Chess players don't even see individual pieces.
They see blocks: fianchettoes, pawn chains etc.

Show a strong player a reasonably standard position with 30 pieces for three seconds, guess what?
He will set up the familiar blocks.

If the pieces are scattered randomly he'll do much worse.

In Stigma's diagram Qb8+ sprang first (back rank picture), saw ...Rc8, then saw the mate picture Bd6+Rf8,
wanted to play two moves in one, then found the right order.

Stigma wrote on 11/08/09 at 01:57:19:


Yes, he does. The last chapter, having explained the mechanics of tactics for the whole book, he outlines a system to be used on each move. Basically, he looks at each piece and sees if it has any tactical chances and otherwise figures out what it's 'status' is.   

Edited:

Straggler wrote on 11/07/09 at 21:33:44:


@Straggler
to paraphrase:
tactics, tactics, tactics. 

to rephrase:
Weteschnik. Weteschnik. Weteschnik. 

Here is the start of chapter 2 "The Pin" from his book:

"Essentially a pin is a chain of three chess pieces. The first point in this chain is the attacking piece, the second point is the pinned piece, and the third piece is the target of the pin."

"In this chapter I will first take a closer look at the different kings of targets, then I will examine the pinned piece, and finally the attacker. The final points to examine are the conditions to set up and break a pin."

you then get 27 pages about pins which include 82 diagrams, some of them include instructive arrows, shaded out squares or circled squared to highlight the key idea.

no need for a chess board. 

this is the one, and only, book you need:
http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/2/31/understanding_chess_tactics_by_marti...

Straggler wrote on 11/07/09 at 18:56:58:

Where did Emms give that advice? My first thought is it sounds very slow and inefficient to consider every legal move for the opponent. I actually do this, but only when I think I'm about to decide the game in my favour. It takes time, but I've often had problems staying objective in these situations before.

I think most players at all levels don't think like that, rather they recognize a pattern and try to find out if any the relevant tactics work. Looking for tactical weaknesses is a thinking shortcut that reduces the number of moves to a managable list.

Take the following position from one of Reinfeld's 1001 books (White to move):



Do you find the best move for White because

a) You just see it (i.e. pattern recognition)

b) You see two big tactical weaknesses in the black position (the weak back rank and the queen pinned, with 1 defender to 1 attacker) and try to exploit them, or

c) It's legal and you have to consider it?

To my mind, a) is the most efficient and surely the GM method, while b) or something like it is the best conscious method.

It would be interesting to hear more about Emms' method though.

(Edit: The system I use to find tactical weaknesses would also turn up W Qb3 and Be5 hanging, the fork threat ...Nd2, B Ne4 and pd4 hanging. Certainly if I didn't see White's best move immediately, the first thing to note is that my queen is hanging! Apart from that it's logical to rank the tactical weaknesses by how "big" they are (Mate threat > queen > knight > pawn for Black's weaknesses here) and try to exploit the biggest ones first.)

@Straggler

How do you train now to avoid blunders? I think playing "safely" (meaning with tactical control, not passively!) is a skill that can be trained much the same way you would with basic skills in other sports: Find a good process and develop conscious competence (you do the right things but you have to think about it and it consumes thinking time), then gradually over time it will turn into unconscious competence (you do the right things automatically and quickly).

One reason for playing sharper, open positions is to get as much training as possible from actually playing. But for that you need to use a concrete method, and evaluate yourself honestly on whether you managed to follow it and why/why not. And yes, it will hurt results short-term. If you're going to play calmly until you eliminate blunders you will need more traning time with tactical positions away from the board instead.

Somehow, when it's your turn, you have to always check what the opponent is threatening AND what the opponent will be threatening if you play your intendend move. So avoiding blunders really requires two different safeguards, at the start and at the end of the thought process.

Some methods I've used with students is to have them point out the tactical weaknesses in the position on every move, and always look at checks, captures and threats for both themselves and their opponent. I always stress that it's MORE important to see tactics for the opponent, since missing them can lose the game immediately. If you miss a tactic for yourself the game just goes on in most cases.

