For about a year, I’ve noticed that when I’m relaxed, I play chess better. But I wasn’t ever able to quite figure out why, or how to get myself in that relaxed state. Now, I think I’ve done it, and it’s stabilized my score on Lichess at around 1675 rather than 1575. That means I’m now evenly matched with opponents who’d previously have beaten me 64% of the time.
The trick is that I changed my visual relationship with the chessboard. Previously, I focused hard on the piece I was considering moving, almost as if I was the piece, and had to consider the chess board “from its point of view.” If I was considering a bishop move, I’d look at the diagonals it could move along.
Now, I mostly just soft-focus on the center of the chess board, and allow my peripheral vision to extend to the edges of the board. I don’t stare directly at the piece I’m moving, but rely on peripheral vision to place it correctly. By doing this, I think my system 1 can get engaged in recognizing good moves wherever they might be found.
As I do this, I notice my brain starting to scan for obvious threats and opportunities: rooks lined up diagonally, which is vulnerable to a bishop; a knight and bishop with one square between them from side to side, which is vulnerable to a pawn fork; a piece left hanging. If I don’t see any, I just find sensible moves and make them without thinking about anything too hard.
Kasparov was asked: how you are able to calculate all possible outcomes of the game. He said: I don’t. I just have very good understanding of current situation.
I think there’s a broader lesson to this ability to zoom out, soft focus, take in the whole situation as it is now, and just let good ideas come to you. Chess is an easy illustration because all information is contained on the board and the clock, and the rules and objective are clear. Vaguely, it seems like successful people are able to construct a model of the whole situation, while less successful people get caught up in hyperfocusing on the particularities.
How I boosted my chess score by a shift of focus
For about a year, I’ve noticed that when I’m relaxed, I play chess better. But I wasn’t ever able to quite figure out why, or how to get myself in that relaxed state. Now, I think I’ve done it, and it’s stabilized my score on Lichess at around 1675 rather than 1575. That means I’m now evenly matched with opponents who’d previously have beaten me 64% of the time.
The trick is that I changed my visual relationship with the chessboard. Previously, I focused hard on the piece I was considering moving, almost as if I was the piece, and had to consider the chess board “from its point of view.” If I was considering a bishop move, I’d look at the diagonals it could move along.
Now, I mostly just soft-focus on the center of the chess board, and allow my peripheral vision to extend to the edges of the board. I don’t stare directly at the piece I’m moving, but rely on peripheral vision to place it correctly. By doing this, I think my system 1 can get engaged in recognizing good moves wherever they might be found.
As I do this, I notice my brain starting to scan for obvious threats and opportunities: rooks lined up diagonally, which is vulnerable to a bishop; a knight and bishop with one square between them from side to side, which is vulnerable to a pawn fork; a piece left hanging. If I don’t see any, I just find sensible moves and make them without thinking about anything too hard.
Kasparov was asked: how you are able to calculate all possible outcomes of the game. He said: I don’t. I just have very good understanding of current situation.
I think there’s a broader lesson to this ability to zoom out, soft focus, take in the whole situation as it is now, and just let good ideas come to you. Chess is an easy illustration because all information is contained on the board and the clock, and the rules and objective are clear. Vaguely, it seems like successful people are able to construct a model of the whole situation, while less successful people get caught up in hyperfocusing on the particularities.
I think that they are also to find the most important problem from all.
It’s probably helpful to be able to take in everything in order to do that—I think these two ideas go together.
I also had an n-back boost using visualisation, see my shortform.