There's a word that pops up in a lot of my work. I hold it up as the ideal, the goal, the target for our conceptualization work.
Clarity.
Clarity is the most important part of conceptualization training.
Distance, creativity, accuracy, speed – all are impossible, or at least much much worse, when you don't first have clarity.
Without clarity we will miss stuff, we will blunder, and we will waste opportunities.
It is the intersection of awareness and memory. It underpins everything. It is the metric by which we measure the success of our conceptualization work.
Clarity is Queen.
(Normally that phrase goes "x is King". But we're Chess players, we know being King isn't all it's cracked up to be.)
What actually is Clarity?
It's a hard experience to communicate. One of those if-you've-felt-it-you-know kinda things. But that's not a very satisfying answer.
We all feel when we don't have clarity. We're foggy, confused. We strain to keep track of it all but it inevitably slips away.
But how can we tell if we're heading in the right direction?
Often the understanding of clarity comes in a flash. You're working on an exercise, trying to follow the sequence, hold the position, and you realize suddenly that your mental board is clear!
Every week or two I'll hear from a new person who's had the experience. They tell me they "finally get it".
During a tough exercise, one they've chipped away at over time, it clicked. All the work they'd done on their conceptualization came together, and the position was as clear to them as if it were in front of them.
(Note: that doesn't mean they saw the position in their head. Everyone has their own models. This same certainty can come regardless of how your brain wants to represent it to you.)
They don't always achieve that clarity, there are too many variables to be totally clear all the time, but they feel they understand the target now. They know what they're aiming at.
In my work with GMs, I can sense the moment they achieve clarity.
To get to the core of a Grandmaster's conceptualization model, I need to give them a very complicated and totally random position. The kind of position that's technically legal, but would require the most absurd sequence of moves to get there that the GM has no reference for it in their long term memory.
I tell them the locations of the pieces. They comment on all the weird ones (a lot!) and they'll sit with it for a little moment. They'll ask a couple questions to clarify things, maybe ask me to go through the pieces again.
But then I'll sense the shift. They'll sit up a little straighter, a small smile will appear. They're clear.
It's hard when you're starting conceptualization training to aim at a target you don't understand.
I can't tell you exactly where clarity is, it's a little different for all of us, but I can guide you toward it.
To strain a golfing metaphor, I can point you at the green. Once there, you'll see where the hole is for yourself.
Below are 3 questions. When you're working with a tricky blindfold position, seeking that elusive clarity, ask them.
If you can answer each of these questions with "yes", then you're on the green. You'll sense what to do after that.
Question 1: Do I understand how the pieces interact with each other?
What attacks or defends what? What threats exist in the position?
It can help to think of this question as having two levels:
- Do I understand what's going on in each bit of the board?
- Do I understand how those bits relate to each other?
However your brain is representing the board to you in your head, it's likely you're taking in bits of it at a time. Whether it's a "flashlight in a dark room" experience as IM Eric Rosen described or something else, there's a good chance your brain breaks the position into chunks of some kind.
Pay attention to each chunk. Identify how the pieces are connected, what the chunk means in the position. Then connect that to the other chunks, tie it all together into a unified understanding of the position.
(For more on Chunking this Walkthrough episode from the podcast should help.)
Question 2: Could I rebuild this position on a board if I had to?
You may have a good sense of all the obviously important stuff after the first question, but there are always a bunch of small details that don't seem to be all that critical right now.
The position is clearly about the kingside attack, so that pawn on b4 feels pretty irrelevant and is easy to forget.
Real clarity is not about remembering every one of those details all the time. Alekhine himself would regularly forget these smaller details. But you need to have them tied into your sense of the position enough to be able to retrieve that information as soon as you need it.
You want to feel like you could start putting that position on the board right now, and no part of it would give you pause.
Not necessarily because you have memorized where everything is, but more that it makes sense where everything is. It couldn't be anywhere else in this position.
And finally…
Question 3: Could I have a conversation with someone about this position without seeing it?
This one's the perfect metric.
Could you sit down with another Chess player, no board between you, and chat about this position? Propose ideas, calculate lines. Argue why an idea might work or not work.
It doesn't mean that you're never wrong about the position. Your intuition might still propose a bad move, or even an impossible move.
But when you're clear you can quickly catch those suggestions, evaluate them, and realize they don't make sense.
You can play with the position in your mind. Try things. See where certain lines could go. It's your canvas and you can do whatever you want with it.
You don't need perfect Chess understanding to achieve this clarity.
The sort of conversation you could have about the position is obviously different if you're 700 rated, 1500 rated, or a GM.
The conversation might be a little slower perhaps, with a few more pauses to work out a diagonal or knight move, but the end result is as detailed and enthusiastic as if you had the board in front of you.
That's your target. That's what clarity is. Or at least the realm it sits in. The exact form clarity takes will be unique to you, and only you will know when you've achieved it.
The search for clarity is more important than finding the answer.
It's in your efforts to create clarity that your brain improves its conceptualization.
To build clarity it's forced to create chunks, techniques, and efficiencies. You're pushing your working memory to get better at handling Chess information.
It's the work that matters, not the answer.
That's the bit that translates across to your regular Chess. That's the bit you'll feel in your next game.
So if you're struggling to find an answer in a conceptualization exercise, know you're doing the work that matters.
If you get the answer quickly because of a pattern you know well, try slowing it down. Make sure you understand the position and why that pattern works here.
There are few feelings better than being impressed by something your own brain just did. That first time you feel clarity is one of those moments.
When clarity clicks for you, celebrate.
Here's to the journey,
Aiden
