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Learning chess tactics: what actually is a "pattern"?

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Written by Sciurus
Monday, 23 October 2006
Former chess world champion Max Euwe supposedly said "strategy requires thought, tactics requires observation." But what exactly are we supposed to look for in a tactical position? And why does it not require conscious thinking? (At least not for chess masters) An important concept for solving tactical chess problems is pattern recognition. Great differences exist between chess masters and beginners (or even relatively accomplished amateurs) in the way they perceive a chess position within the first few seconds after seeing the board or after an opponent's move. Chess masters are extremely good at recognizing pattern almost instantly on the chess board. But what is a "pattern" and how is it stored in memory? This post attempts to explain the concepts of "chunking" and "pattern recognition". Most models for the storage of complex pattern in memory are based on the so-called chunking theory. The concept of chunking during reconstruction of chess positions is based on psychological studies where both chess masters and amateurs were briefly shown a chess position and then asked to reconstruct it. Instead of placing one piece after another on the board, experienced chess players reconstruct a given position by quickly placing groups of pieces on the board, interrupted by some thinking time between the groups. These piece groups, or "chunks" have been considered to be storage units in memory. One popular example for chunking is memorizing numbers with multiple digits. It turns out that the average untrained person is able to recall a number with up to 7 digits. However, when an individual is given a group of familiar numbers, let's say phone numbers of friends or family, he/she can remember about 7 different numbers. At first, this may sound strange because 7 phone numbers contain many more digits than the 7 digits the same person was able to recall before. However, the person does not need to memorize each digit of the phone numbers separately. A familiar phone number forms a chunk in long-term memory labeled with, e.g. "Fred", and all that the person has to remember is a list of 7 friends instead of a long chain of individual digits. Chunks are marked with colors. The example position demonstrating chunking of a chess position shown here is from the book "The Psychology of Chess Skill" by Dennis H. Holding. Several tactical opportunities are hidden in this position (which was supposedly taken from one of Fred Reinfeld's books): First, assuming that black is to move, white's queen is en prise. If white is on move, 1. Rxd5 Qxd5 2. Re8+ Rxe8 3. Qxd5 wins the exchange. Therefore, if the chunks used for reconstructing a position from memory would be related to the tactics of the position, one would expect that d1 and d5 would be in the same chunk (queen en prise), or may be e5 and g8 (rook is able to check the black king). In the example, however, the white queen is chunked together with her own rook on e2, and that the important rook on e5 is not chunked with any other piece. In the diagram pieces belonging to the same chunk are marked with the same color. The chunk with both kings (red) was placed first, followed by the important rook on e5 (orange). Interestingly, the important groups with the white queen (purple) and the black queen and rooks (dark blue) were placed last and second last, respectively. These results show that the chunks used to store a chess position in memory probably do not directly form the pattern whose recognition triggers the correct move decision. The main difference between chess masters and amateurs lies in the size and number of chunks used to reproduce a position. Chess masters use bigger chunks containing more pieces,particularly for middlegame positions, and are also able to chunk more pieces. At the time the book "The Psychology of Chess Skill" was written (1985), no complete theory for explaining the process from dividing a position into chunks to making a move decision seemed to exist. However, it seems to be widely accepted that players recognize a pattern or sub-pattern consisting of several chunks on the chess board and associate it with pattern stored in long-term memory. Once a pattern is recognized it facilitates a forward search process where the position reached after the associated move is visualized and again passed through the pattern recognition process. In summary, the brain seems to use several layers to reduce the complexity of a chess position. First, experienced chess players do not store the position of individual pieces but groups of pieces, called "chunks", in memory. Second, the spatial relationship between these chunks is used to associate the position with a pattern stored in long-term memory which is then used as basis for the move decision. Chess masters are using bigger chunks and have more pattern stored in their long-term memory than amateurs. Therefore, they can rely more on their long-term memory to make decisions. For a more comprehensive description of the research on chess skills, see the book "The Psychology of Chess Skill" by Dennis H. Holding on which this post is based. Part 2 of this post will discuss the question how many chunks and pattern we have to press into our long-term memory to achieve chess mastery, so stay tuned! Comments (1) Subscribe to this comment's feed Show/Hide comments ... written by Temposchlucker, October 23, 2006 I'm tuned Write comment Show/Hide comment form Name Website Comment Write the displayed characters Powered by Azrul's Jom Comment for Joomla!
Last Updated ( Monday, 23 October 2006 )

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