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Cover & move - simple and effective military tactic. One element moves, one element protects that movement. E.g. A starts shooting, B moves to new position, while enemies have to hide from A's firing. B's movement is covered. Then B starts shooting, A moves. Repeat.
Processing pattern - whatever enables you to process choices more easily and effectively towards a victorious conclusion.
Using cover & move in chess
Cover & move becomes a processing pattern in chess. It just makes it easier to evaluate your moves. It's kind of like an analogy or concept that simplifies.
Here's, more or less, how:
1. You can look at all your pieces as one force, one army or task unit.
2. Then, all the pieces - pawns & figures - are elements that need to cover & move well.
3. That means it's looking at how the entire force or army moves, rather than trying to calculate the strong move in a vacuum.
- The strong move will be the one that attains strong movement of the entire force anyway
- It's not going to be some theoretical strong move made in some abstract calculation space
How does it look in practice
Game begins. Let's say opponent moves pawn to the middle, you move yours. You simply constantly look at how your pieces cover each other. You notice which pieces aren't covered. You notice which pieces are under fire and need more cover. By doing just that - everything else about making strong moves becomes easier.
There is a very simple and important reason for this.
By constantly looking at how your elements cover each other - you create awareness or develop a sense of strong and weak points of your force. It becomes much easier to see what really needs attention most, facilitating having accurate priority. It makes it easier to be thorough. It feeds your unconscious with clearer, simpler perceptions to utilize for calculating next moves.
Most importantly - it's simple and clear. That is all-important. It leaves complexity to the game itself. Instead of you adding your own complexities, theories and stuff on top of what the game - such as chess - already provides in vast abundance.
If your rook is hanging, you have no trouble evading the trap of calculating that amazing tactic to win a pawn in the middle, only to lose the rook for free the next move. It's obvious and easy to see how you need to first defend your rook. And that's because you are constantly looking at how your pieces are covering each other. If you didn't, you'd likely make such blunders much more frequently, and it'd take more effort not to.
That doesn't automatically eliminate all such blunders - instead, covering & moving all your pieces as one force or unit is a more effective and useful skill to train at than some abstract "I need to get better at checking for in-1-move takes" or worse yet, some blurry, unclear "I need to get better at not making blunders".
So that is cover & move in chess.
 
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There is a more simple way of explaining that in chess: protect your pieces.
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yes you always need to evaluate cover. there are other things to consider, like giving up a lower value piece to gain a higher value piece later, or to gain positional advantage on the board. Evaluating cover is important, but its only one part of chess.
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On November 10 2020 19:46 kogeT wrote:
There is a more simple way of explaining that in chess: protect your pieces.
You sure? How do you actually go about protecting your pieces?
That's a bit like having a military unit and leaving them with "protect yourselves". Cover & move is how you actually go about doing it.
There's much more to it in terms of chess analogy. At the same time it can be made simpler still. But the main point is that cover & move is a pattern of making moves that actually gets the pieces protected. And that's just my opinion.
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I'm a 2000+ elo (2100+ blitz/bullet) chess player. I have always thought of all of my pieces as a whole, rather then individually.
I have mixed the ideas in "The art of attack in chess" with Kasparov's piece counting system for attacks (which is basically, when I attack, will I have more forces to deploy to a quadrant then my opponent will have in defense, literal counting.)
Computers are much better at evaluating the changing values of pieces over the game but values are not static. Similar to special operation teams, there is no 'all-star fragger', everything in chess is a team action. Even a Queen behind enemy lines capturing everything, can only do that because of the rest board is being controlled by pieces and pawns.
Cover and Move is good phrase-ology or marketing but it has no practical value at the board, in your on-hand thinking technique, whether tournament or blitz. If you are good enough to assess a position, imagine a plan, calculate that plan and execute that plan then you are too good for catch phrases and if you are weak enough for it to be of value, then instead of vague analogies, there are actual move check-lists prepared over the last half century by the best players and coaches in the world.
