10 reasons why adults fail to improve at chess

[daal]

A good example of this kind of thing is learning a foreign language as an adult. Even those who become fluent store vocabulary in that language all over the place in the brain, making retrieval relatively inefficient.

I haven't heard this before - are you referring to a specific study?

[Fedya]

C'mon people! Where is the miracle cure for my go suckiness?

You're at least two stones stronger than I am.

[daal]

C'mon people! Where is the miracle cure for my go suckiness?

You're at least two stones stronger than I am.

Yes, but I suspect that we are sucky in a similar way. You probably suffer from many of the same symptoms that plague me - inability to apply learned concepts effectively, failure to remember patterns exactly, inability to visualize/assess results of an exchange, inaccurate/insufficient reading, etc. We have probably also tried similar remedies - done tsumego, reviewed pro games, gotten our games reviewed, read books etc, but the complaints remain. If there was a pill that could help me improve, I'm sure it would help you just as much.

[Bill Spight]

A good example of this kind of thing is learning a foreign language as an adult. Even those who become fluent store vocabulary in that language all over the place in the brain, making retrieval relatively inefficient.

I haven't heard this before - are you referring to a specific study?

It's from something I read some years back. Sorry, I don't have a reference handy. The study used PET scans and inferred from the highlighted areas where the words were stored. My all over the place is surely too vague.

[peti29]

1. Lack of Motivation - check
2. Bad Memory - check
3. Inability to Calculate Variations - sometimes I can surprisingly well, I mean the sequence just appears in my brain without me trying too hard. Other times, not so much...
4. Absence of a Study Plan - study plan? huh? (I mean, check)
5. Psychological Instability - Usually I have my pulse increased during midgame. I like that.
6. Low Chess (go) Stamina - The problem is more like I'm already tired / sleepy when I start the game.
7. “Fear of Ghosts” - sometimes yes, other times no
8. Lack of Competitiveness - On the other hand "I'm just going to beat that guy!" - because winning feels good
9. Inability to Handle Pressure - same as nr 5?
10. Time Management Choices - work? Go is a game The only kind of "work" I do related to go is that I watch tutoring videos and sometimes read forum posts.

And here I am on the edge of 6k - 5k, having done ~16 stones of progress in 12 years with long breaks. (That is a mere example without an intent to agree or disagree with the OP)

[Bill Spight]

Second, I am pretty sure that #6 is about physical stamina. Research years ago in which subjects did difficult arithmetic in their heads, such as multiplying numbers with several digits, did not show any increase in error rate over several hours. (The subjects were reclining.)

The article does refer to physical stamina, but points to improving it as a way of countering low mental stamina. Do you think it would be enough to play go in bed?

Well, doing arithmetic in an experiment is hardly competitive. But doing hard problems while lying down for eight hours did not impair mental performance. Unless you are an athlete, I think that doing any physical activity for eight hours would be tiring and affect performance.

Maintaining alertness and concentration in competition for several hours can be physically tiring, and physical tiredness and stress can lead to mental lapses. Physical fitness, relaxation and stress control are important. My guess is that maintaining a steady blood sugar level is also.

[RBerenguel]

31, soon to be 32

1. Lack of Motivation
I've had spells where I have stopped playing, many of them. Right now I'm running in a mild low, but the looming Barcelona tournament (Feb 21st) is keeping me from stopping
2. Bad Memory
Check. At least for go, my memory used to be ok
3. Inability to Calculate Variations
Check^2
4. Absence of a Study Plan
Well, I've had many. Right now I'm just playing. I'm also a 8 dan amateur in book purchasing.
5. Psychological Instability
Yeah. I've had fear of losing, fear of winning, fear of playing, fear of fear. I'm 30% over it, so at least I can play without issues.
6. Low Chess (go) Stamina
Check. I tend to blunder close to the end of the midgame, specially.
7. “Fear of Ghosts”
Well, close to 5, isn't it?
8. Lack of Competitiveness
Hmmmmm, well, I want to be the best. But won't give it all needed.
9. Inability to Handle Pressure
Where's the pressure, actually? For me go is just a game, even if I'm *very* competitive.
10. Time Management Choices
It's hard to know how to best manage study time without a good, solid plan!

[Knotwilg]

Richard Feynman claims that as soon as Einstein started articulating his findings, he stopped finding, because he was replacing the physical imagery or whatever brain shortcut he used, with the less efficient writing and speech.

Of course, it could be the other way around too: as soon as great thinkers feel they have reached the boundaries of their thinking capacity, they start teaching.

Whatever the causal relationship, I have observed the inverse correlation between skill and its articulation, contrary to the popular occupation of blogging about one's progress or the domain at hand. I think Antti Tormanen for one would confirm this observation and for more reasons than mere time investment.

If not negative, the almost futile contribution of articulation to progress, has made me vow for 2015 to spend more time playing and exercising and less time contemplating it (both in table tennis, my current primary activity and in go).

The verbal rendition of our comprehension of a certain domain is very likely limiting its future potential, with the obvious exception of language, writing and speech itself.

See also Bret Victor's latest talk: "The humane (sic) representation of thought"


Edit: It's JF's comment that inspired me to expand on this one. Adults have learnt to overly rely on verbal rendition as a means of comprehension which might not apply very well to Go (and certainly not to table tennis).

[snorri]

I think what that page means is that if the 21-day course they are selling doesn't improve your chess, don't blame them---it's probably one of the 10 problems listed.