Apart from these thinking shortcuts, the best way to get better at spotting tactics is of course to see lots of them (pattern recognition again). In tactics training programs I sometimes turn the board and try to find the solutions from the "wrong" side; this is more similar to avoiding blunders.

One often overlooked fact: It's much easier to blunder when you're unsure what plan is right, because you will be considering too many different moves and not have time to check them all properly. It's also easier to blunder in bad positions than in good ones! So for most players, unless they blunder absolutely every game, focusing only on directly eliminating blunders is wrong. You need positional play, planning and some understanding of the openings too.

Some good sources on avoiding blunders:

Heisman: Looking for Trouble 
- has lots of exercises on finding the opponent's threats

Heisman's "Novice Nook" column, archived at [url]http://www.chesscafe.com/archives/archives.htm#Novice Nook [/url]

R. James: Move Two. See http://www.chesskids.com/library04.shtml

Avni: Danger in Chess

I also have a good impression of the Weteschnik book, but haven't used it myself yet.

@Stigma:
We do agree about most practical points. What was the point about my remark: "do we know?" has to be explained after your long post. We don't know as far as I know. We didn't know 25 years ago when I did my scientific experimental research about the two cognitive theories of 'Levels of processing' and 'Encoding specifity' and playing strength in chess. If there has been developed something really important since then it didn't catch my attention (which maybe due to my work area as a clinical psychologist since then).

At that time definitelely nobody knew what a pattern is. There were a lot of people knowing a lot about different models of the pattern paradigma. To say it simple: Models are always a poorer abstraction of the reality. 

This leads to remarks like the one above in this topic, where discussions about adults learning behaviour were called bloviation in relation to opening repertoires. It's the way the majority thinks and it is justified as it needs some more steps to walk before you can use abstract concepts.

Psychologically we also don't know what rote learning is. We only know how to give instructions about it to experimental subjects. To my continous astonishment since 35 years this is difficult to comprehend for a lot of people which leads again and again to the same mistakes. Here in chess it leads again and again to the mistake of sticking to a special opening for teaching more than this opening.

It may be completely the best for teacher A to stick to the two knights for teaching special tactical and strategical concepts. Teacher B sticks to the bishop gambit and is completely right too. Teacher C is able to do this with the Blackmar Diemer (oh no! don't touch it!).

It was DeGroot in an article about the revival of his long time nearly forgotten doctoral thesis (forgive - I didn't keep the source. Every now and then I put all paper stuff out of my room into a trash container. It's only my memory) after his retirement from active university work, who gave the advice of being modest about different psychological processes and their implications for mental output. He referred to sustained attention but he believed this was generally valid.
------- 
So are my conclusions to the topic: 
- There is no special opening best fitting to an overall adult class player. 
- There seem to be wrong openings at special levels of expertise. 
- If you want to learn more about special concepts take appropriate openings. For 'development' you should learn this by a fitting opening. Don't take the half open games. Take an open game without pawn chains. For 'pawn chains' try the french.
- There's a logic in chess itself if you want to become a stronger player. There's the board, there's material, there are moves. It doesn't help learning by heart opening moves if you don't know how to protect your pieces. It helps understanding why certain moves allow to protect the own pieces and attack the enemies pieces.

@Straggler: Quote:

This is true and holds not only in chess. How difficult is it for an adult to comprehend the complexity of the first steps in writing? You get a feeling for it if you try to write a sentence in your language by the not dominating hand from right to left and bottom up. Try it and remember: You need no more memorizing how it is written in the sequel of letters. 

So I would trust more in teachers with experience in teaching or someone a class stronger. There are some concepts taught better by strong professionals and there are some concepts taught better by peers or a little more progressed players. Young Robert Hübner in Cologne had the method of playing as long against other players who won at the beginning 6 out of 10 games against him till he made 6 out of 10. (Off-Topic: Is Dr. Tröger to praise for this? Does anyone reading here know?) This is good for several reasons:
- Motivation is highest in this area. (40%-60% difficulty of a task.)
- The probability of learning something fitting to the next step with your background is very high.
- Common analysis or exchange is easiest on an about equal level.
- If if you need your time in getting better or you don't succeed because of lack of studies - it's the most fun to play against this range.