11/5/2008
WestMichiganChess.com: Dr. de Bruin, when I tell chess players about your fine article on "Helping Chess Players Improve" in The Chess Instructor 2009, they invariably ask, "Is she a chess player, herself?" Do you play chess? And how did you get interested in making this an area of research?
Anique de Bruin: You probably wouldn't expect it, but I'm not a chess player! I'm a cognitive psychologist interested in how people become experts, and in cognitive psychology chess is a well-researched skill, as it is very complex, highly structured, and provides ample opportunities for controlled research. And of course, the ELO rating allows for modelling of performance development, something that is not quite possible in most physical sports.
WestMichiganChess.com: How do you describe yourself in terms of your work? It seems that your work is as much as about sports performance as cognitive psychology.
Anique de Bruin: The results of studies that have been done in chess appear to generalize to physical sports as well. Therefore, research on skill development in physical sports and in chess tends to complement each other. But as a cognitive psychologist, my main interest still lies in chess. Besides from deliberate practice, another line of research I am working on focuses on metacognition, that is, the extent to which learners are able to reflect on their understanding of study material. Research typically shows that students tend to overestimate their performance on exams. I'm intrigued by the question how we can improve their self-evaluation, as it will help learners improve their results.
WestMichiganChess.com: Could you tell us a little bit about "deliberate practice" and how you decided that this was an important area to research and write about?
Anique de Bruin: Research on expertise started with De Groot's famous study in 1946. He compared memory for chess positions of grand master and novice chess players, and discovered that grand masters had a near perfect memory for chess positions after studying it for only 5 seconds. Ever since, research has mainly focused on describing and explaining differences between experts and non-experts. The deliberate practice theory is atypical, as it describes HOW people progress from novice to expert, which in my point of view is much more interesting to study. It has clear practical implications for training, and it touches upon a crucial debate in psychology, the nature-nurture debate. For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, the nature-nurture debate addresses the question to what extent human performance, but also human personality, is caused by our biological set-up (nature) or by our environment (nurture).
WestMichiganChess.com: Have you applied some of the deliberate practice techniques to building your own skills in chess or other areas of interest for yourself or your students at Rotterdam University?
Anique de Bruin: One of my main goals when teaching is familiarizing students with the view that expertise is trainable, and requires hard work. Most people are convinced that talent plays a crucial role when obtaining expertise. You either have it, or you don't. I find it important to show them that the scientific evidence points in the opposite direction. But also when students come for advice on how to prepare for an exam, they are much surprised when I tell them to focus on the parts they don't understand instead of those they already master (the latter ones are usually the ones they like studying).
WestMichiganChess.com: I liked very much the rigor of your article. It was based on what seemed to me peer-reviewed, reproducible work by yourself and others. Do you know of work of similar rigor around the question of "Does chess help kids become more generally successful later in life?"
Anique de Bruin: There are a few studies (some dating back to the seventies) that showed that students who were provided chess instruction for about a year improved more in terms of academic performance than students who were not given the instruction. I know of one recent study who was unable to replicate these findings in students at risk for poor academic achievement, but in general, more research is needed to come to definitive conclusions regarding the relation between chess instruction and academic performance.
WestMichiganChess.com: At what age do you think a chess player can begin "deliberate practice" in his or her improvement efforts?
Anique de Bruin: Retrospective studies have shown that chess experts will start deliberate practice as young as six or seven years of age. Of course, at that point deliberate practice can only be done for a few minutes per training session. Chess players usually expand their attention span rapidly and are ultimately able to practice deliberately for four to five hours a day in one hour sessions.
WestMichiganChess.com: Are there books on chess that you'd recommend that follow the "deliberate practice" approach that you describe?
Anique de Bruin: As I'm not a chess player, I'm unfamiliar with the chess training literature. However, I do know that deliberate practice in chess is mainly characterized by analyzing games played by better chess players, and predicting their next moves. This of course can be done easily with the enormous amount of chess databases that are available through the web. Feedback on performance by analyzing the chess master's actual moves, is crucial in this regard.
WestMichiganChess.com: Where would you recommend someone go to read or learn more about deliberate practice?
