Jupp53 wrote on 07/04/11 at 08:45:39:


But does the realy strong player who learned a specific thinking process "free himself" from that proces as he gets better? or does he still use that proces just in a better way?

If I as a average club player (1726) learn a specific thinking proces how do I work with that process as I improve? Strong players (better than 1726 ): Did you change your "method" of thinking or have you just become better at what you do? Do you work with one method (e.g. Soltis) or do you get inspiration from many places and work out your own method?

best,
Larsen_fan

smirnov's gm secrets goes into this. great course.

kotov is great but he doesn't go as deep into why a candidate should be chosen as to how it should be calculated and evaluated. I disagree completely with the guy who said no one thinks in trees. how else can a reasonable person think in chess?

all other stuff I've read is crap. some authors try to sell you ridiculous thought processes that they don't even use or processes that haven't even made the authors into GMs.

stick with smirnov and kotov.

Great overview. For those who read German there is also an older work that I liked, by Krogius: Schachpsychologie (Sportverlag Berlin). I am not sure whether this work (at first published in Russian, of course) ever appeared in English.

trw wrote on 07/03/11 at 20:47:02:


It is available via Google Books in a read-only version:
http://books.google.de/books?id=b2G1CRfNqFYC&pg=PR3&dq=groot+choice&hl=de&ei=8NY...;

There's really a bunch of psychological and chess literature about it.

Thirty years ago I wrote my master thesis about chess and memory and went through the literature. Now I start slowly again reading through the newer stuff.

Stunning is the fact (to my relief reported by Rowson in the 7 deadly sins too) that most chess players get empty eyes when confronted with empirical results of cognitive sciences.

If you don't have a psychological education (this is not anything related to any psychoanalytical approach - R. Fine is higher nonsense!) read Rowson. Personally his second book is far better for me. His understanding of cognitive science was far more advanced when he wrote his Chess For Zebras. But I have to admit to my astonishment, that the more introspectional and less reliable Seven Deadly Sins seems to please most readers more.

Kotov "Think like a grandmaster" is a always cited classic which shows perfectly the disadvantage of theoretical reasoning without empirical research over the hypothesis. Nobody thinks in trees the way he recommends it.

If have a psychological education and you're able to read French get Psychologie des grands calculateurs et joueurs d'échecs (Paris 1894) from A. Binet. 

Djakov, Petrowski and Rudik (1927) did some research with the participants of the tournament Moskow 1925. There's a German translation but I don't know if it's still on the market.

Adrianus Dingeman (Adriaan) de Groot was a Nederlandse chess master and his doctoral thesis from 1946 is on the market "Thought and choice in chess". For me it's always puzzling: The best practical book over thinking in chess till J. Rowson arrived and no chess player seems to understand or to like it.

Chase, William G., and Herbert A. Simon. 1973, "Perception in chess" continues the work of de Groot on a high level. Chase, W. G., & Simon, H. A. (1973), "The mind's eye in chess" is out of the same empirical work.

Holding, D. H. (1985). The psychology of chess skill. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. It's a great book for empirical psychologists. You get everything from the past (except some points of BINET) from a good chess player and cognitive psychologist. But it's a very hard reading without knowledge of statistical methods and cognitive theories.

Saariluoma, P. (1995). Chess players' thinking: a cognitive psychological approach. London: Routledge. This was the last 'hit' in the last century. Saariluoma's "typicality" is something you will find via google.

There are some interesting works in the last 10 years too. Digging deeper will help finding the authors. One is Yugoslavian-German. He found something interesting about the connection of playing strength and the different patterns used, leading to sets in thinking. The 2nd is a Canadian-French finding, that IM and GM tend to falsify hypothesis in their thinking process, while weaker player try to verify their ideas over the position.

If you are without academic psychological interest: Start with Rowson. If you have read his two excellent books, ask again!