How I Study Chess
Although I grew up in the technological era of chess, I embarrassingly didn’t have much to do with chess engines and databases. I loved reading books as a young child, and this disposition certainly affected my chess study habits. I found that when I went online to attempt to access the latest TWIC (This Week In Chess) release, I would inevitably be drawn to some gaming website or similar time-wasting activity (this unfortunate condition appears to have gotten worse with time). I found that sitting down in front of a board with nothing but a book in hand was the best way for me to study.
Allow me to elaborate on exactly what I did with these materials — I simply would play through the games slowly and think about each and every move. During some critical points I would mark the page, close the book, and look at the position for several minutes. This time was spent breaking down the imbalances, determining plans for both sides, and then coming up with several possible variations of moves. With these thoughts clear in my head (sometimes I would write them down on a piece of paper), I would re-open the book and compare my analysis with that of the author’s. By repeating this process with many books, I gradually familiarized myself with a multitude of positions and obtained a better understanding of the thought processes of strong grandmasters.
Although I didn’t know it at the time, the reasoning behind this procedure is rooted in the results of several chess-related studies in the field of cognitive science — (see Gobet, F. (2004). “Role of pattern recognition and search in expert decision making” along with its referenced publications for a more technical explanation). Essentially, strong chess players can zero in on the key aspects of a position by rapidly accessing points in long-term memory (called “chunks”) and searching for similarly evaluated positions in the past, hence the term “pattern recognition.” In this form of studying, I was building up my reservoir of positions and accompanying plans I could call upon in the future. Indeed, as I went through more and more books, I noticed improved accuracy when comparing my analysis with the author’s notes. The books that I went through included the entire “My Great Predecessors” series by Garry Kasparov and my personal favorite “The Mammoth Book of the World’s Greatest Chess Games” by Burgess, Nunn, and Emms.
In a world where most players probably rely on software like Chessbase and Houdini for studying, this practice may be outdated. Nevertheless, this classical approach certainly has its merits, and I believe that its applications can be extended to far more areas than just a board game.
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