Is chess a matter of understanding or memory?

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stevencarr

Re: Is chess a matter of understanding or memory?

Post by stevencarr » Tue Jul 09, 2013 3:06 pm

My 'results' are at http://from150to200.blogspot.com/

I've only played 4 games , after a 4 to 5 year break.

I now feel I can spot a 1 Qh7+ Kxh7 2 Rh1+ Kg8 3 Rh8 mate combo really fast. All this work must be helping.

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Joey Stewart
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Re: Is chess a matter of understanding or memory?

Post by Joey Stewart » Wed Jul 10, 2013 12:53 pm

The games you played looked quite reasonable for that length of inactivity. A lot of those positions seemed to be more of the "grinding" type of play, which probably spoils all the tactical training you are doing, as you will get less chance to use trickery but good effort nevertheless.

So you are doing 10,000 puzzles one at a time and trying to score 90%? It will be interesting to see once you are done if you can go back over them and remember it all.
Lose one queen and it is a disaster, Lose 1000 queens and it is just a statistic.

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Greg Breed
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Re: Is chess a matter of understanding or memory?

Post by Greg Breed » Wed Jul 10, 2013 2:04 pm

The real trick is not just remembering how to finish the position but how to get into it in the first place! That's when real point gains will be made! Sadly I'm about 10,000 positions behind :(
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Arshad Ali
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Re: Is chess a matter of understanding or memory?

Post by Arshad Ali » Mon Jul 15, 2013 1:21 pm

stevencarr wrote:
So here are two strategies for studying chess.

Strategy 1) Analyse some positions. But don't people forget their analysed variations after a week or so? Does that matter? If you learn to analyse, does it matter that you forget the results of individual analysis sessions? Just as if you learn to ride a bike, does it matter that you forget exactly where you rode it while you were learning?

Strategy 2) Memorise positions. Will that improve understanding? Or is chess such a game of recurring patterns that memory will play a useful part?
They're the same in the sense that even when the exact details have been forgotten, something deeper at the level of pattern recognition remains, possibly at a subconscious level. Do enough problems involving forks and something will remain even decades later, when the combinations themselves have long been forgotten. Same for the Bxh7 sacrifice -- or scores of others.

stevencarr

Re: Is chess a matter of understanding or memory?

Post by stevencarr » Thu Dec 19, 2013 9:51 am

As it has been 6 months since I started, I thought I would review progress.

Out of the 10,624 combinations to memorise, I now am up to 5,000 which I should be solving 90% of at a glance.

So almost halfway.

It is hard work reviewing up to 200 positions a day. Even 'at a glance' takes about 15 seconds to try to remember the move and the main line.

And if you forget, which happens a lot, I have to try to work it out again.

As for the effect on my chess, that is hard to quantify. I feel that I am a lot stronger at calculating, but I still get a lot of holes in my analysis.

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Greg Breed
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Re: Is chess a matter of understanding or memory?

Post by Greg Breed » Thu Dec 19, 2013 10:44 am

Do you set the positions up on a board or work from the pictures? ad if the former do you look at it from both sides?
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stevencarr

Re: Is chess a matter of understanding or memory?

Post by stevencarr » Thu Dec 19, 2013 10:49 am

Greg Breed wrote:Do you set the positions up on a board or work from the pictures? ad if the former do you look at it from both sides?
I just work from the screen.

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Re: Is chess a matter of understanding or memory?

Post by Greg Breed » Thu Dec 19, 2013 5:20 pm

stevencarr wrote:
Greg Breed wrote:Do you set the positions up on a board or work from the pictures? and if the former do you look at it from both sides?
I just work from the screen.
So if you see the position on the board does it translate from the screen? I think it's rather like trying to learn another language just by reading books, but not hearing or speaking it. Still I may be wrong. Hopefully I am! Keep up the good work Steven and the blogging, it's a good experiment for the rest of us.
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Simon Louchart
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Re: Is chess a matter of understanding or memory?

Post by Simon Louchart » Fri Dec 20, 2013 5:14 pm

In some of my games, I have found myself in the position of knowing the opening line I was playing, I was very happy and clearly in "Memory" mode.
However, sooner or later, the opponent plays something that you did not expect, and I am actually really destabalized by a move that is usually not threatening at all ("I had not thought about it at all ! Did I miss something big ?"). Then it takes some time to get back to the "Thinking mode" and be able to think about the position correctly again.
So much that I actually avoid finding myself trusting my memory too much. Does that resonate with someone here ?
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Re: Is chess a matter of understanding or memory?

Post by Roger de Coverly » Fri Dec 20, 2013 6:17 pm

Simon Louchart wrote: So much that I actually avoid finding myself trusting my memory too much. Does that resonate with someone here ?
I find myself guilty sometimes of remembering the move, but not the assessment. So you know you've seen the move in a book, but forgotten that the move had "is dubious" appended to it.

Still if you get in a complex position, that you can remember is supposed to be OK, you have to sit there if possible until you can recall or work out the tactics.