Anique de Bruin: There is not a lot of easily accessible literature on this topic, but if you want the full story, I recommend the Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance (edited by Ericsson and colleagues), which contains an exhaustive overview of expertise research in chess, sports, music and arts , mainly from the viewpoint of deliberate practice.
WestMichiganChess.com: What other questions should I ask?
Anique de Bruin: Maybe it's interesting to know where I want to go next with my research. My main focus (besides metacognition as I described above) is studying how achievement motivation develops. We know that years of deliberate practice are necessary to reach the top, but why is one person motivated to dedicate the necessary hours to deliberate practice, whereas the next quits after a few years? As these kinds of studies require a lot of participants, I'm always looking for collaborators. If you are interested, please let me know!
You can read more about Ms. de Bruin's work on deliberate practice here.
10/30/2008
Geoff Colvin is an editor at the business magazine Fortune. Colvin's new book, Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World Class Performers from Everybody Else, is creating positive buzz among business leaders.
Colvin, like chess researcher Dr. Anique de Bruin, advocates deliberate practice as a way to reach our full potential. Colvin says:
"The key to this development is pushing people – or people pushing themselves – just beyond their current abilities, forcing them to do things that they can't quite do... Certain practices can make the experience especially productive. Coaching helps. Getting specific in your own mind about exactly which abilities you want to improve, and how, will turbocharge the results. But the main thing is continually trying things you can't quite do. This is what makes you better. And doing it for a long time is what makes you great."
I think that chess players who want to improve can learn a lot from applying these ideas of deliberate practice.
You may want to read two Fortune articles by Colvin:
Why Talent is Overrated. Colvin summarizes his book here.
What it Takes to be Great. An earlier Colvin article that may have been the basis for his book.
10/25/2008
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is an Internet-standard web feed format that lets you pull down content from your favorite Internet blogs into one place. Instead of needing to check Ben Finegold's, Jim Marfia's, and Bethel McGrew's blogs on a daily basis to see if there are new postings, RSS pulls down updates into one place that I can quickly eyeball to see what's new.
Here, I first show (A) the steps I use to add content to my RSS reader, and then list (B) my favorite chess blogs.
(A) There are two steps to setting up a blog reader.
Step 1. Select and set up an RSS reader. I have screen shots below of the RSS reader that is built into my Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 software and the free Google Reader software.
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RSS Feeds in Microsoft Outlook |
RSS Feeds in Google Reader |
Step 2. Pick the blogs, news, and other RSS-enabled feeds that are of interest to you, and add them to your reader. This is usually as simple as clicking on the RSS glyph next to the blog, then copying the URL into your RSS reader software.
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Here are the steps for adding a Microsoft Sharepoint blog to your RSS reader |
(B) My favorite blogs. On Google Reader, I categorize my blogs by location. Here's what I have set up at present:
West Michigan
Bethel McGrew
Jim Marfia
Lansing Chess Club
Andy Catlin
WestMichiganChess: Highlights --this is the list of news items on our home page, that also shows new annotated games that have been added
Tony Palmer
Michigan
Ben Finegold
Knight Relocation Program (Jenny Skidmore)
United States
New York Times
The Chess Mind --how do I filter out the Notre Dame football? ):
Daily Dirt
United States Chess Federation
World
ChessVibes --a list of new news
ChessDrum
I wish I could add chesscafe.com articles and new chesslecture.com videos as well!
To learn more about RSS, start by checking out this fun, clear 4 minute RSS overview: http://www.commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english. 10/12/2008In my first blog on WestMichiganChess.com, I talked about Mindset, a book that argues that hard work and learning strategies are more important for success than innate ability. I recently read the Dutch scientist Anique de Bruin's article on "Helping Chess Players Improve" in The Chess Instructor 2009, where Ms. de Bruin recommends some specific learning strategies based on "deliberate practice."
Deliberate practice is the key driver for fast performance improvement in chess, as well as other expert-based activities ranging from music to sports to medicine. Deliberate practice means focusing on the areas where you need the most improvement. For me, pushing my way through challenging but understandable tactics problems is deliberate practice; playing bullet chess on-line is not.
