Hello Nick. It's Laurent from the Dojo. Yes you're right : it's about board vision first (visualization of the current position), then visualization of future positions in our head. It's very fundamental, although I believe it's still not enough to make master and you need to develop other fundamental skills (eg. positional intuition, time management and... nerves management - this one is quite important).
As for Soltis I like his writing very much too, because it's erudite and still very clear and honest. He has another book on studying chess titled "Studying chess made easy" where he lays out the components of a good training program. The title is misleading but the content is excellent : it's well worth a read.
Laurent! So nice to hear from you. I hope you and your family are well. Thanks for reading and for your comment. I’ll message you on Discord to catch up!
Very interesting piece Nick. For your visualization training did you do a bit of both Aiden's idea of recording miniatures and going through them in your mind and the book Cognitive Chess? Was there anything else you did? How have you found Cognitive Chess?
Thanks for reading. I signed up for dontmoveuntilyousee.it and have been going through the beginner exercises. After that I started Cognitive Chess. They break down the exercises by day (day 1, day 2). I’ve made it through Day 7. I like both of them. If you’ve never done visualization training I’d recommend starting with either Step 2 Thinking Ahead or Aiden’s company.
Brilliant post Nick. I think that the reason the difference between visualization and more generic tactics training is not emphasized enough by trainers is because 90% of trainers learned chess in adolescence, and thus were able to learn visualization without conscious effort.
Hey Nova, I think visualization is just the ability to "see" the board and pieces in your mind. Some people are visual, some are verbal, and most are both. But blindfold chess is how Aiden started. He recorded himself speaking the moves of his openings or of simple miniature games (like Scholars mate). He listened to the recordings and tried to imagine the board and moves on his mental board. Read more about it here: https://nextlevelchess.blog/improve-your-visualization/
I have heard of Chua's course and have tried it myself. The key insight he had was he trained his intuition to recognize critical elements (X-rays, Forks, etc...) and not force himself to think about C/C/T every position. For me this is the idea of "educated gestalt" where your intuition is guiding you correctly instead of misleading you.
The post is my assertion that visualization is the gateway to improving at chess tactics which lead to most wins. However, I also believe like Fabiano that visualization errors are the sources of most of our mistakes or losses. There's a difference between knowledge (like tactical patterns) and behavior (blunders, emotional moves,etc..) but Chua's technique is training the process of looking for targets which can greatly help. But most improvers IMO should start with visualization or conceptualization of the board and pieces. Without visualization we're back to brute force calculating each move which will consume all our mental resources. That's when we blunder. Hope that helps.
Thanks for the lengthy reply. It does help some, but it's a bit theoretical for me. On a somewhat tangent: my lated rated game was against a guy almost 400 pts higher than me. I was clearly beating him out of the opening. His pieces were uncoordinated and his king lost castling rights. I ended up losing, but I think it was basic strategy that cost me the game (or, at least turned a winning position into a draw-ish position, in which he just outplayed me). Strategy #1: I figured this was a perfect time to open the position, open lanes to his king. (This was correct). Strategy #2: I allowed a queen trade which ended up defusing any attack I had. This was a big error. (I ended up making three trades that game, which were all very unfavorable to me -- so much so that Dan Heisman recently made a video of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzZkCmxUj2c)
My question is: where does that fit in (or does it?) with visualization, calculation, "educated gestalt", pattern recognition, etc.?
This is absolutely brilliant. The Podcast Interview with Aiden really stuck with me too. I love the Disss method and can wait to move into step 2 and get that thinking ahead book. Thank you.
I learnt to play chess when I was about 10. Since then I've always been interested in it, without getting past the competition stage (although I do occasionally practise with a computer and buy a few books - the first of which I bought when I was 13-14).
At the age of 57, I started to work more seriously and then to take part in official games. Despite having started playing 40-50 years earlier, my level has stagnated, despite the care I take to use the effective resources I find in books or with the advice of competent players. In the ideas I've gleaned from other sources, I've also come across the 10,000-hour theory, although it has been called into question. In particular with the fact that playing 10,000 hours of golf will never give you the technique of Tiger Wolf if you don't have a certain proportion in the length of your body (arms, legs, trunk...). So you need other skills in addition to this training. And still on the subject of 10,000 hours: some young players reach an excellent level of mastery without having reached their training quota. What's more, their tactical acuity is quickly acquired (an area in which I'm still stagnating - level 2050 in tactics on Lichess, despite Woodpecker and spaced repetitions - although the latter technique seems to give results in the area of openings).
Thanks for the comment and for reading. Please let me know what your experience is if you do visualization training. There's many options other than the ones I mentioned. Wish you luck! As for the 10K hours, it's just to mastery - Magnus (or really anyone in the top 100) would beat up on a NM, but if 10k hours got me to NM i'd be satisfied with that.
Thank you for a fascinating post. I really do appreciate effort you have put in and I think I will probably need to reread it tbefore making a more detailed comment. However, I have read Soltis`s book and can`t resist one quick comment.