The age of catch-phrases and analogies is past, for every one of those you read, you could have instead gotten actual, practical advice that pertains specifically to a situation you will be in.
kogeT's -protect your pieces on the other hand is in a lot of literature because it isn't vague, it is a actual piece of thinking, "I can't do that, it will leave my pawn undefended" or "Can I decide to not defend against this threat and gain an initiative elsewhere?"
Abstractions make bad players feel like they are learning but often end up teaching horrible habits and sloppy, convoluted thinking techniques. Chess tournaments are filled with 1500 elo players who can quote every abstract maxim but can't play a decent game of chess.
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Don't get me wrong, maybe you're right. Or maybe you are 2000/2100+ elo in chess and your ego wants you to feel right because someone shared an idea that's different. From what you've personally experienced as the way to get good, thus you must discredit it as phony and naive immediately.
Let's summarize.
The idea of this post is cross-domain translation. It's very useful and effective in learning. Specifically, that cover & move can be translated onto chess to useful effects. More specifically still, that you can train chess skills using cover & move, instead of training them in a vacuum. You discount the idea of translating cover & move onto chess, and treat it as some cheesy and naive misconception. Something only newbies might entertain in their naive misunderstanding.
I appreciate that you're a 2000+ elo chess player. I like that you share your perspective backed up by real and solid experience, that's awesome. But I want to understand better where you're coming from.
Cover and Move is good phrase-ology or marketing but it has no practical value at the board, in your on-hand thinking technique, whether tournament or blitz. If you are good enough to assess a position, imagine a plan, calculate that plan and execute that plan then you are too good for catch phrases and if you are weak enough for it to be of value, then instead of vague analogies, there are actual move check-lists prepared over the last half century by the best players and coaches in the world.
How is cover & move, a timeless and fundamental law in combat, a "catch phrase", "good phraseology" and "vague analogy"?
I read about cover & move in a book I bought, Extreme Ownership by J. Willink & L. Babin, two most experienced and decorated Navy Seals. They lead a consulting company teaching combat principles and laws (including cover & move) to companies and businesses because these laws are so fundamental and universal, they apply to most anything that involves leading a force. You might say, "ok, two savvy military dudes found a way to make good cash off of the naive in the business world, hahah, I feel sorry for you, you must learn the hard way". Okay. Meanwhile I was experimenting with it and it works. Particularly if you grasp it and translate from examples, instead of treating it as some intellectual woo-woo.
"If you are good enough to assess a position, imagine a plan, calculate that plan and execute that plan then you are too good for catch phrases." Again, what? Cover & move is a catch phrase, "vague analogy" to you? Really? As in, a fugazi? Some woo-woo, eee this and that, and then some of that in that, blah blah and it's bullshit and doesn't exist? It wasn't presented as some magic technique. I presented it as a more effective and useful skill to train at. It's a simple thing or pattern that one can train at. It's not a magic "AHA!", golden technique. But it isa bit of a lever for effective training.
What you're really saying is that translating cover & move onto chess is a gimmick. No strong player would ever buy that (you even sure about that?).
My fairly modest chess experience is ~1400 at 10min version (chess.com), when I used to play a bit more actively.
Of course, you may feel your ego need to discredit my idea based on you being 2100+ elo but I find it really weird and off - what you're really trying to discredit is the idea of translating a fundamental law from one domain, to another domain. Which is not only totally real but fundamental to learning - seeing connections between stuff, themes underneath the surface layers.
Here's how it looked for me:
1. By cover, I find myself tracing all the possible movements of every piece, one by one, double/triple checking for obvious captures. I have the practical orientation that I need to cover from opponent's firelines.
2. With time, training and testing various options at how to achieve cover better, led me to find my own ways to improve at it.
3. This included never hanging a piece at first. Then, slowly adding checks for what are the firelines after a given piece moved (double attacks, skewers, pins etc.). Then important squares to defend. Then more strategic elements such as knight in the middle etc.
4. Over time, my training continued to evolve my understanding of cover & move. I was finding myself doing defended attacks (that's just what I called it), where after usual cover & move, I had another layer of covering the attack itself that I was executing.