Ms. de Bruin also emphasizes that a high, sustainable level of motivation is a necessary pre-requisite for putting in the hours of deliberate practice that will be needed to see rapid improvement. Applying this to my tactics training, this means mastering the level 3 and level 4 exercises in CT Art, and not (yet!) banging my head bloody against the level 7 exercises. I also want to play in tournaments where I will face tough competition, but not lose all of my games. Getting crushed again and again is not only de-motivating, but it also leads to a more timid style of play—I know that I play my best only when I can be relentlessly assertive.
The author lays out three specific ways to implement deliberate practice in your chess training:
- Self-Explanation. You (or a chess player that you are coaching) explains aloud your thought processes while you are analyzing a move. Ms. de Bruin notes that "the self-explanation instruction is supposed to increase learners' self-reflection, and create opportunities for detection and correction of errors in understanding."
- Self-Monitoring. Find ways to test your level of understanding. Tactics software programs like CT-Art mark the problems that you missed, so that you can come back and review them.
- Self-Regulation means "adaptively selecting what needs to be restudied and what not." When should I shift from the level 3 to the level 4 tactics problems, or switch over from tactics to work on my rook endgames or deepen my understanding of Maroczy bind middlegames?
Ms. de Bruin states that Self-Explanation should be valuable for all chessplayers, including novices. Self-monitoring and self-regulation will be more beneficial for players that have been studying for at least a year.
Here is my list of some candidate tasks that are examples of deliberate practice:
- Read Jacob Aagard's Inside the Chess Mind. Aagaard gives six players of widely ranging strengths the same set of about 10 positions to analyze and talk out loud about. You can tackle the same exercise set, writing down (or talk into a tape recorder) your take on each of the positions in the set, then compare your results with Aagaard's volunteers. This is a good example of "self-explanation" and also "self-monitoring."
- Stoyko exercises. These are described in a Dan Heisman article here. In my opinion, Dan Heisman, Mark Dvoretsky, and Jonathan Rowson all write with excellence in a way that advocates deliberate practice. In general, Dvorestky and Rowson mostly write for an audience with a few years of tournament practice; Heisman is more accessible to novices and intermediate players.
- Any chess tactics book or software where you keep track of the exercises that you did not completely understand and circle back to them. I personally don't like Chess Tactics Server as a learning tool, although my coach Tim McGrew (who is a world-class teacher, writer, and coach) is a big fan. I think the implied process (where the built-in rating system rewards solving problems fast) produces a superficial approach to problem solving. (Maybe this is my own bias, since I believe that in my case pattern recognition is much less of a weakness than my ability to dig in and accurately calculate through positions that involve thick trees of variations).
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"Persistence trumps talent."
-- Daniel Pink in Johnny Bunko |
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You can read an interview with Dr. de Bruin here.
A few questions for East Grand Rapids Chess Coordinator Ann Berman
WestMichiganChess.com: Ann, why are you a chess coordinator?
Ann Berman: Because my son Nathan loves to play… My goal for chess clubs I'm setting up is to expose kids to chess. It's not to find the next Bobby Fischer. I've got kids that never thought they could play tournament chess, and now the whole family's involved.
WestMichiganChess.com: Do you think chess is good for kids?
Ann Berman: In one way, chess is a sport that gives them an equal playing field. You're paired by ability, not by gender, age, race, age, or economics. I think it also ingrains some important life skills. Players learn patience and to think before reacting. They learn to question their actions and that of their opponent. I see kids helping each other and learning to speak up for themselves when an opponent errs or doesn't follow the rules. There are no refs or umpires to call foul; you have to stand up for yourself during a game. I have seen shy quiet kids become empowered and reap rewards way beyond any trophy!
WestMichiganChess.com: Do you want your son to become a chess master?
Ann Berman: I want him to go as far as he wants to go. I have no ambitions beyond that.
WestMichiganChess.com: What scholastic opportunities would you like to see in the future?
Ann Berman: I'd like to see a local team event, open to home school kids. Four players on a team, as many teams as you like. The Michigan Chess Association club championship format is good. It would be excellent to have a warm up team event in January for the team championships. I'd like to see more local tournaments that can bring together kids from all backgrounds. I like what Mars Bros and Madison Square Branch Library are doing!