I like Soltis as an author but he seems to be prone to oversimplification. This book is a classic example. He suggests that there are these almost mystical abilities that separate strong players - even experts - from master strength players. However, he then uses almost exclusively examples draw from the very top level of chess. Seeing how a super GM plays chess tells us little about what a 2300 FM is doing that a 2000 strength club isn`t.
I noticed that too...but I did appreciate that he's trying to highlight what he sees in master games vs non-master games. Still, I found it less helpful than I had hoped
I have found myself becoming quite defensive about the "10 000 hour rule" (which isn't a rule, more like a rule-of-thumb).
What does it actually state? The idea is that you can achieve mastery of a skill with 10 000 hours of deliberate practice. Nowhere is it suggesting that simply repeating a task mindlessly for 10 000 hours will achieve the desired result. Nor does it imply that anyone can become Tiger Woods or Magnus Carlsen. Mastery is not the same as being the very best.
The big chess questions posed are the following: what level of chess would equate to mastery and could anyone of normal intelligence reach it, given sufficient directed training, tournament practice and high quality feedback?
My gut feeling is yes. Imagine a decent 1800 strength club player. If they practiced 3 hours a day working through carefully selected problems (the Yusupov series for example), received high quality weekly coaching and played (afterwards analyzing carefully) 50 - 100 classical games against players slightly stronger than themselves. And they did this for 10 years....how much would they improve? 50 points a year would take them to 2300 level. Of course this is contingent on some big ifs, but that is essentially what 10 000 hours equates to.
Yes I think I agree. Even Dan (the golfer I mention in the piece) said that time spent = results BUT there needed to be focus. If there was such a thing as a chess residency I agree almost everyone would progress. However, I believe now that visualization training + tactical & checkmate patterns would be a "shortcut" or faster way to get there. More to come in the next post
Best post of the summer :-)
Thanks!
This is probably the most insightful and engaging post (long post) I have read so far. Thank you for taking the time to write these
Thank you! I’ve got a second follow up coming so stay tuned in the next few weeks
Hello Nick. It's Laurent from the Dojo. Yes you're right : it's about board vision first (visualization of the current position), then visualization of future positions in our head. It's very fundamental, although I believe it's still not enough to make master and you need to develop other fundamental skills (eg. positional intuition, time management and... nerves management - this one is quite important).
As for Soltis I like his writing very much too, because it's erudite and still very clear and honest. He has another book on studying chess titled "Studying chess made easy" where he lays out the components of a good training program. The title is misleading but the content is excellent : it's well worth a read.
Hope to catch up with you in the Dojo someday.
Laurent! So nice to hear from you. I hope you and your family are well. Thanks for reading and for your comment. I’ll message you on Discord to catch up!
Very interesting piece Nick. For your visualization training did you do a bit of both Aiden's idea of recording miniatures and going through them in your mind and the book Cognitive Chess? Was there anything else you did? How have you found Cognitive Chess?
Thanks for reading. I signed up for dontmoveuntilyousee.it and have been going through the beginner exercises. After that I started Cognitive Chess. They break down the exercises by day (day 1, day 2). I’ve made it through Day 7. I like both of them. If you’ve never done visualization training I’d recommend starting with either Step 2 Thinking Ahead or Aiden’s company.
Brilliant post Nick. I think that the reason the difference between visualization and more generic tactics training is not emphasized enough by trainers is because 90% of trainers learned chess in adolescence, and thus were able to learn visualization without conscious effort.
Thanks Ben! Yes, I agree with that. I think it's the first big hurdle for people trying to get better at chess.
Two quick comments: 1) is visualization similar to (or the same thing?) as blindfold chess? Where does one even *start* to learn that?
2) Have you heard of the so-called "burger method" concept devised (or explained) by Azel Chua. He talks about the importance of visualization and pattern recognition and (the big shocker) that checks-captures-threats is overrated (!). He has a chessable course, and in the free intro video (see https://www.chessable.com/introduction-to-chess-calculation/course/212650/) he explains and gives two great examples (I do not have that course). He was also recently on Perpetual Chesspod (episode 381). I urge you to listen to at least the first half of that (the entire episode is only around 45 minutes). *If* I'm understanding you, and *if* I'm understanding Azel Chua, I think there is some major overlap of what you two are proposing/promoting. https://www.perpetualchesspod.com/new-blog/2024/5/7/ep-381-cm-azel-chua-calculation-advice-improving-chess-intuition-and-is-the-concept-of-checks-captures-amp-threats-overrated
Hey Nova, I think visualization is just the ability to "see" the board and pieces in your mind. Some people are visual, some are verbal, and most are both. But blindfold chess is how Aiden started. He recorded himself speaking the moves of his openings or of simple miniature games (like Scholars mate). He listened to the recordings and tried to imagine the board and moves on his mental board. Read more about it here: https://nextlevelchess.blog/improve-your-visualization/
As for resources you can try https://dontmoveuntilyousee.it/ or the book Cognitive Chess.
I have heard of Chua's course and have tried it myself. The key insight he had was he trained his intuition to recognize critical elements (X-rays, Forks, etc...) and not force himself to think about C/C/T every position. For me this is the idea of "educated gestalt" where your intuition is guiding you correctly instead of misleading you.
