I have to make an apology to the visual thinkers among you.
It's easy to assume other people's minds work the way yours does. Even when it's almost your entire job not to assume that, it still happens.
In one of my core techniques I've catered only to people with brains like mine: verbal thinkers.
I've left everyone else behind.
After recommending this technique for well over a year, I've finally discovered my mistake. In this article, I make it right.
I'm talking about the mantra technique, my main recommendation to combat freewheeling and break out of framed thinking.
It was the inconsistent results that first drew my attention to the problem.
With most of my work the results are reasonably consistent across players, especially across my coaching students. I've been able to rely on each of my techniques for resolving the conceptualization issues for which they were designed.
Not so with the mantra. With it, some people flourished, others floundered.
There was no difference in their effort with the technique. Just in their results.
There's a line I keep in mind every time I learn something new:
"If you're not making good progress in a reasonable period of time, the problem is not with you but with your method."
Well, the problem was not with them but with the method. My method.
A couple of months ago, I decided to work out what was wrong. I threw myself into more research. I reviewed the feedback from the various times I've mentioned the mantra here in the newsletter. And I started to experiment.
My conclusion after all that was damningly simple: I'd designed the technique for my own brain.
It had worked wonders for me, and has worked wonders for some others. But we're all different.
In most of my work, I'm hyper-aware of these differences. But with the mantra, I failed.
So if the mantra technique never clicked for you, I apologize. Here's what I'm recommending now.
The core structure of the mantra habit still applies.
To resolve issues of freewheeling, we need a routine at the start of every move to act as a buffer between our intuition and our decisions.
Otherwise we will find ourselves reacting to what our intuition thinks, rather than what's actually happening in the position.
The center of the technique is a short list of questions (usually 3) designed to arm our brains with key details about an opponent's move before we start thinking about our own move.
Habits involving a series of questions are extremely difficult to build by themselves. So, in a fun little trick on our human psychology, we can build a separate, easier-to-learn habit to act as a trigger for those questions instead.
(This is the fundamental problem with checklist habits like the classic "checks, captures, attacks". I've met hundreds of players who have attempted a checklist habit, and maybe a couple dozen who were able to use it consistently. Building separate trigger habits can help with those too.)
The mantra technique goes like this:
- When our opponent makes their move, we complete our chosen trigger action (more on that in a second).
- We ask the questions we've selected to draw our attention to key details.
- Armed with that information, we think about our move as normal.
We'll work through them in reverse.
Step 3 is obvious. We don't want to get in the way of our normal process of finding our next move. We simply want to ensure we get the critical information first.
Step 2 is where we ask the 3 questions.
We want the first 2 of the questions to be easily-answerable, focused on details we regularly miss. The 3rd question should be about the move's purpose.
You should tailor your questions to the gaps in your own awareness, but here are some to try for various rating ranges.
The rating numbers below are based on Chesscom ratings. Add 200-300 points for Lichess equivalents.
If you're rated under 1000, here are some questions to try:
- Is the piece that just moved defended?
- Did that move leave anything else undefended?
- What's the point of the move?
If you're rated 1000-1500, try these:
- Which pieces did that move weaken or leave undefended?
- What is the piece now defending or attacking?
- What's the point of the move?
Over 1500, the demands on your awareness shoot up. It's critical to have a good sense of both sides of each move.
- What's changed because the piece has left its old square?
- What's changed because the piece is on its new square?
- What's the point of the move?
You don't need these questions to catch everything, just to help you spot the things your intuition regularly ignores or skips. Keep it simple.
Step 1, the action itself, is the linchpin of this whole thing. We want this action to be short, simple, and very easy to do.
Its only purpose is to remind us to ask the questions.
If your mind runs on words like mine, you can repeat a phrase to yourself as the trigger. The kookier, stranger, and less Chess-related the better. You can read more about this original take on the mantra technique in this article.
My mistake was to think a verbal mantra was the best way to do this for everyone. Thankfully, this idea has now evolved.
For many of my students, physical triggers are working much better than the verbal mantra ever did.
Here are some examples of physical, visible triggers you can try.
For over-the-board games where you have to write down your moves, use a clicky pen as your trigger.
When you've finished writing down your move, unclick your pen so you can't write with it. You can only click your pen again once you've asked your questions.
This way if you go to write your move down and you haven't unclicked your pen, you'll know you need to ask the questions first. This little safety mechanism has saved a few serious blunders in tournament games already.
(Thanks to Matt Doe for this fantastic idea!)
For online games, let go of the mouse once you've made your move.
You aren't allowed to touch the mouse again until you've asked your questions.
And for wherever you play Chess, you could put your hand in your pocket after you've moved.
Again, you can't take your hand out until you've asked the questions.
The exact form of the trigger doesn't matter. It just has to be something you can do on every single move as a reminder. Find what works for you.
While it may seem like a pain to do this at the start of every move, after a while you won't need to do it anymore.
You'll find it awkward to start with. When the position gets complex, or time pressure kicks in, you'll forget to do it.
That's fine and normal. The self-control to get started with a new habit takes slots, and slots are at a premium in those situations.
But then you'll get some results with it. You'll notice things you would have missed, and you'll feel you play better on the turns you do it than the ones you don't.
That creates positive reinforcement for your brain, starting the process of making this automatic.
You'll start off doing the technique maybe 30% of the time. After some positive experiences, your brain will learn that it actually finds Chess easier when it does it.
You'll slowly find yourself doing it 40%, then 50%, then 70% of the time.
By then, you'll start spotting some of these extra details before you use the habit trigger. That's an exciting moment.
Eventually, you won't need the habit trigger at all. Your brain will learn to notice those extra things by itself.
That's the long-term goal. You'll feel the difference in your game long before it's fully automatic though. Don't rush to that finish line.
Practice the technique every time you see a piece move, whether in your games, during puzzles, or during your study. We want to create this awareness all the time, not just when you're actually playing.
For extra reinforcement, I recommend the Five Sentences exercise. Answer your chosen questions as part of your five sentences and help your brain get that extra practice outside of your games.
(Reach out if you have any questions about how you could or should apply this technique for yourself. Always happy to help.)
As a final thought today, I want to say thank you.
Often my work feels like chopping through thick jungle with a blunt machete. This conceptualization path I'm on isn't well traveled.
But I feel secure that I can experiment, hypothesize, research, and attempt to apply what I learn without fear. I can try things, make mistakes, and admit them openly.
You're not here because you're after tried-and-true methods perfected over generations. The Chess world is full of that in other places. You're here with me because you want the messy, exciting insights. The insights that lie in that thick jungle.
I commit to keep chopping away with this blunt machete and communicating whatever I uncover.
And when I find something that contradicts some part of my work, I promise you'll always be the first to know.
Here's to the journey,
Aiden
