I read a post a couple days ago on another blog about a study called "Learning 10,000 Pictures" in which participants were shown 10,000 images for 5 seconds each and two days later were able to recall over 6,500 of them. So the question posed was this: Why do we have such a hard time remembering a few thousand chess positions? A good question. He went on to say that the participants did much worse when asked to remember words they were shown, and much much worse when asked to remember a meaningless string of letters.So here's what the article got me wondering, and perhaps BDK has an answer since this is kinda his field: How much of the memorization of tactical positions learned by doing 2-D puzzles transfers over to the 3-d chess board when it's sitting right in front of you? Disregarding for the moment the fact that even 2-D to 2-D cross over is less than that of real-life images, would it increase our brain's capacity to remember these positions if we studied actual pictures of positions instead of 2-D symbol representations of the pieces?
Maybe, and judging by the improvement of the Knights Errant it's more like "certainly", studying the 2-D positions helps a lot with playing online with 2-D boards, but is the improvement in OTB games comparable to that of online games?
Possibly some of you Knights out there can answer this question for me, have your OTB games been improving at the same rate as your online games with respect to the tactics studied in the Circles?
I think if there's any validity to my speculations (though I really have no idea what I'm talking about) there could be a fortune to be made in publishing a chess problem book that uses photographs of actual positions instead of diagrams. If you do publish such a book and make some money, don't forget to kick down a little for the "idea man"! ;-)
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A few things to consider:
1. Children are born with photographic memory, but most grow out of it--unless they have a developmental problem like autism.
2. Engineers are able to diagnose problems in extremely complex systems primarily because they use abstraction to break them down into simpler pieces.
3. On computers, it takes less storage space and is easier to process an idea like "Nxf6" than it is to store the animation of it happening on a board.
likesforests, but the question is: assuming the Knights Errant are correct that going through tons of tactical puzzles repeatedly increases your tactical awareness in their online games, do you think going through tons of photographs of tactical puzzles from real chess boards would increase your tactical awareness in real games? What's your opinion?
"assuming the Knights Errant are correct that going through tons of tactical puzzles repeatedly increases your tactical awareness"
Only the first knights had to make assumptions. We have stats showing that knights gain about 200 rating points (OTB & online) as a result of engaging in circles training.
"What's your opinion?"
It's an intriguing idea. My guess is that, since most (but not all!) of our chess knowledge is stored in an abstract, board-neutral format... the gains would be small. Players in international competitions have to adapt to completely new boards and figures from time to time and they usually accomplish that within hours.
There are times when a person who does mostly books or computer screen does not see something OTB. And, vice versa. But I think these are small visual scanning skills that one can adapt to the situation fairly quickly and is something different than you are talking about.
My opinion is no, it would make no real difference. Ultimately you need to internalize the images etc into however you store "chess" in your brain. I see photographic/3d as more likely to interfere with that than to help.
But that is all just speculation/opinion on my part.
Now, what I have wondered in the past is if practicing with a braille board would make a difference by bringing in the different sense of touch and perhaps possibly bringing in another part of the brain?
i wondered about that myself a while ago, and for a short time, i would set up tactic problems on my board and would study them that way, to see how the pieces looked and moved in real life. i still suck though, so i don't' know if it actually helped or not...
likesforests, yeah that's true, players can use a hyper-modern board where the pieces have no resemblance to the classic design and still perform at their usual level.
glenn wilson, that's an interesting point, perhaps no matter which way we "learn" chess, our brain stores it in the same way.
LOL chessloser, oh well...we'll just keep pressing on I guess, and coming up with new ways to improve.
Personally, i think it depends on the individual. There is a translation/ interpretation that one has to go through in order to process 2D into 3D orientation and recognize it OTB. Some people have better skills in that capability and can absorb that information through books and 2D programs more readily, while others have to actually work it out in 3D.
despite being an engineer by trade, spatially and visually trained to "see" abstracts, I still have issues translating 2D to 3D in chess. Other factors are in play. Issues with executive functioning, short term memory loss and other impairments brought on by a marginal life of self destructive behavior 2 decades ago ;) makes it difficult to see tactcis from 2D translated into 3D despite being on my 13th circle!