The post is my assertion that visualization is the gateway to improving at chess tactics which lead to most wins. However, I also believe like Fabiano that visualization errors are the sources of most of our mistakes or losses. There's a difference between knowledge (like tactical patterns) and behavior (blunders, emotional moves,etc..) but Chua's technique is training the process of looking for targets which can greatly help. But most improvers IMO should start with visualization or conceptualization of the board and pieces. Without visualization we're back to brute force calculating each move which will consume all our mental resources. That's when we blunder. Hope that helps.
Thanks for the lengthy reply. It does help some, but it's a bit theoretical for me. On a somewhat tangent: my lated rated game was against a guy almost 400 pts higher than me. I was clearly beating him out of the opening. His pieces were uncoordinated and his king lost castling rights. I ended up losing, but I think it was basic strategy that cost me the game (or, at least turned a winning position into a draw-ish position, in which he just outplayed me). Strategy #1: I figured this was a perfect time to open the position, open lanes to his king. (This was correct). Strategy #2: I allowed a queen trade which ended up defusing any attack I had. This was a big error. (I ended up making three trades that game, which were all very unfavorable to me -- so much so that Dan Heisman recently made a video of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzZkCmxUj2c)
My question is: where does that fit in (or does it?) with visualization, calculation, "educated gestalt", pattern recognition, etc.?
Dude what an article. Appreciate your insights a lot! Very inspiring and motivating!
Appreciate it very much! Let me know if you have a similar experience
This is absolutely brilliant. The Podcast Interview with Aiden really stuck with me too. I love the Disss method and can wait to move into step 2 and get that thinking ahead book. Thank you.
Thank you for reading! Let me know how it goes…
I learnt to play chess when I was about 10. Since then I've always been interested in it, without getting past the competition stage (although I do occasionally practise with a computer and buy a few books - the first of which I bought when I was 13-14).
At the age of 57, I started to work more seriously and then to take part in official games. Despite having started playing 40-50 years earlier, my level has stagnated, despite the care I take to use the effective resources I find in books or with the advice of competent players. In the ideas I've gleaned from other sources, I've also come across the 10,000-hour theory, although it has been called into question. In particular with the fact that playing 10,000 hours of golf will never give you the technique of Tiger Wolf if you don't have a certain proportion in the length of your body (arms, legs, trunk...). So you need other skills in addition to this training. And still on the subject of 10,000 hours: some young players reach an excellent level of mastery without having reached their training quota. What's more, their tactical acuity is quickly acquired (an area in which I'm still stagnating - level 2050 in tactics on Lichess, despite Woodpecker and spaced repetitions - although the latter technique seems to give results in the area of openings).
Visualisation remains an area to explore.
François
Thanks for the comment and for reading. Please let me know what your experience is if you do visualization training. There's many options other than the ones I mentioned. Wish you luck! As for the 10K hours, it's just to mastery - Magnus (or really anyone in the top 100) would beat up on a NM, but if 10k hours got me to NM i'd be satisfied with that.
Thank you for a fascinating post. I really do appreciate effort you have put in and I think I will probably need to reread it tbefore making a more detailed comment. However, I have read Soltis`s book and can`t resist one quick comment.
I like Soltis as an author but he seems to be prone to oversimplification. This book is a classic example. He suggests that there are these almost mystical abilities that separate strong players - even experts - from master strength players. However, he then uses almost exclusively examples draw from the very top level of chess. Seeing how a super GM plays chess tells us little about what a 2300 FM is doing that a 2000 strength club isn`t.
I noticed that too...but I did appreciate that he's trying to highlight what he sees in master games vs non-master games. Still, I found it less helpful than I had hoped
Of course, I probably need to reserve criticism of the book until I have actually done the exercises....
That's a great book! Nice review!
I have found myself becoming quite defensive about the "10 000 hour rule" (which isn't a rule, more like a rule-of-thumb).
What does it actually state? The idea is that you can achieve mastery of a skill with 10 000 hours of deliberate practice. Nowhere is it suggesting that simply repeating a task mindlessly for 10 000 hours will achieve the desired result. Nor does it imply that anyone can become Tiger Woods or Magnus Carlsen. Mastery is not the same as being the very best.
The big chess questions posed are the following: what level of chess would equate to mastery and could anyone of normal intelligence reach it, given sufficient directed training, tournament practice and high quality feedback?
My gut feeling is yes. Imagine a decent 1800 strength club player. If they practiced 3 hours a day working through carefully selected problems (the Yusupov series for example), received high quality weekly coaching and played (afterwards analyzing carefully) 50 - 100 classical games against players slightly stronger than themselves. And they did this for 10 years....how much would they improve? 50 points a year would take them to 2300 level. Of course this is contingent on some big ifs, but that is essentially what 10 000 hours equates to.
Yes I think I agree. Even Dan (the golfer I mention in the piece) said that time spent = results BUT there needed to be focus. If there was such a thing as a chess residency I agree almost everyone would progress. However, I believe now that visualization training + tactical & checkmate patterns would be a "shortcut" or faster way to get there. More to come in the next post
Visualisation is definitely a key element and one that really has only been talked about seriously quite recently.