Here's a skeleton to show what I mean.



In this position, one of the normal moves is 8. Qe2, but I find it necessary to recall or analyse why 8. .. Bxc2 isn't possible. White plays 9. d5 and all sorts of possibilities for a quick win open up.

stevencarr

Re: Is chess a matter of understanding or memory?

Post by stevencarr » Wed Apr 23, 2014 6:41 pm

Greg Breed wrote: I think it's rather like trying to learn another language just by reading books, but not hearing or speaking it. Still I may be wrong. Hopefully I am! Keep up the good work Steven and the blogging, it's a good experiment for the rest of us.
Well, I am now up to 7700 of my 10,000 positions, so just over 3/4 of the way. I expect to be finished in 2 months time.

It has certainly sharpened up my tactical awareness as I can now solve new problems almost twice as fast as when I started doing this.

However, when I see old positions that last came up 180 or 200 days ago, I find that I have often forgotten the solution.

It is my theory that long-term human memory is essentially infinite. This may be true (or not) , but I do find some difficulty in recalling old problems from 180 days ago.

Still, ever onward. Let's see what the results of this experiment are in 2 months time.

David Robertson

Re: Is chess a matter of understanding or memory?

Post by David Robertson » Thu Apr 24, 2014 2:17 pm

stevencarr wrote:It is my theory that long-term human memory is essentially infinite
This is remarkable, Steven! Eric Kandel received the 2000 Nobel Prize for exactly the same theory ;-) In his path-breaking book, he explains how memories are laid down at the molecular level. Short-term memory (synapse change) is molecularly different from long-term memory (the quantity of synaptic connections).

Our brain is a vast, multi-trillion neural storehouse. But retrieving what we retain is the critical task. We recall significant incidents from the vast mass of trivia quite well. For example, my earliest memory, from a few months short of 3 years old, is of being pitched over the handle-bars of my red tricycle and ploughing the pavement with my nose. Yet I don’t recall my mother’s dress as she picked me up. By the same token, I guarantee everyone reading this will remember for the rest of their days every detail of the game in which they beat Magnus Carlsen!

Daniel Schacter has written extensively on the differences and interactions between skills-related procedural memory (remembering ‘how-to’) and concept-related semantic memory (remembering ‘why’ and ‘what for’). Both are enlisted when we drive a car, for example. Our autonomic system remembers how to work the machine; but other memory systems are involved in remembering our wider responsibilities on the road. Ditto for chess.

In a rather different, but intriguing take on memory, Mary Carruthers asks: how did people remember in pre-modern times? No printing-press, no photographs, minimal literacy, no easily-accessed media of any kind. Yet important things – the Bible, prayers, devotional rituals, technical know-how (farming, building, sea-going etc), community history – had to be memorised and passed on. But how?

Finally, does chess improve memory? No, it does not. When it’s claimed otherwise, it is just another example of the self-serving piffle churned out by the poorly-read and ill-informed. Memorising chess positions/lines/games may improve your memory of chess positions/lines/games. But a chess player may recall dozens of games, yet be unable to remember a sonnet. Good memory precedes good chess memory, and may be different from it.

** caution: the sources cited here are challenging, non-trivial contributions to scholarly debate

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Re: Is chess a matter of understanding or memory?

Post by Jonathan Bryant » Fri Apr 25, 2014 8:33 am

David Robertson wrote:... self-serving piffle ....
"Piffwibble", surely?!


My contribution to the thread: it’s both.

The Vancura position cropped up in another thread.

http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php ... 45#p137205


It took me ages to get a grip on even the most basic elements of this rook and rook’s pawn vs rook position. I remember first playing through the lines from de la Villa’s 100 Endings You Must Know and not grasping the point at all. Black’s defensive moves just seemed completely arbitrary to me.

So I left it and came back to it some time later. Then I did that again ... and again ... and eventually I started to recognise patterns and get a handle on the ideas.

I didn’t set out to memorise the positions - and more importantly the various manoeuvres of the pieces - but did so by accident through regular repetition. Knowing the lines by rote gave me a foothold that eventually enabled me to get some understanding of what was going on.

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Re: Is chess a matter of understanding or memory?

Post by Neil Graham » Fri Apr 25, 2014 12:21 pm

The next time I hear "Please do the washing-up; mow the lawn; take me to Sainsburys, babysit the grandchildren etc"; I'll respond with "Just learning these 10,000 chess positions - only 259 to go today!"

I have my doubts though whether it will work.

stevencarr

Re: Is chess a matter of understanding or memory?

Post by stevencarr » Fri Jun 13, 2014 10:40 am

Well, I have just finished going through all 10,000 combinations and my records show that I have hopefully memorised 87 percent of them.

It was very hard work.

If somebody would be so kind as to visit the web site where I dredged them from http://wtharvey.com/ and see if any new ones have been added in the past year, then I will shoot them.

I hope this work has a positive influence on my grading. At age 56, it is all I can do to stop my grading falling each year. My sight of the board is very much slower than when I was a teen.

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