On the other hand, for BASICs and foundation building, 2D simple tactical drills are Ok as I can NOW easily see tehm and convert to 3D.
The more complex tactics I review, have to be done with a real board. My recent jouney with studying classic tournaments uses a board as well as 2D computer.
In order for me to cross the patterns learned in these games from short term to long term pattern recognition, I have to use 1) repettion in teh form of a test ( guess the move/ setting up training positions in DB) 2) Understanding the origin ( helps in my "tag" for chunking memory) 3)being in touch with my physio-emotional state. This last point is important for those suffering any executive functioning disorders because any additonal restrictions to accessing the long term can be lifted if you are in touch with your self ( the "fire the coach hire a shrink" aspect)
bluderprone, thanks for the very informative comment! It seems as though this topic has a lot of personal relevance for you. I was intrigued by your methods of transferring the pattern recognition from short-term to long-term (Of course, I had to google "executive brain functions" to follow along).
In regard to your point 1 (repetition in the form of a test), Do you save positions from your own actual games where you've missed an important tactic, and repeat those? I wonder if that would help me...I think I'm going to start doing that.
Anyway, thanks for the awesome comment!
Sorry to get "deep" man.
In fact I do have a growing collection of study positions from my own games both where I did go wrong and where I did go right but could have done better. I use chess base to create training positions and review them the night before chess club or an event.
This way I train to recognize my bad habits and this provides corrective action straight to the point.
To add new items in my swiss cheese brain, I create a similar training data base. I also include a " headline" for the game and key points to remember about the game. I'd like to review these about once a month and the ones I have a really hard time recalling I add to my weekly study list.
I've done this for London 1851, am in the process with Hastings 1895 and Lev Albert's "King in Jeopardy".
If you want a copy of my London 1851 training games ( the full collection plus commentary and training positions) send me an e-mail at george dot duval at comcast dot net and I will forward it to you. It can be viewed in CB lite in case you have not chessbase
It is a common problem switching from one medium to another. 3-D bred people say they have an initial rough time switching to 2-D too. For me it is like a Gestalt switch: it takes a little time to switch my pattern recognition/analysis skills to looking at a 3-D board, but once I do it isn't a problem. It usually takes a few hours, though, so right before a tournament I try to do as much 3-D chess as I can, so as not to "work it out" in a real game which means losing. :)
On the other hand, I'm not sure it is a complete transition. I'm just better at analyzing positions on a computer. If I were still a chessaholic I'd get one of those real chess sets that interfaces with the computer to use at ICC etc.. (DGT boards). They are expensive, but for tournament play I think it would be well worth it.
How long before we have cheap, high-quality holographic chess boards? Then ya don't have to set it up manually, just click a button!
BDK: You're making me study, man. Had to do some research on this "Gestalt" theory...interesting concept, a bit difficult to grasp in the 30 seconds I read about it. So, perhaps our brain will take what we're feeding it (in whatever form) and assimilate it into whatever medium we're currently using? Close?
LOL holographic chess boards...yep you have the right idea!
rt: I was thinking of the duck-rabbit illusion, and other phenomena when the same stimulus suddenly switches and appears different (like when a necker cube switches from facing inward to facing outward).
I'm used to looking at the board in a duck-way (computer), so it takes a bit to switch to the rabbit-way (3-D). My coach, who started before computers were big, thought it was very hard to think as well on a computer. Even in big computer tournaments, he sets up the board beside the computer and looks at that rather than the computer. That might be a good way to practice before a tournament.
BDK, oh yeah I know the illusion you're talking about. Makes sense when you think about it in chess-terms.
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