Torr on Survey
Part 5. Flexible concentration.

Concentration is very important !

Interestingly, concentration does not necessarily imply that you have to stare yourself blind on the board and/or the opponent during the entire game. Actually, the experts tend to look around in the room a little more often than the lower-rated players (Table 26). However, when it comes to the hard work of making calculations it seems that around nine out of ten players, all strengths alike, prefer to concentrate 'on' the board (Table 31). In the next article we will discuss how the calculations are computed. 

       Q25. I'm very concentrated
       while playing chess (3)

Rated sub-1600 
  


Rated above 2400
       


            

    Q29. My general focus is: just to play on (3)

    Rated sub-1600
            

      Rated above 2400
    

       

                       

Be flexible !
I have heard that most good chessplayers master most of the skills and techniques embedded in the concepts such as pins, forks, double attacks, tactics, weak squares, open files, good/bad minor pieces, general positional aspects, smoothered mate, geometrical motives, pattern recognition, and so forth. My impression is that the expert players know and use all these abilities timely. I always strive towards tactical complications, simply because of the thrill and beauty of them [yes, Kasparov and Alekhine are my favorite players], however, often with fatal results. What do I do wrong ? Perhaps I strive too hard ? This is actually what the results of the survey suggest ! Please consider, now, the data in Tables 27-30 (take a very good look). The data clearly demonstrate that the expert players tend to 'play on' in a given position, not favoring to any extreme neither tactical stuff, positional stuff nor pattern recognition (remember: they master all of them). Analyzing these data one might be prone to conclude: hey you !, do not favor tactics untimely and yo! have a flexible approach to chess. That's right, play what the position demands. Have you heard similar encouragements before ? That's right, maybe you have ! Perhaps you might want to consider why this is so. Meanwhile, let's formulate our experts habit no. 9:

Play what the position demands - and be flexible !

Perhaps you notice that the experts' tendency to "play on" measured in the survey questions 28 is very much at the expense of "the simplification of the position". Thus, we could formulate a child version of habit 9, namely habit 10:

Decrease your tendency to simplify untimely

Similary, perhaps you notice that the experts' tendency to "play on" measured in the survey questions 29 and 30 is very much at the expense of "tactics". Thus, we could formulate a second child version of habit 9, namely habit 11:

Do not 'apply' tactics untimely

I'm not telling you that it's going to be easy for you, now, to change your personal chess strategies and favorite habits. I'm not saying it's easy for you to improve your chess. However, I'm merely suggesting that if you always do what you have always done, you'll always get what you always got. If what you are doing does not work, do something else. Play another opening...file in for another combo....be flexible.....concentrate....

Prepare for the concept of holistic chess

The next article will deal even more with the central issue of personal strategies (Part 6). 

Click here fore the next article on the survey results !