10/9/2008
I was asked to be one of the judges in the recently concluded STC Bunch championship tournament, that was run concurrently on the ICC, FICS, and WCL Internet Chess Servers.
In the spirit of British IM Richard Palliser's fine tactics puzzle book The Complete Chess Workout, I've cherry-picked below four of my favorite positions from the 13 games submitted for best game prize.
The solutions appear after the puzzles.
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HerrGott (1700) – Shiravoxxx (1670)
White to Move
Position after 14…e6xd5. |
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Expertlevel (1800) – terrymalloy (1986)
Black to Move
Position after 19 Re3-e2 |
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Chesskilleruk (2280) – Schulte (1718)
Black to Move
Position after 63 c4xd5. |
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ReyFeroz (2058) – Spongeworthy (1877)
Black to Move
Position after 23 Ra1-d1? |
Solutions
- herrGott (1700) – shiravoxxx (1670). 15 Nxd5 (or 15 Bxd5) 15…Nxd5 16 Rxe8 wins a pawn!
- expertlevel (1800) – terrymalloy (1986). 19 … Qg5+ 20 Ke1 Rf1#
- chesskilleruk (2280) – schulte (1718). 63 …Nc2! queens or picks up Black's bishop after 64 Kxa2 Nxb4
- reyFeroz (2058) – spongeworthy (1877). 23…Bd4 wins
9/4/2008
Thank you to Rob Roos for providing the tournament report that follows, which first appeared in the Sault Evening News. The USCF tournament crosstable is here.
SAULT STE. MARIE — Lester Bedell made his first chess tournament in Michigan a memorable one this past weekend. Bedell, a Bay Mills Tribal member from Atlanta, Ga., captured the 37th annual Upper Peninsula Chess Open tournament, held at the Kewadin Casino. Bedell accumulated four wins and a draw in five games, finishing first overall to collect the top cash prize of $200 in the United States Chess Federation (USCF) sanctioned event. Bedell was in the area to attend the funeral of his sister Debbie, and dedicated his tournament triumph to her memory. A two-time Georgia amateur state champion, Bedell has played in over 860 tournaments since 1991 and has attained a FIDE expert chess rating.
Kimmo Karvinen of Helsinki, Finland finished second overall with four points, losing only against Bedell. Karvinen, who was also visiting relatives in the Sault, defeated the highest-rated player in the tournament — expert Anthony Nichols (2045) of Lansing. Nichols, who also served as tournament director, ended up in third place with three wins, a loss against Karvinen and a draw against Bedell. Karvinen also picked up a cash prize for second place overall.
Rob Roos of Sault Ste. Marie was the highest-scoring Upper Peninsula finisher, and claimed the title of U.P. champion. Roos placed fourth overall with 3.0 points, with three wins and two losses against Karvinen and Nichols. Roos, who also collected a cash prize in the Top-Under 1800 category, is the first Sault resident to win the U.P. championship in the 37-year history of the tournament. Pat Brewster of Sault Ste. Marie won the U.P. Junior Championship (21-under) title. A Sault High senior, Brewster scored 2.5 points, and along the way he pulled off the biggest upset of the event with a win against a Class A rated player. Brewster received a box of chess books for the biggest upset prize, donated by Tom LaForge of Standish. Brewster also won the cash prize for best in the 1400-under division.
In other class prizes, Robert John of Marquette, David Curtis Jr. of Commerce and Chris Irwin of Lansing each scored 2.5 points and tied for first place in the Under-1600 division. Stan Beckwith of Battle Creek, David Sundeen of Lansing and Glen Schmiege of Sugar Island tied for second in the Under-1800 with 2.5 points each.
The U.P. Open was held at the Kewadin Casino for a fourth time overall, but for the first time since 2003. The event was held at Bay de Noc Community College in Escanaba the last four years. Traditionally held the third weekend of August, the U.P. Open is sponsored by the Lake Superior Chess Association. The 2009 U.P. is planned to be held in Marquette County.
