I wrote the following on RHP 'only chess' forum, but I thought I'd store it here also.
I've been going through master games lately, and I was wondering if people had different ways to go about it? - At first, I went through the games without a board, but that proved much too awkward with my feeble visualisation skills. Then I started using a board, but it's still way too much effort deciphering the notation, energy which could be better used on focusing on the inner workings of that particular game. You decipher a line onto the board, but forget another, and when you try comparing some aspects of the two, you'll have to decipher the first one again, but then you're not sure about the second one anymore... You're just doing the same thing again and again, using short term memory, and getting frustrated and exhausted with all the repetition.
Then I started thinking, maybe I could actually do something to help the visualisation? So, I started doing some visualisation exercises. With time, that'll probably do the trick. But then I got and idea of combining master games & visualisation exercises: First I teach myself the game move by move on a board, and only after that start studying it. That way, I can focus completely on the annotation, and still visualize the board with practically no effort. It's also helping with the variations, even if you don't learn them by rote. It's just easier when you have the 'backbone' of the game in visual memory, so the variations have a solid visual context.
Memorizing the game fully seems to be surprisingly easy, taking up 3-10 minutes depending on the game. Not much, if you're going to take 30-60 minutes to study the actual game. I wonder how many games you can store this way, but it's probably quite a lot. -As you can as well easily memorize hundreds of song-lyrics pretty much perfectly. Of course lyrics have repetition and melody, but chess has a lot of re-occurring structures as well.
I also like the fact that I'm storing the game visually and even procedurally, rather than as little snippets of 2-5 move lines in short term memory which I'll forget within seconds. If you like, you can further strengthen the memory by reading the moves aloud as you go, combining visual, procedural and auditory memory. - And as an added bonus for memorization, I can play the games in my head as a visualisation exercise, if I feel like it.
"What are you daydreaming of?"
"- Oh, Colle vs Delvaux, Grand-Terneuzen 1929..."
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I found the following about visualisation in "Training in chess, a scientific approach" from Gobet& Jansen (thx to Ivan):
5.1. Practicing visual representation. Some authors have recommended practicing visual representation as a way to improve one’s chess skills. However, while chess is obviously a visual and spatial game, there is no firm empirical data demonstrating the necessity of having strong general visual or spatial abilities in order to be a master. Indeed, available data suggest that general visuo-spatial abilities do not correlate with skill, and that these abilities are not more developed in chessplayers than in non-chessplayers (Waters, Gobet, &
Leyden, in press). Given this lack of evidence, we do not encourage players to train this ability as such.
interesting. I knew many have trained blindfold chess without getting much improvement in regular chess, but I'm trying to achieve a bit more than that. namely I'm trying to transfer some of the processing from conscious thinking to more subliminal stage, just like we're doing with tactics. -I doubt we have actually learned much more about tactics since the very beginning, but the difference in the way we're instantly seeing more after subsequent training is obvious. in effect, we're re-wiring synapses in our visual cortex so we can offload some of the processing there. I'm thinkin the same applies to chess related patterns in general.
the feasibility of visual training probably also differs from person to person, depending of personal strengths and properties. I'm very visually oriented myself, and it just seems natural for me to go that way.
do you have any knowledge of how, and more importantly why, shirov and others like him trained their visualisation skills? I know people pick up blindfold ability spontaneously as years go by, but I read somewhere that there was a whole group of similar 'visual players' like him emerging from the former soviet regime during the 90's. there must be a training philosophy behind that.
I have experimented with it myself.
You can read an old post of mine about it http://temposchlucker.blogspot.com/2005/02/chess-visualisation-training.html
thanks. that (what you wrote about CVT) was about what I've heard too. I also did it for some time, but it was pretty much clear to me that it won't do much as such. that's why I'm doing it with complete real games. -I started with long combinations, but it's hard to find suitably easy ones for visualisation/deep calculation training, so I started to think about using complete games. I'm not trying to see tactics etc, I'm just trying to train myself to see the geometry correctly.
I don't think you can become better at chess just by better visualisation. the things needed for that exist or don't even if you play CC and analyze every variation using a board, which means you're practically neglecting visualisation completely. but good visualisation skills help you to weed out some calculation errors and helps immensely on reading books. but it doesn't actually give you better moves. it's a tool, not additional knowledge.
the knowledge part steps in when you study the game, after you have memorized it. memorization just makes it easier. well, that's how I think about it anyway.
i am VERY glad to find your post. dktransform from CTS. i will link to your page and look forward to reading your stuff--and i will.
i really respect your work, and to be able to hear what temposchlucker and now you are thinking and record about experiencing is a real gift for me.
thank you. david k, seattle
1510 CTS 83.5% 13,606 [i plan to be 20,000 by 15_september and 30,000 by 31_december]
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