But all of this revolved around, all the lessons were getting attached to - the chunk or theme of - cover & move. It provided me with a fuckton more clarity and simplicity over time because it's such a basic, timeless fundamental and it's super effective. I saw myself improving faster, with more direct and concrete feedback from each game when training by cover & move - because I knew far more clearly what it was that I wanted to achieve & improve at in each game, instead of doing it in a vacuum.
I was getting better more effectively at "assess a position, imagine a plan, calculate that plan and execute that plan" - because I was organizing it around cover & move, a tested and proven theme, instead of trying to train it in a vacuum. And it proved useful and worked for me. Which is exactly what this post is about.
I didn't present it as some kind of a "the way" or "how to chess". I presented it as "Cover & Move in chess", which is just my take on how this timeless principle can be translated onto the board. The idea that translating a core universal theme from another domain to a different domain is a gimmick, "catch phrase" or "vague analogy", I'm not really sure where it's coming from.
As a matter of fact, I even tried to cover & move writing this very post. Admittedly, despite my best efforts, I was not able to cover the elements of "too long" and TL;DR, though. However, it was still far longer and less clear before I re-edited and fixed it a few times.
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Perhaps in the future you should include example positions or games, and be open to learning from others rather than taking the role of teacher always. I agree with AttackZerg that it is not helpful to be so preoccupied with abstractions that you avoid the concrete. In this case that would mean the drudgery of analyzing positions, getting feedback, and knowing that as a relative beginner there will be lots that you miss. It may be useful to abstract lessons you learn from chess to other things but beware of doing the reverse in excess.
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Didn't think of myself as a teacher. I thought of myself as an explorer. Found something interesting and effective for me, chose to share and see how it goes.
However, 8/10 times of writing in this kind of a tone, I'm pretty sure it'd be received exactly as that. As teaching, trying to sound like an authority on the subject, etc. Some folks might likely be pissed off looking at it, thinking "what an arrogant douche, clueless noob thinking he knows shit when he doesn't" etc.
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I don't think they are pissed at you so much as trying to offer help (in a blunt way). If your goal wasn't to teach then maybe you could work on how you phrase things. "Here is an interesting idea I read about that I'm trying to apply to chess", focusing on the idea itself (the book you read it in) rather than how it will improve the chess of those who adopt it (a claim that does require some authority).
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Part of getting better at chess, is coming to your own 'abstract maxim's and 'techniques', most of us along the way have come up with metaphors or phrase-ology shorthand that, we use along the path to discovery and improvement.
Unfortunately, I am at the other end of the tunnel and part of that path is shedding all of the bad or ineffective things that you learn or think of - for what works at scale, in practical games.
I think it is great that you are spending time using your mind and experience to further your progress, and if the technique works for you and you fly past me and become a high ranking master, I promise I will come back to this post and state as much.
There have been dozens of attempts to incorporate the thinking of different combat fields into chess and they always fail badly. For the last 500 years, the chess world gives wonderful metaphors and analogies, the chess world or player never benefits from the world trying to give us metaphors. This is a specialty field, my library contains over 500 chessbooks, none of them use anything but chess to teach chess.
It is the same as a linguist attempting to phonetically define a computer language, even if possible, it will have no value to a full-stack developer.
I don't think it is ever bad to explore yourself and find your own holistic connection.
You asked some questions in your post that I think I have addressed.
I'll put it like this, David Petraeus, is one of the American generals I respect the most in modern times. The man is a brilliant scholar, administrator and for a period of time, every battlefield he took command of, the situation improved dramatically and ethically. He is my gold standard, an astronaut peer imo. That said, his knowledge of all modern warefare, middle-age and ancient warefare, his ten thousand hours of experience and his innate brilliance will mean nothing in a game of chess. Not one skill he has ever exercised in his entire career can prepare him to play a chess player.
It is the reason, the art of war is completely useless for chess, although an interesting journey many of us do.
I am a big fan of cross-platform thinking, unfortunately, once you enter specialty arena's, you end up facing halls of concrete real, pragmatic things where abstracts at best entertain and at worst misled.
If this technique is working for you, great, my resistance is to the exportability or usefulness of this system for anyone who is not you and potentially you.
