Hi all,

Pablo askes:

I’ve come across in Lev Alburt’s books on the term “Tunnel Vision”. He mentions it but does not delve deeper into a topic that seems endemic to many players.
Can you expand on this issue and its remedy?

Hi Pablo, I’m not completely familiar with the works of Lev Alburt. After doing some research though, it seems that his idea of “Tunnel Vision” closely relates to my idea of thinking broad instead of deep.

He also suggests looking “around” for more candidate moves while calculating and trying to avoid unclarity which normally pops-up when you go deeper an deeper with only one specific line.
I quote from his “Chess Training Pocket Book”:

Once years ago, I had a student who, in spite of his considerable experience, had a habit of sticking with a single line of analysis at critical junctures, even when there were actually several attractive candidate moves. He did this even when his chosen line became unclear. I realized that this habit is common to many players. So I invented an exercise to get him to pay attention to all logical candidates, given the time constraints he would face in practical play.

When you tackle any position, whether here in this book or in your own games, first make a mental note of all the moves that suggest themselves—the candidate moves. Sometimes the very best move leaps to mind immediately—that’s your chess intuition at work! But usually two, three, or even four come to mind. If one candidate move seems much better than the others, begin analyzing it immediately, and continue until you see either that you can reach a successful conclusion, or that the line becomes murky. Or you may even find a flaw.

The notion of “several attractive candidate moves” as mentioned above can be misleading in the sense that it tends to suggest “among your own moves “. Of course it also applies to the opponents cancidate moves! He too can have attractive candidates!

It is exactly this kind of thinking that I am also teaching the members of the Better Your Chess University. Check out the recent series of lessons #13-#17. Some amateur players have this kind of knowledge. The difference between them and masters (in this area) is that they don’t apply it, since they have developed other thinking habits.

What’s important here is awareness, namely the kind of awareness that you are supposed to think in this (new) way. It’s like being aware of the fact that when you are meditating you are supposed to focus your attention on your breath and not indulge into thoughts. At the risk of becoming too spiritual here: Tibetan Buddhism suggests that while meditating you divide your mental energy as follows:

1. be 50% “spacious”
2. be 25% attentive (on your breath)
3. be 25% aware (this awareness oversees that you are focusing your attention on your breath)

You can do something similar in chess. It helps to drill-train this new way of chess thinking until it becomes a habit and than re-evaluate your results. I’m thinking to introduce these drills more explicitly into the study materials.

I will address these and others issues in more videos to come.

Waldemar