This article, like any good article about Chess, begins with Mr Bean.
There's a classic sketch where the titular Bean attempts to pack for an upcoming vacation. He only has a small suitcase, very limited capacity, and loads of things he'd like to take with him.
His solutions to his problem are… creative.
I love this sketch. I see it as the perfect metaphor for what our working memories go through when we're calculating.
When we calculate, our brains become like Bean. They're working hard to fit everything they need into our tiny working memory capacity. Cutting things up, swapping things out, leaving things out.
This all happens automatically, under the hood. We only experience the results of this process. Whatever your brain manages to squeeze into that suitcase is what you have access to when you make your decisions.
As you push further into a position, the amount of information you need to track increases considerably. Even if you only calculate out one move, your working memory suddenly needs to notice and track:
- any new threats caused by the move
- any vectors the move opens
- any weaknesses the move created
- any possible responses to the move
- how that move affects the wider position and evaluation
Then it has to do that for the next move, and the next. Then any branches, then any branches of branches. Information overload.
To make it all fit, your brain simplifies things even more. Swaps more stuff out, cuts more stuff down. We get foggy, overwhelmed, confused. We become blind to details, opportunities, and resources.
Today, we're going to look at three primary ways your brain attempts to simplify Chess information when you calculate: tunnel vision, ghost pieces, and pattern overrides.
Tunnel vision is where your brain can't hold all the information it needs at once, so decides to let go of things it deems less relevant.
We're focused on the kingside and temporarily forget the queenside exists. Or we move the only piece preventing checkmate because we forgot that's why we put it there.
In our calculations, we forget details or miss our opponents' resources. Not because they were particularly hidden, but simply because they weren't in our tight beam of focus.
These are the most common simplifications plaguing beginners in Chess.
Ghost pieces are when what you can see with your eyes gets in the way of what's happening in your calculation.
You moved your knight from c3 to d5 on the second move of your calculations, but your eye can still see it on c3. Then at some point in your calculation, suddenly, it's like the knight never moved. Or worse, the knight is on both squares at once.
It's easier for your brain to track the position you see with your eyes than the one in your head. So, sometimes, in order to fit more in that suitcase, it will replace some detail on your mental board with a detail from the actual board. We don't consciously realize it when it happens.
Sometimes a ghost piece will lead us to think a square is protected when it's actually not. Or that we have a tactic when we actually don't.
Ghost piece issues show up at every level of the game. They're a big part of why all the top players look away from the board when calculating particularly difficult variations. A rogue ghost piece can ruin a game very quickly.
Pattern overrides are when your brain replaces what's actually happening in your calculation with something else that you know better.
When we know a pattern, it's far easier for our brains to work with it. The pattern held in our brain is like a page on Wikipedia. Our working memory doesn't actually need to hold all that information itself, it simply needs to hold a link to the appropriate page on our mental Wikipedia.
Sometimes, when a position in our calculation is close enough to a pattern we know, our brains will start to act like it is the position we know. And we won't notice it when that shift occurs.
I was working with a 2100-rated player and had them follow a deep and complex line (about 14 ply) and find the best move at the end. In the line, their knight jumped around a bunch on the kingside and ended up on h2, a very strange square for a knight.
They told me they were considering two candidate moves. As they explained the options, I noticed something strange: one of the candidate moves was impossible.
When they explained the first option, their knight sat on h2. They talked about moves like Ng4 as possibilities. When they explained their second candidate move, which followed a thematic idea from an opening they know, suddenly the knight was on g2. They were talking about how important it was that the knight protected the f4 square.
As the player discussed their options, their knight was teleporting between h2 and g2 and they had no idea it was happening.
Their brain was straining under 14 ply of complex calculation. It started to rely on that thematic pattern in their long term memory too much. For that second candidate move, their brain had replaced a little of the actual position with the pattern they knew better.
At the other end of the rating chart, I see pattern overrides all the time. In one blindfold exercise I do with all my one-on-one coaching students, we go through the moves of a game from the beginning, and I have them answer questions about each position.
One game I use starts with "1. e4 e5" and the student answers my questions about those moves. Then I tell them "2. Nc3", and ask them to tell me what it does.
About half the time, with students rated under about 1000, the following happens:
The student repeats "Nc3", confirming they know which square I'm talking about. Then they'll say, "the knight on c3 attacks e5 and controls the d4 square".
I wait a moment, then ask, "are you sure?". They say they are.
They think they're telling me about Nc3, but instead they just told me about Nf3. Nf3 is a much more common and familiar pattern after e4 e5. So, under the pressure of early-stage blindfold training, their brain just swaps in Nf3 instead and they have no idea it's happened.
Pattern overrides come in all shapes and sizes, but it's always your brain replacing something that's harder to hold with something it already knows well.
Each of these simplifications are a result of our brains freaking out a little.
They're overwhelmed with the load and attempt to come up with something, anything, to deal with it. These issues never go away entirely, but with the right training (and some effort), we can increase how much information and pressure it takes for these simplifications to occur.
As with Part 2, I've included some exercises to help you start working on these things.
Today's exercises are about accurately conceptualizing future positions, training your brain to handle all of that information. The different exercise styles target different parts of that process.
Here's to the journey,
Aiden
