How I found this rabbit hole
One of the books I got from dear old dad was Fischer’s “My
60 Memorable games”. I vaguely recalled
a blurb somewhere that Fischer had trained by studying in depth old classic
games and was trying to relate some early Najdorf Sicilian to a broader
database with older games. Then I got frustrated because nothing seemed to
correlate nor did I want to sift through reams of games by Fischer and search
on branched mainlines of the time. I
also couldn’t find “the Blurb”. I have a life outside of chess , so I googled “fischer chess training.” The only reference I
could find to the old games study was when he first trained seriously with IGM
William Lombardy and the phrase: Eidetic
Imagery and Total Immersion came up.
Wait, What?
When I first encountered the phrase, I had NO CLUE what it
meant. So I googled that phrase and discovered
it was related to a form of psychotherapy that relates to a true vision so
vivid that the person can recall exact details and more. Another description puts this in the category
of photographic memory. I am not doing
it justice so read it for your self here. It’s more than just a vivid memory, it sounds
very similar to what native Americans would refer to a vision quest where the answers unfold in
front of the person unhindered by presuppositions or ones own preconceptions.
It has to do with clarity and some sort of “ultra vision”. William Lombardy at about the age of 17
dropped that hallucinatory thought on a fertile prepubescent Fischer ( age 11)back
in 1954 before retiring from competitive chess in 1962 to pursue a career as a
Roman Catholic Priest. You may want to reread that last sentence. He wanted to teach the young Bobby how he was
able to have a meteoric rise to competitive chess.
What does this mean for Chess Training?
Training a student for meteoric rise sounds suspiciously
like “rapid improvement” techniques. For
all you Royal Knight Errant fans, you might recall the Michael De La Maza’s (MDLM)
Rapid Chess Improvement in Chess plan? This was a
kind of force feeding method of increasing imagery to the memory in hopes to
make your brain light up when a tactic is available through pattern
recognition. ( Been there done the 7 circles of hell…so I can speak from
experience here) This process may work varying degrees of success to a student
depending on their learning style. One may be visual learner and gain some
ground but if you don’t have a photographic memory the results are somewhat
static and not long lasting . When
experts ( not me) talk about Eidetic Memory, they speak about it falling
between the memory image and after image in one’s mind. For those with photographic
memories, the after image is just as vivid as the first. The problem with MDLM’s
method is it force feeds the memory imagery. If your learning style is auditory
it makes it more difficult. Bottom line is that there is no silver bullet.
Can someone develop a better capacity for “After Image” in their memory?
Let’s face it, calculation holds the key to many advanced
chess skills and this means the ability to “see” the board in one’s mind. Here is nice article on learning how to
improve one’s blindfold chess skills. I like because it further elaborates on how different masters
have approached or viewed the inner chessboard making me want to pick up YET
ANOTHER chess book by George Koltanowski called, In The Dark. In the past, I played games against a computer on a
lower setting to practice blindfold. I would start on the lowest level and play
until I could win consistently before going to the next level.
DeGroot, who wrote a psychological study about Masters
versus amateurs called Thought and Choice in Chess, noticed that masters do have a better ability to recall
patterns in order of magnitude greater than the amateur. He goes on to mention
the concept of “chunking” parts of the board visually and recognizing lines of
forces from the pieces as favorable traits for the Master. He had also done
tests on positional recognition by showing positions from real games for a few
seconds and having the subject reconstruct the position from memory. Masters
obviously scored better again. But when shown random positions, there was no
significant difference between the ability to recall random positions from
Masters and amateurs. There must be something “meaningful” behind the image we
are committing to memory. Does this mean, Masters find more “meaning” in their
games? As an amateur, as much as I love the game, I still am struggling to
comprehend all the positions, and fear of being put into an unknown position dampens
my ability to find true meaning.
Back to the entrance of the rabbit hole
Lombardy also mentions spending hours with Fischer going
over “quality” games. The key operative is getting the right set of games to go
over. I would also add having the right
coach early on that can help guide you to a stronger sense of meaning in the
positions and nuances of the games is part of the “immersion technique”
Lombardy mentions. I also think going over whole games to the point where you
can commit them to memory is good. If you can then recall these after-images of
strategic components or tactical elements during your own games then I can see
how this might rapidly improve your playing strength rather than just making
you good in one area of the game like tactics. For the amateur like me, its learning
to set aside all the other elements outside the game ( mortgage, job, life) and
being at ease when I reach an unknown position over the board. I wish I could
afford ( time and money) for a coach but in the meantime, I search for meaning
in some games I study.
See you across the board.
Blunderprone
