The bottleneck - Teds Woodworking Review

I don’t know where this post will be heading, so you are forewarned!

The method I concocted is totally empyric. It came about by a mix of elimination, trial and error, and observation. Hence it is not optimized in any way, nor scientific. This means that I’m always on the lookout for improvements and more understanding.

The core of my method is generalization of concepts. This means that I have to conceptualize what is happening in a position, and once the concepts are clear, the concepts must be generalized, so that they become useful for other positions as well. Both the creation of concepts and the generalization are done by system 2. The next thing is to ensure that system 1 has absorbed the matter.

Attention is the spotlight, and both system 2 and system 1 are following the attention. Because that is their very nature.

The bottleneck

Because system 2 plays such big role AND is very slow, it is the bottleneck of the process. Any optimization of the process will focus on the efficient use of system 2.

There are of course a few tricks we can use. These tricks are mainly revolving around what we can learn from better players. Most of us have a small (or big) library of chess books. After my house had been on fire this library was lost, but it has been replaced by a digital library at an astonishing rate.

But at the end of the day, you will have to think for yourself. So I want to focus on the process again, and see whether there are any chances of optimizing it myself.

Robert showed us an interesting position some while ago, and I noticed a potential hidden gem in it. Besides the gem he already showed us.

Although I’m avoiding endgames at the moment, I will make an exception here because it might be a good way to get a precise observation of how the process conceptualisation works.

Black to move

8/4k3/8/3p1pp1/8/8/1B4PK/8 b – – 1 3

This position might arise from the position that Robert provided. Stockfish estimates it as a draw. But why?

Fiddling around a bit with the position learns me that the black king must prevent the invasion of bishop Bf6. Hence the black king must stay in contact with f6. With Ke6 or Kf7. Everything else loses.

What is the problem with Bf6? It forces g4 for black. And that creates holes where the white king can invade.

So already two concepts become clear:

prevent invasion of the bishop with your king
prevent invasion of the white king by keeping your pawns abreast.

Fiddling around a bit more revealed that white must keep his pawn at any cost. Without it he can’t win. So black has a weapon himself: invade the white position and trade the pawn.

white must protect his pawn
white must prevent the promotion of the d pawn
black can use its f pawn to threat promotion
the white pawn can’t stop the promotion of the f pawn because it can’t be traded

I stop here. But I think I already have unearthed quite a few concepts within a few hours of study.

Of course, none of these concepts are exactly new to me. But at the same time, none of these concepts were triggered while looking at the position in the beginning.

And looking at it, all these concepts seem easy to generalize too. But reading them in a book while nodding is clearly not enough. Just reading is not active enough, and it certainly doesn’t trigger absorption.

The amount of concepts certainly looks finite. But you must have the discipline to unearth them. If I only had more time.

Temposchlucker

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