Nobody likes to hear this part but it is true. If you just solve tactical puzzles and play zero chess you will improve far more then climbing the rating rungs with peice meal thinking techniques. Until you can hit 1800~ or so in training programs, you are literally blind to the dangerous mechanisms and realities of the chess board.
The average blitz game 3-10 minutes, I spend time actually thinking just a few times a game, there isn't enough time in 10 minutes to have a move system. 10 minutes is still insanely fast for how complicated the game is.
Albert Einstein was one of the most brilliant people in history and he was barely better then you are today. Oppenheimer was worse. At your current chess level you would give Napoleon a good game and if you kept your nerves, maybe you could win.
On Lichess today, it says I am in the top 97.5% of blitz players and 98% of bullet players and I am closer to your strength then anyone in the top 500, or 1000. This is a level of mastery you find at the top of physics, maths, medicine.
(Edit - I have written this fairly quickly and I have some household chores to do, I'll check back in a bit and make sure it is comprehensible).
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who knows how to teach chess?
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A blurb I wrote recently for a scholastic chess tournament organizer I grew up playing under when he asked me what helped me improve the most. I thought this might be helpful for anyone that came here hoping to learn, and perhaps AttackZerg can weigh in with his own thoughts. I'm 1800+ right now. Do note that this is the recording of my own path to 1800 and it's what worked for my thinking processes. That does not inherently mean it will work for your own. :
Stage 1: The Opening
Got a few openings down relatively well by around 1200-1400 online, and as I played more I naturally learned the openings more.
Stage 2: Principled Mindset
The biggest aspect was staying calm, confident, and playing enough to instinctively see 'candidate moves' and pick one as the best based on principles. I used to rely on technical analysis (trying to calculate 4 moves out move-by-move) way more than fundamentals because I did not fully grasp them.
If one option violates standard principles, it's riskier and needs to provide a huge upside(i.e., I need to see that upside playing out regardless of how my opponent is likely to respond).
Stage 1 to Stage 3: Analysis, Analysis, Analysis
In addition to the free daily analysis from chess.com, I used the Lichess analysis board to go back in my games after every single game and see the top 4 or 5 candidate moves it gave afterward. I'd consider them myself and try to analyze the merit behind those candidate moves. Meanwhile, I considered if there was clear reasoning behind Lichess’s ordering from strongest to weakest. Were there weaknesses in the position better exploited by one move than another? Was I being overly conservative with principles when I had a winning attack this move? i.e., I often have ensured my position is secure before launching an attack. And then in analysis LiChess demonstrated that if I just launched the attack, I'd be up as many as 2 to 4 more points! Forcing myself to fully understand potential candidate moves from the previous game before moving onto the next game increased my ability to recognize and analyze them more effectively during the actual games.
Stage 1 - Opening - Resources:
The only things I spent money on that I found useful for solitary learning are in these Resources :
Any standard, safe opening book - A Strategic Chess Opening Repertoire for White - A d4 c4 opening book that isn't perfect and even avoids a few key lines, however, proved immensely helpful for a solid basis to learn from.
Any true gambit opening book that is very capable of beating higher level players and pairs well with the previous book - the Blackmar-Diemer gambit (by Christoph Scheerer, published by Everyman Chess) - Knowing I was too conservative, I chose a gambit to learn so I would be forced into tense situations more often. You're a lot more willing to attack when you've seen the same few positions many times before and are down a couple of pawns from the get-go. The attacking aspect from this gambit carried over into my d4 c4 games afterward in that I was more able-ready to both seek out and execute coordinated attacks on my opponents.
Stage 2 - Principles - Resources:
I skimmed The Art of The Middle Game and selected specific weaknesses to work on. That helped with a lot of principles I didn't fully grasp.
A secondary resource I used was the free (tedious as can be) 'drills' from Chessable to help me nail my openings and weaknesses even more. I only found this around 1400 though and most people wouldn't want to do this due to the tedious aspect.
Stage 3+ Resources:
Silman’s Complete Endgame Course is incredibly valuable, however, I found that it really helps to have someone else working through it together with you and to only use it for smaller set periods of time to get through its dryness.
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EPT
