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 Blindfold

Why do the Test and the Game differ from ordinary Chess?

Chess & Intelligence  Chess Abilities  Variations Calculation  BF - Interpretation

You should read this article only after you have tried to pass at least one test and familiarized yourself with the Dynamic Pairs game. When you have tasted some of the treat offered by Prof. Clever (your assistant in Blindfold), you may start asking why the tests are so different from ordinary chess. Here is the explanation of the idea behind that difference.

The test tasks, as you must have already noticed, are devoid of any standard chess logic related to such typical goals as mate to the enemy King or offensive against his position, attack on the opponent's men, or protection of one's pieces against the other side's threats.

That chess logic is missing is, from out viewpoint, the main advantage of this program's tests. If ordinary chess positions had been used to check the calculation abilities, the real cause of someone's success would often stay in the shadow. It may have been a "good eye for combinations," for example, or the skill to correctly evaluate intermediate positions occurring in the course of the calculation. And after all, the chessplayer may have earlier run across the examples in chess literature and hence knew how to play.

As we developed tests to diagnose chess abilities we were guided by the following three principles:

1. The organization of the user's intellectual activity during a test must closely simulate processes taking place in a chessplayer's mind under tourney or match conditions;
2. All through the test the ability being measured must stay under maximum "load";
3. It is absolutely necessary to minimize the influence of other abilities, chess erudition, individual experience and the like on the success of the person being tested.

It should be emphasized that the above methodological triad is important not only for testing chess abilities but for their purposeful (discriminating) training as well. Here is an example to support that thesis.

To train the technique of variations calculation a chessplayer usually selects a number of combinations and/or endgame studies and then tries to find the solution without moving the pieces about on the board. True, that method generally works, facilitating the development of calculation abilities to some or other extent. But normally the solving process does not involve the counting faculties alone; attendant factors are sometimes even more essential for the solver's success.

There are strong as well as weak points in the mentality of any chessplayer. Psychological studies have revealed that in the decision-making process the chessplayer employs primarily the good points - which consequently have to bear the greatest load. Thus the better side gets even more developed while the weaker side stays the same because there is no "payload" for it.

A chessplayer with the positional type of thinking often makes decisions that a representative of the calculating and combinational type would hardly ever resort to. The former player tends to generalize and arrive at logical conclusions, and so is inclined to choose moves on the basis of "general reasoning" - without going into details, without calculating numerous side variations. The latter player acts differently: he/she prefers to analyze the situation in greater detail, move by move, trying to evaluate the consequences. As regards traditional chess training, players with such opposing approaches will behave in the same specific ways, thus developing their already strong points. In view of the above, Blindfold's training games place virtually all of the emphasis upon the user's calculation abilities. Indeed, as you participate in the program's games it is most unlikely that you will be able to use any combinational or positional skills.