5/26/2008
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At the April 2008 Grand Rapids Open, Grand Rapids master Eric Fischvogt played in only his second tournament after a two year hiatus—although his return to Grand Rapids was overshadowed amidst the fanfare of Jim Marfia entering the same tournament after a two decade absence from rated over-the-board play! Eric was clutching super-annotator Lev Polugaevsky's 1994 book Sicilian Love. I made a mental note to forgo my Sicilian and trot out an Alekhine's if I played well enough to get paired against him.
The fine attack Eric conjures up against local hero Stan Jarosz's Najdorf Sicilian starting with White's brilliant 30th move reminded me of Ljubomir Ljubojevic in his prime years. |
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White to Move
Difficulty: «««
Position after 29…Rc8-c7.
Eric's next is the kind of beautiful move that I'd imagine only a master clutching a copy of Sicilian Love would find! |
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White to Move
Difficulty: «
Position after 35…Ke7-d8.
Find White's quickest win.
For the solution to both puzzles, and the entire Fischvogt – Jarosz game, with Eric Fischvogt's annotations, please click here. |
4/3/2008
WestMichiganChess caught up with Peter Chen and Michael Chen at the Kalamazoo tournament at Western Michigan University on March 29th.
Michael in particular has been on a tear recently, winning sixteen straight games on his way to claiming a national and two state scholastic titles.
Most of the time, the boys compete in the Open sections against the strongest adults in West Michigan. At Kalamazoo, Peter fought Grand Rapids expert Eugene Brumley to a 120-move draw! I particularly liked Peter's fearless pawn sacrifice 8...exd3!? and his equalizing 95...Bxc3!
Here is our interview with Peter and Michael:
WestMichiganChess.com: Who is your favorite chess player?
Both boys: Dr. Tony (Palmer, M.D., the boys' chess coach).
WestMichiganChess.com: What's advice you would give a kid who wants to get better at chess?
Michael: Practice. Practice. Practice. Read. Read. Read. Play. Play. Play.
Peter: Play, annotate, review, and study. (This is Dr. Tony's advice).
WestMichiganChess.com: Do you play on the Internet?
Both boys: Yes!
WestMichiganChess.com: What's your favorite Internet time control?
Peter: 45 15! (45 minutes for the game, with a 15 second per move increment).
Michael: 45 5!
WestMichiganChess.com: What's your favorite tactics book?
Michael: Understanding Chess Tactics (by Martin Weteschnik).
Peter: Susan Polgar's Tactics Book.
WestMichiganChess.com: And your favorite food?
Michael: Yummy pizza. Cheese and pepperoni.
Peter: Steamed dumplings that my Mom makes us.
Michael: I love my Mom's homemade pizza!
WestMichiganChess.com: Who are your favorite grandmasters and master?
Peter: Peter Leko. Kevin Czuhai.
Michael: Judit Polgar. Gata Kamsky. Ben Finegold.
WestMichiganChess.com: Do you plan to be a chess master? At what age?
Michael: Yes. At 20.
Peter: At 15!
WestMichiganChess.com: What do you like to do when you're not playing chess?
Michael: Checkers. Baseball. Soccer. Tennis.
Peter: And basketball!
WestMichiganChess.com: Who's the better superhero, Batman or Superman?
Both Boys: Batman!
2/18/2008
Ben Finegold ran a small tournament in Ypsilanti on February 9th for 10 players rated between 1750 and 2050. The format was three rounds at G/90, with an hour spent between each round with Ben analyzing all five games. I found it to be an amazing experience—both enjoyable and instructive, mostly because of Ben's high energy and good humor (combined with his deep chess smarts that don't even need commenting upon).
I'd encourage players who meet the 1750 to 2050 rating qualification to consider joining Ben's next Expert Factory Invitational on April 26th.
Please click here to see all fifteen games annotated by Ben! He's kindly given us permission to include these games on WestMichiganChess.com. Tournament winner Andrew Schilleman also added his own notes to his first two games.
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Black to Play 33…?
In my second round game against Atulya Shetty, here is the position after White's 33. Ra5. Atulya, in ferocious time pressure, did not find the best move here for Black. Can you? | |
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