Yay! I passed 2500 in my chess.com puzzles rating! Over the last few weeks, I buckled down and made a push for my "GM Puzzles Title." I blasted through the 2300s pretty easily but I stalled in the mid 2400s for a few days. When I got within striking distance, I really slowed down and took my time with the puzzles to make sure I'd get the +5 points for each--which clearly is the minimum points for a full correct solution if you were outside the time bonus. You can see I was way off of the target times but that's okay for me. I treat these as calculation training so I make sure I see as much as possible.
Usually, when we blunder, that's not because we can't calculate deeply enough, but because we didn't calculate at all.
This struck a chord. I lose many games because I don't consider my opponent's moves and threats. I make my move and then see, "Oh, they can skewer" or, "Uh-oh, they have a check." They're typically very easy tactics that I can easily and immediately calculate, I just didn't do so before moving. Another fun one is, "Oh wow, I just plopped my move on the board and I have no idea what they might play. Why didn't I even try to visualize something...anything?" I call that "no-man's land"...somewhere you don't want to be.
This is such an easy thing to fix. I can calculate deeply enough as proved by my puzzle rating--if given twenty or thirty minutes and a hint that there's a tactic :). What I mean is it's possible for me to visualize and calculate somewhat accurately in chess, I just don't see it all consistently in my games. Why? I think there are a few reasons:
1) No time - Playing quicker games doesn't provide time to ask the question of what my opponent might play. I just don't have that hardwired into my brain as second nature like stronger players do.
2) Tunnel Vision - Those times in which I actually do calculate, but I focus on one single line and assume my opponent will go down that line, but I don't ask myself what if they play something else.
3) Selfish Brain - The big one. I notice I might play a move and then I'm in the dreaded no-man's-land: Once my move is on the board, I realize I had not considered that my opponent now gets to play a move [cue minor panic]. I'm playing selfishly as if I'm the only one moving pieces and the other side's moves don't matter. (I just learned this term from a Levy Rozman video)
I need to honor all the work I did to reach a 2500 puzzle rating by giving myself enough time to calculate deeply, to have an open mind for all the moves my opponent has at their disposal, and to always have something in mind for what my opponent's ideas are instead of playing selfishly. I played one rapid game yesterday and I was hyper-focused on their ideas. It felt great. It was like treating the game as if it were one giant tactics puzzle in which I was constantly searching for my opponent's best move if I were to play my candidate move. I made marks on a piece of paper every time I failed to do so and I found myself in a "no-man's-land" situation twice--which isn't great, but sadly two times isn't so bad for me. If I can get that number to zero, I think that'll be a huge step in improvement. Focusing on this is how I think I'm going to turn this thought process into second nature.
