How, not What

Round 1 of our spring tournament has been completed and as I write, the games of Round 2 are underway. For my money, the most interesting game of the round was wmakos (Wladek) vs falstan (Colin) who fought a seesaw battle in a Queen's Gambit Declined. As boring as some people find it, I love the double queen pawn games and their strategic ideas.

I am not playing in this tournament but I am still thinking of how to solve the problem of becoming a better chess player. Apart from the obvious advice to 'stop thinking about it and just play some more games!' that I can already hear from you even before I post this text, I have been analysing my games and realizing that 90% (or more) of the challenge of chess is about HOW to think rather than WHAT to think. Most of us when shown a position have little difficulty visualising a few moves ahead when given a list of moves. Most of us have no difficulty understanding that allowing the opponent free reign on an open file, not contesting a central outpost or permitting the creation of an enemy passed pawn are all bad ideas. Despite having these basic skills though I see myself missing two move tactics and ignoring simple strategic ideas over and over in my games. My decision-making process during a game simply does not apply the knowledge I have. This is discouraging because I am clearly giving away games that I could have won. On the other hand this is a hopeful sign because I seem already to have in hand the information required to improve my play substantially. I simply (if only it were simple!) need to focus my efforts on applying what I already know rather than thinking that I am missing some key piece of information about the Sicilian Dragon or about king and pawn endings (though in the case of the latter I am pretty sure that I am missing many key pieces).

Next week HCC member @FLAMINGORANGE and I will be in Toronto for rounds 11 & 12 of the 2024 Candidates Tournament. Caruana, Nakamura, Nepo & company have no lack of chess knowledge and don't seem to have my problem in applying it. We are counting on absorbing some of this skill by staring very hard at the players from the gallery. I will let you know how that goes :)

Good luck to all of you in the next rounds!