 minute session where I will sit over a board and put a position up. The book Evaluate Like a Grandmaster has been a great resource for this (another options would be Practical Chess or It’s Your Move Improvers). After setting up a position, I will sit there for 10-15 minutes without moving a single piece (NM Dan Heisman does 20 minute videos if curious). I want to write down everything I notice in the position. Aaggard’s 3 questions can be used here, but the important thing is to sit and think about a position for a set time. Not only do I get used to sitting with uncertainty, I also practice slowing down and thinking when I don’t know what to do. When the clock’s up, I write down the best answer I have found and check it.

Slow Games

In my opinion, slow games against stronger players is the best way to learn. Online classical games from Lichess 4545, Lichess Lonewolf, or Lichess Ladders can give you that. I like the weekly format of the Lichess 45/45 leagues but there’s also weekly classical tournaments on both Lichess.org and Chess.com. Recently I have found a weekly classical time USCF OTB Tournament that I can play in and still be responsible to my job and family. Once a week is probably enough of a MED for slow chess.

Fast Games

This last part may be controversial but I think fast games are needed. While classical games are great, they take a lot of time, something most adults don’t have. Also, at some point we need to get good at finding good enough moves under time pressure. Rapid games hit that sweet spot for me. I’ve settled on Rapid games because I can often fit that into a 20-30 minute session. My personal preference is 1-2 games of 15+10 a week.

However, blitz or faster rapid games would work too… provided every game is analyzed AND we can stop. That’s the danger of blitz for me, it often becomes an undisciplined pursuit of more and I just keep playing. I’d play more blitz if I could reliably stop after 4-5 games and analyze them but I know I can’t yet. It’s like candy to me, one is never enough. So until that day, it’s Rapid for me.

Analysis

Game analysis can be done slowly or quickly. I’ll do the hybrid where I study my game and try to highlight what were the decisive moments and the critical mistakes. Then I will let the engine show me the evaluation (but not the lines initially). Whenever I missed something critical, I save that position on a flash card (or a Lichess Study). I’ll give it a try to see if I can find the right move and if not (or it takes more than a few minutes) I’ll turn on the engine lines to see. This step can consume a lot of time if I let it… so I don’t. Again, the timer comes in handy (15-30 min)

A Timer

Every time I sit down to do tactics, study a position, or analyze a game I have a timer running. I want to set a time that seems short to me in order to take advantage of Parkinson’s Law. For example, if I set a time for 20 minutes to do a game analysis then I won’t have time for all sorts of lines and thoughts. What I will have time for is reviewing opening theory, identifying the major mistakes, and saving a position or two as a slide. That sounds like the 20% to me.

We all would wish we could spend endless time at chess, but that’s not reality. Before I sit down, I know how much time I’m going to give myself (and it’s never more than 30 minutes). The only time I go long is when I play an OTB game.

With any training the point isn’t setting records every time, it’s about showing up. I find it much easier to show up if I know I can get the session done in 20 minutes. I’m happy to report that (at least so far) it seems to be working.

Some Honesty

I’ve given you my opinion here. I believe it is backed up by some science and evidence, but it is still an opinion. Expert opinion and consensus guidelines like this are the weakest form of evidence we have. But at least it’s evidence. You of course may have very different results that I have had, but there’s some biases I will declare right here.

For myself, I have prioritized simple tactics above everything else. I am able to get at least 10-15 minutes per day on tactics, but sometimes that’s all I can do. I believe that for the vast majority of players below 2000 ELO, tactics will have the greatest impact on their performance. The caveat is that I believe beginners and most intermediate players who started as adults probably need to work on visualization skills first. It’s cool to learn the patterns but if you can’t visualize well, I think that will greatly impact your performance.

I believe that openings, endgames, strategy, and other things all matter… but only a little. If tactics are not “sorted” as Aaggard says, strategy will matter very little. However, I often feel like I’m supposed to be doing more. Sometimes I am weak and I give in to that urge. I’ve bought books and courses thinking I’ll just add them on to my training. Also You Tube videos, new books, late night blitz sessions, and all the quick dopamine loops out there call to me like sirens. Some days I give in. It’s ok, because tomorrow I will just start again.

Spend as little time on these other things as you need to. If you enjoy them awesome, but you really only need to know the basics and anything beyond that is time that could/should be spent on tactics. (Of course I’m not there so take this with a grain of salt.. I’m amateur). Beyond tactics lies all these other things where, if all else is equal, small advantages can be found. Until then, it’s tactics, tactics, tactics.

I believe that the biggest impediments for adults progress are both the overwhelming amount of options and the fear of failure. Intentionally limiting our choices and embracing failure as our best teacher is important (at least it is for me). Avoiding failure means avoiding progress. Constantly changing training focus will lead to wasted energy and stalled progress.

The structure I’ve put together for myself is something that allows me to train and improve, without negatively impacting my other responsibilities. I’ve had this structure in place for about 1 month now. I will put my theories to the test and report back about my progress (or lack thereof) along the way. See you soon. Until then, good luck in your games!