Sometimes our brain just acts.

By itself. Out of nowhere.

Like a fall of dominoes, each thought knocks over the next until we reach some endpoint.

In these moments, our Intuition is in control and we are simply along for the ride.

So we overreact to our opponent's threat. Or we play that move that looks good on the surface without considering how our opponent might respond. Or maybe we ignore our opponent's last move entirely, trapped in our own domino-fall of thought.

This is Freewheeling, the result of Intuition having too much say over our decisions.

Human cognition is a dance between two different "speeds" of thought.

Intuition is our "fast" thinking. Rapid, immediate, automatic. It checks for threats, watches for movement, and recognizes patterns.

Reason, our deeper thinking, is slower. It can handle complex information, calculate, and come up with new ideas. But it requires a lot of mental energy.

Reason does two main things. First, it thinks deeply. And second, it acts as a leash for Intuition to stop it running amok, jumping at shadows, and overreacting.

Our Reason doesn't like to stay active for long. In fact, it would prefer not to be active at all. It takes a lot of energy, and our brains don't like that.

Maintaining our slower Reasoned thinking over a long period, say the length of a Chess game, requires self-control. A lot of self-control. And self-control requires space in our seven slots.

When we're under too much pressure, we overload. And our labrador jumps in to manage the seven slots the best it can.

If it prioritizes information over thinking space, we Freeze.

If it prioritizes thinking space over information, we Forget.

And if it drops self-control in favor of any other function, we Freewheel.

It's extremely tempting for the labrador to drop self-control. From a brain perspective, it solves our overload problems very quickly.

We use self-control to concentrate. We use self-control to think deeply when we calculate. We use self-control to think about the whole position.

Our raw Intuition and pattern recognition don't require any self-control. They're automatic. Handing full power to them reduces our mental strain instantly.

But we wouldn't make it very far as a species if our brains let go of self-control any chance they got.

Our labrador tries its best not to drop self-control unless it thinks it's in our best interests to do so.

In most situations, it will only drop self-control if Intuition spots a big threat or a big opportunity.

Note that I said that it happens when Intuition spots these things. Not necessarily when they actually exist. Our Intuition is often wrong.

Here's something we've all done before.

It's a complex endgame. Rook, bishop, pawn each. You're trying to find your way through it. Every decision takes loads of energy. Your self-control keeps you focused and attentive. But it's draining.

Then your opponent moves their rook away from the defense of their pawn!

Yes — finally they made a mistake!

Your intuition spots the opportunity and you go for it. With a burst of excitement, you gobble up the pawn with your own rook.

Aaaannnd their bishop moves from the other side of the board to capture the rook you just moved...

You resign.

Your labrador was holding everything in balance right up until the moment your Intuition spotted the "opportunity".

Your Intuition decided the next move was easy. Your labrador took that assessment as the long-awaited opportunity to let your brain stop working so dang hard.

"If the next move is so obvious, then it's safe to rest self-control for a moment until we need it again", it figures.

So you skip the part where you normally double-check, look around the board, and notice the bishop. Not because you're a bad player, but because your labrador left you with no self-control in that moment.

This kind of mistake is a "Full Freewheel". It's where your Intuition gets excited and you play a move without thinking about it at all.

Sometimes Freewheeling is a little bit subtler than that.

Freewheeling doesn't only happen when your Intuition spots an exciting or threatening move. It can happen when your Intuition locks on to an idea as well.

I sometimes have my coaching students play online rapid games during our sessions.

I watch and take notes while they play and talk me through what they're noticing, considering, and planning. It's a useful tool for understanding how a student's brain is juggling the information of the game.

In one of these live games, the student had a big kingside attack on the go. Things were looking good. He was thinking clearly about the whole position, considering all his resources.

Then his opponent pushed a pawn in the center of the board to attack one of my student's pawns. It surprised him, and his Intuition labeled it as a threat.

(It was a terrible move from his opponent, but Intuition's not very objective. Sometimes the surprise alone is enough to mark a move as a threat.)

I watched my student's thinking shrink from full board awareness and consideration of all his resources, to a simple question: "Do I take or do I push?"

He thought deeply about each option. He calculated, he double checked, he put a lot of work into the decision.

But it never occurred to him, even for a second, to just ignore the pawn and continue his attack.

He was caught in a form of Freewheeling I call "framed thinking". We find ourselves able to think deeply, but only within the boundaries our Intuition has provided for us.

(In my full series on Intuition, I referred to this as "trenched reason". They're the same thing, but this new term feels slightly more accurate. And I like the word "freewheeling".)

Your Intuition gets excited and says, "Look, I don't know exactly which move we should play, but it's definitely something to do with this idea I've just had."

Your labrador, still desperate for an excuse to reduce your mental strain, drops everything it can to let you focus on just that idea.

All of this happens automatically, without our awareness. We just deal with the results.

Framed thinking shows up in big and small ways.

In one position, your Intuition jumps to the conclusion that there has to be a checkmate soon. You start looking for it, and when you can't find it you play a normal, waiting move instead.

... But your opponent's rook was hanging and you could have taken that. The frame for your thinking was "checkmate", and the hanging rook was outside of that.

In another position, maybe your opponent moves their bishop to attack your queen. You have to find a safe spot for her, so you look for one that puts some nice pressure on your opponent as well.

... But you miss that their bishop was the only thing protecting their back rank. Once it moved, your rook had mate-in-one. Your thinking was framed by the question, "where can I move my queen?". Looking for checkmate wasn't part of that.

The funny part with that last example is if you could have moved your queen to a square that delivered the back-rank mate, you would have spotted it. Do you see how framed thinking works?

It's very difficult to resolve issues of Freewheeling.

Like with Forgetting, we don't know it's happening when it's happening. It's only after we've played our move that we realize it's occurred.

So there's nothing we can consciously do to pull ourselves out of it.

The only things we can rely on to save us in those moments are our habits and our training.

The same 3 recommendations I made in Part Three will help to reduce Freewheeling as well. Better pattern recognition, start-of-the-move habits, and better conceptualization skills will all assist.

But if those recommendations feel too much for you, and I definitely get it if they do, here's something extremely simple to try:

Take a breath before every move.

A proper, intentional breath. In and out. Before you play your move.

Hit the pause button for a second before you touch the piece.

Sometimes that's all we need to break out of a Freewheel. Just a tiny hiccup to the flow.

Not all the time, but sometimes.

The Vacated Square and Mantra habits I mentioned last week were built specifically to combat forms of Freewheeling. If you can, train one of those.

But if they feel too hard, try just taking a breath. See how that helps.

No matter what you do, you will still Freewheel sometimes. It's human.

It happens everywhere. Watch for Freewheeling in your regular life as well. It can pop up in a bunch of fun little ways.

It's one of the strange things about our existence. As much part of us as our hearts and our livers.

Isn't it cool we get to witness these fundamentally human quirks whenever we sit down to play Chess?

I think it's pretty cool.

Well, at least I think it's cool when these quirks happen to my opponent...

Here's to the journey,
Aiden