Learn first, remember later

"Chess strength depends a great deal on how much you know. But what you know is really everything you’ve learned, minus all you’ve forgotten — and the forgetting process is powerful. Are you spending all your chess energy learning new things, instead of setting aside a portion of that time and energy ensuring that you’re not forgetting the good stuff you already know?" — NM Rolf Wetzell

In my previous posts, I’ve referred to several positions from my games which have taught me something useful. These lessons have the potential to help me win my future games. If I can remember them.

As an adult, I’m at a disadvantage here. One big reason kids seem to improve much more easily is their brains are different. They can see something once and remember it forever. Some kids get better and better just by playing a bunch of chess, because the lessons they learn from each game accumulate effortlessly.

Adults can improve at chess too, but we have to be more intentional about it.

A tool I’ve been using lately is the free Anki flashcard software. It lets you create flashcards for anything you want to remember, and then manages a schedule of spaced repetition for you and tells you what cards you need to drill each day.

I found it a bit overwhelming at first, but learned that if I trust the process and drill what it tells me to drill each day, I’m only spending 10 or 15 minutes a day on it, and I really do remember nearly every card. As of this writing I have 440 cards, and I’m adding new ones at a pace of about 15 per week.

Creating cards is easy. You add the position on the front of the card, and what you want to remember about it on the back.

The vast majority of my cards at this point are positions from my own games. I also have a few positions from books, YouTube videos and Chessable courses. The position goes on the front, with the lesson I want to remember on the back. It takes just a few seconds to take a screenshot from any of those sources and drag it into the card.

The main screen of the app shows you what you’re scheduled to study today.

Organizing into multiple decks isn’t necessary, but that option is there. You click on a deck and it shows you the front of the first flashcard you have to review. You try to remember the lesson you wanted to take away from that position, and then click Show Answer. The answer (the metaphorical back of the card) is revealed, and here is where the magic really happens.

Taking care to be honest about whether you really remembered this position, you get to indicate whether doing so was easy, good, or hard, or whether you failed at it altogether (“Again”). Above each button, the app shows you how much time it will be before you see that card again. In this example, you can see a position which I’ve already reviewed several times. Spaced repetition magic means if I’m “Good” with remembering it now, I won’t see it again for more than three months. Earlier when I’ve seen this card and clicked “Good”, the interval has been shorter.

Anki sets these intervals based on some algorithm that probably has as inputs your whole history of when you’ve reviewed the card and which buttons you’ve pressed. You don’t need to know how it works. Again: Trust the process.

Most of the time, this really works! I see a card I haven’t seen in a while, and there’s a good chance I remember what the lesson is. And if I don’t, then I’ll start seeing it a lot more often.

There are a ton of features for organizing cards, which I mostly don’t use.

My least-favorite thing about Anki is that it’s a desktop application. You actually download and install it on your Mac or PC like you’re living in the 1900s. There is a web version, but it’s not fully featured; you can’t upload images. And you have to manually sync the two by clicking the Sync button on the desktop application or the Save button on the web application. Sometimes it syncs by itself, and sometimes the Save button is disabled. I haven’t figured out about that yet.

But anyway, I highly recommend Anki for chess or anything else you’re trying to remember.

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Rolf Wetzell has one of the most impressive adult improver stories I’ve ever heard, going from 1800 USCF at age 37 to eventually 2200 and the National Master title. In his 1994 book, “Chess Master at Any Age”, he recommends a lower-tech version of flashcards to help adult improvers retain knowledge.

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This post is cross-posted on Substack at The Chess Improvement Lab.