👨‍🏫 Jessika's Method (Insight)

Welcome to the Conceptualizing Chess Podcast from Don't Move Until You See It.

On Tuesdays, we deep dive on a key insight to improve our conceptualization skills and

make us masters of the mental board.

For more information on Don't Move Until You See It and to get the free 5-day Conceptualizing

Chess series, go to Don't Move Until You See.it or check the show notes.

Hi, it's Aiden.

By this point, I've coached a lot of students, and I'd say I've learned as much from them

as they have from me.

One such student, Jessica, has shown me a technique she created that addresses a core

sticking point in conceptualization training.

I gave her a technique to a few other students, and their results have been more than encouraging.

So much so that I'm making this technique a core recommendation to all students.

Like all the best ideas, it's simple.

It seems obvious once you know it.

In my coaching work with any student, it's important to me that we get results.

Whatever our target is, I want to make meaningful progress toward it.

Otherwise, they're wasting money and I'm wasting time.

Sometimes a lack of progress indicates that I'm guiding the student the wrong way.

In that case, we step back, reassess the plan, and change our approach.

Sometimes it comes down to whether or not the student is putting the work in between

our sessions.

Life gets in the way, sure, we're adults, after all, but the intention and the effort

need to be there.

The students who put the work in improve.

Often quickly.

Jessica was improving very quickly.

We'd identify our next area of focus, vacated squares, say we'd put together a plan for

how we'd address them.

And just a week later, in our very next session, she came back with the kind of skills I normally

budgeted three to four sessions of work to reach.

It wasn't an outlier either.

She did it to vacated squares and dormant ideas and then general calculation awareness.

Each idea flowed from our discussions into her skills and her games smoothly, with no delay

and little frustration.

Now Jessica's clever and a world class instructor in her own right, she knows what it takes

to improve in a skill and how to approach it in a way that works for her.

But I suspected her cleverness and experience weren't the only reasons for the speed she

picked stuff up.

At the end of the year, after Jessica's excellent tournament performances, some good rating gain,

and a game where she pushed a player rated 600 points above her to the edge, we sat down

to review the year that was.

My main goal was to work out what exactly she was doing that could cause such efficient

skill acquisition.

To see if it was something I could teach others.

In our discussions, we mapped out the work she does in her chess, conceptualization and

otherwise.

She did all the things I recommend, started each session with at least a few minutes

of blindfold work, practiced vacated square awareness in her puzzles and tactics work,

and completed the full five sentence exercise with several games.

But there was something she was doing that I hadn't recommended, that no one had recommended

to her.

But that she just felt would be a useful thing to do.

It's a game review technique, and I think it's the critical and most replicable part of

why Jessica's in-game awareness rises so quickly.

Most game review techniques are designed to help us understand what happened in the game,

where the critical moments are, what the best moves were, where we made strategic errors

or oversights.

Important stuff.

Jessica's review isn't about that stuff at all.

Jessica's review isn't about what happened in the game, it's about building the habits

you'd like to have in your games.

Here's how it works.

First pick a game you've played recently that you haven't analysed with an engine yet.

Engine analysis will taint your sense of the game too much.

We want this review to be as fresh as possible.

Second pick one awareness habit you'd like to develop.

It could be checking for vacated squares or dormant ideas, or even a more traditional

chess idea like checks, captures, attacks, or a blunder check.

You'll find the benefits faster if you keep your focus on just one habit at a time.

Third go through the game and perform your chosen habit on every move.

That's it, super simple.

When Jessica told me about this technique, I knew I had found the answer.

The hardest part of building any kind of awareness in chess is showing your brain it's worth

spending energy on in-game.

We may have every intention of checking the vacated squares before we play our moves,

but as soon as the pressure ramps up, we stop doing it.

Until our brains learn to automatically notice these things, we have to use self-control

to make it happen.

Self-control takes working memory slots, and our brains will prioritize other things if

that space gets tight.

We can't rely on self-control when the pressure kicks in.

The faster we can make it automatic, the better.

And there's one proven way to make something automatic.

Do it a bunch.

You need reps.

And Jessica's review gives you those reps.

When you review a 50 move game, you give your brain 50 reps of exactly the habit you'd

like to have in your next game.

As you work through Jessica's review, you'll notice a few moments that your chosen habit

would have helped you out.

Opportunities or threats you overlooked, but that you would have picked up if this habit

had already been solid.

You'll feel a little pain in that, and a little excitement too.

These are useful emotions that help with habit formation.

You're getting reps, you're getting emotional reinforcement, and it's all within the context

of your own game, your own positions.

You're building the habits and exactly the context you'll use the habits.

With all of that backing you up, your brain will get the message.

To get the most out of Jessica's review, make sure you do it first.

Before you turn on the engine, even before you share the game with a coach, external feedback

will shape your thinking before you can earn the awareness for yourself.

You can't unsee an eval bar.

Now this is in no way a replacement for standard game analysis techniques.

It's important to review what happened in your games.

My friend Grandmaster Noel Studa has an excellent video on how to get the most out of your game

analysis with minimal stuffing around.

We've put that link in the show notes for you.

Jessica's review is a layer that goes beforehand.

It's not about what happened this time.

It's about what you want to happen next time.

It's about practicing the kind of player you want to be.

It's early days on this technique.

I'm still gathering data, researching what's going on, but Jessica has found great success

with it.

The students who have followed her lead are finding their awareness rising quickly.

If you decide to try this technique, send me an email with how it's going after a little

while.

The best ideas in this community don't always start with me.

Sometimes, quite often, I'd say, the best ideas come from you.

Today they came from Jessica.

So thanks Jessica.

And thanks to you too.

I love what we're building here.

Here's to the journey.

Thank you for listening to the Tuesday Insight.

I hope you found that useful.

And if you did, please leave a review or maybe even share this with a friend.

For more information on building your own conceptualization skills, visit don't move

until you see dot it.

That's don't move until you see dot it.

Here's to the journey.