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Tactics Training the Right Way(s)

Tactics training right way.

In the grand scheme of things1—even before losing the ability to visualize—I’ve never been a particularly good chess player. But I’m an excellent educator and learning designer with a passion for chess.

Through a combination of my own experience, exploration of pedagogy2 and research, and synthesizing the advice, regimens, and recommendations of a host of chess coaches, players, and improvers, I’ve put together solid approaches for adult chess improvers3.

Over the next few days4, I’ll be sharing some different techniques, tools, sites, and apps for tactics training for three different5 purposes:

  1. Pattern Recognition
  2. Calculation
  3. Visualization

While these will necessarily contain some idiosyncratic choices, they will together provide solid, specific answers to some of the most common questions about tactics training.

There is almost no question that tactics training is at the heart of any chess improvement program, though arguments about the specific proportion of time one should spend will never be settled6. I’m focused on enjoyment and chess as a support for positive mental health, so not particularly interested in those debates…and they are largely irrelevant to what I will be sharing anyway!

  1. In the minuscule scheme of things, for that matter! ↩︎

  2. Most often, if one wants to be pedantic about it, andragogy, but in practice practically everyone uses “pedagogy” to refer to the art and science of teaching both children and adults. ↩︎

  3. There’s been a marked increase in resistance to, and complaints about, the term “adult chess improver” lately. I’m not one of those folks. If you are, substitute whatever term makes sense to you. ↩︎

  4. Ideally. It could be the next few weeks or even months. ↩︎

  5. Naturally, there will be a fair amount of overlap. ↩︎

  6. Such are the vagaries of education research, in general, and the paucity of research into chess improvement, specifically. ↩︎

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Chess position. White to move. FEN: 2knr2r/pp3b2/2nP1p2/P2p4/3P3p/2QBB1Nq/3N1Pp1/RR4K1 w - - 0 25

A little tactic for your pleasure. White to move.

[try it on Lichess]

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Taking Myself to the Dojo

Chess Dojo Training Program

A few days ago I joined the Chess Dojo. I’ve heard so many good things about it over the last six months that I likely would have joined, despite the fact that the training plans themselves are freely available for anyone to browse and use on their own with a free account.

First, the three “senseis” are not only highly esteemed members of the chess community, generally, but each are high on my own list of awesome chess folks as well:

  • Jesse Kraai achieved a PhD in Philosophy1, earned his GM title at the advanced (in chess years) age of 35, and actually stopped playing chess for a three years while he wrote Lisa: A Chess Novel2.

  • David Pruess, an excellent teacher a mainstay of chess.com video lessons and explainers for years before departing for better climes3, is an excellent teacher by any measure, but learning he also has aphantasia—but is still a strong IM who can play blindfold chess—was a key factor in my deciding to play chess again.

  • Kostya Kavutskiy4 is also an excellent teacher whose presence in the chess world has been quickly growing thanks to his acumen, ability to explain chess in a way mere mortals can understand, and one of the calmest demeanors this side of Rosenstan.

Second, I do love me a structured program that can bring more order to my training and studying, but my reason for joining, rather than just using the plans on my own, is the aspect I’m also the most nervous about: the community. Befitting its name, the Chess Dojo requires5 sparring, analyzing, playing, and engaging in “post-mortems” with other Dojo members. I’m hoping this part of the program will be the prod I need to overcome my reluctance to actually play in addition to the studying I enjoy so much.

As they say in the Dojo, “Let’s gooooooooo!"

  1. Without being broken by the experience, at least not wholly, an admirable outcome in itself, not to mention his dissertation: Rheticus’ Heliocentric Providence : a study concerning the astrology, astronomy of the sixteenth century. ↩︎

  2. And it’s actually good! ↩︎

  3. France, at the moment, I believe, and I wouldn’t blame him a bit if he never returned to the US. ↩︎

  4. Check out Kostya’s Kostya Goes for GM newsletter/project. ↩︎

  5. Nothing is truly required: advancement to higher rating bands in the Dojo is purely based on ratings improvement. ↩︎

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A New Journey Begins

View of Denali in Denali National Park, Healy Alaska, September 2020

The Road goes ever on and on.
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way.
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

—Bilbo Baggins

If ever there were a road as long as life itself, it’s the game of chess. I learned how the pieces move more than 45 years ago now, and I’ve fallen in and out of obsession with the royal game many times since, but the evanescent existence of my hopes of becoming a good player1 flashed and faded away in just a few short months in the early 90s.

That feeling of failure frustrated me for decades. I rarely stopped following the chess scene or reading about chess history, but I didn’t actually play.

Then, after a series of truly unfortunate, life-changing events 2, and a long time undergoing various ensuing treatments, I suddenly realized I no longer cared about competition in the same way.

And when I say “suddenly,” I mean it: I had a moment of profound insight and clarity, my madeleine de Proust not a “squat, plump little cake,” but instead former Icelandic Chess Federation President Gudmundur Thorarinsson’s (too) thin book The Match of All Time3, peering into me from my nightstand one rainy morning.

For reasons lost along with the turbulent dreams of a fitful sleep, I instantaneously understood it was OK to love chess though I would likely never rise to even the level of being competent at it. Without warning I knew it was just fine to be a fan with no pretense to being a “real” player. And, most pertinent to this post, I found myself ready—actually a bit desperate—to immerse myself in learning, training, solving puzzles, and occasionally even playing purely for the enjoyment of it. Even better, this newfound equanimity allowed these pursuits to begin to occupy a prominent place in my larger approach to improved mental health and mindfulness.

And that is the long-winded introduction to the genesis of this site: it is a place where I will share my love of the greatest game4 in whatever way feels right, including practical items like puzzles, resources, thoughts about events past and present, and notes about my training progress, but also my unique(ish) approach to chess as a means of improved emotional well-being in the face of unrelenting chronic depression and PTSD5 6.

Photo by Joris Beugels on Unsplash

  1. However you want to define the term. ↩︎

  2. I’m sure I’ll share more about all that here, though some will require a trigger warning. ↩︎

  3. I strongly recommend this book, subtitled “The Inside Story of the legendary 1972 Fischer-Spassky World Chess Championship in Reykjavik,” to anyone interested in this amazing chapter in chess history. ↩︎

  4. Or perhaps the 2nd…Go poses strong competition but, alas, I have—as the immortal soap opera would have it—but one life to live. ↩︎

  5. Burying the lede! ↩︎

  6. Apologies in advance: this is my place to riff in whatever mode naturally emerges and I naturally love me some footnotes. ↩︎

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This seems like it could be a reasonable place to (b)log my experience re-learning chess in light of my new cognitive reality. Onward!

[pictured: Morphy v Lowenthal ca.1857]