[snorri]

FACTOR 2 - the myth of understanding.

Adults too often seem satisfied with understanding how something works, but they rarely put effort into ingraining that into their sub-conscious so that it becomes intuitive. But there is a paradox here, because if you skip the understanding bit and just do the grunt, repetitive work, your sub-conscious will end up 'understanding' the subject better than you ever could consciously. Children don't seem to have the same urge to understand (or perhaps more accurately, to demonstrate to others or themselves that they understand).

Josh Waitzkin goes into this quite a bit in his book, the "Art of Learning." It's a good book, covering both his youth experience as a chess player and his later experiences reaching world-class level in Tai Chi Chuan Push Hands. But I think he is saying something a little different. He calls it "numbers to leave numbers and form to leave form." He doesn't say that the initial rules or principles that are taught are bad, but that they must eventually be integrated and made fluid to approach mastery. One thing that he mentioned in the book that found interesting was that when he tried to teach chess he had some problems initially because his knowledge was integrated and could not be explained directly to students---he had to disintegrate it to start explaining, but still insisted that the goal is to get to the integrated form, and that this is partly done through the repetition of common forms. He is particularly critical of chess teaching that focuses on opening repertoire. It's a very psychological treatment of skill acquisition.

[tekesta]

To me learning Go is like learning music. There is one way to play a song, and there are many other ways to play the same song. Each variation makes a different impression on the listener.

I don't think I'll ever become a pro player or even a high amateur dan one. I just believe it's better to engage in relentless pursuit of perfection. A bit difficult to do when there aren't many players with whom to play. It would be like playing a piece of music, but with no one there to tell you whether you played it right or wrong.

[tentano]

@tentano - what age group do you fall into? What is your study plan? How did you come up with it?

I'm in my mid 30s.

My study plan is to first get excellent at life and death. The rest will come later.

It's a fairly fuzzy plan, but I can't find any serious downside to being good at L&D, since it ties in with everything else. It's also fairly simple to do, despite it being a lot of work.

Just do a few thousands of problems repeatedly, and at least I'll be able to avoid a lot of small mistakes and maybe a deeper context will become obvious.

I suspect that higher level instruction is easier to absorb if I can see 8-10 moves ahead locally. Very often I've been left wondering when I see a diagram and the explanation is "black is severely punished", or "white has no further potential". And I just think, well, okay, I guess? I bet if I knew enough to judge the correctness of such diagrams, I would play a lot better.

John's point about the inadequacy of mere understanding is a big factor in my plan, too. I'm trying to make it so that I don't have to "read out" the simple, common situations. I need them to be ingrained so that I recognize the situation rather than laboriously rediscover it, over and over.

I also want to be able to understand fully what I'm ingraining. What if I ingrain something, but it's wrong? Things like the opening and joseki in particular seem very hard to properly understand. It feels a bit like trying to understand poetry in a new language, while I'm still working on the first 1000 words of vocabulary. Sure, I can recite it, but do I know what I'm saying?

That also makes me realize how ludicrously deep go actually is. I've been playing for years, and I still don't feel particularly knowledgeable about it.

[quantumf]

47/2d

1. Lack of Motivation - we won't sacrifice other interests for go.

I have no problem with this - although I was more intensely obsessed with go in the first few years of learning it (been playing now for 10 years), I still enjoy it more than most other activities.

2. Bad Memory - our flawed memory makes it hard to remember joseki and other common patterns.

Very hard to say. Once I understand (whatever that means) a joseki I can remember it. It might need reinforcement from time to time to make sure it stays there.

3. Inability to Calculate Variations - we cannot visualize well enough to see more than 3 moves ahead.

I can see a little more than 3 moves ahead but limited reading is almost certainly my chief weakness

4. Absence of a Study Plan - we own lots of material (books) - but have no direction.

Check

5. Psychological Instability - negative thinking.

Nope, at least I don't think so. This might be related to 7 however. Overly cautious moves could be equated to negative thinking. But I generally remain optimistic of winning.

6. Low Chess (go) Stamina - we lose focus during a long game which leads to bad decisions.

At any level concentration errors can be fatal, but I find this particularly true at dan level. Unless the error is very early, it's very hard to recover from these. So long as the game is sufficiently serious, I'm OK with this.

7. “Fear of Ghosts” - we let fear of a mistake dictate our play.

I'm probably too cautious. I have been criticized about this. Not so much fear of a mistake as fear of the unknown - I don't want to go down this branch because I can't reasonably predict the outcome.

8. Lack of Competitiveness - it's hard to stay motivated when we think it's "just a game."

Motivation is key. Serious games are critical. How to make them serious? Having them count for (national) rating points helps, but there's lots of other ways. For example, if you're paying a teacher to review the games, surely you're going to put your best effort in. If you're representing a group, e.g. your club, or your country, or whatever, then it's easy to be motivated. Tournaments, obviously. So yes, just a game, but I'm able to stay motivated with methods such as the above. I really struggle to stay motivated for random KGS or Tygem games.

9. Inability to Handle Pressure - pretty much sums it up.

I love the pressure. When my whole body is shaking from the adrenaline of trying to read out a tough fight in a long and complex game, then I'm enjoying my go the most.

10. Time Management Choices - we don't consistently do enough of the right kind of work.

Yeah, too much online blitz is really bad for my go