17 June 2022

First Impulse

Of course, analysis can sometimes give more accurate results than intuition but usually it’s just a lot of work. I normally do what my intuition tells me to do. Most of the time spent thinking is just to double-check.
Magnus Carlsen

How is this intuition guided by factors external to the chess position itself?

White to move
Had I reached this position in a blitz game, my first impulse might be Ke4, forking rook and pawn. After the moves 1...Rh3 2.Rxg6 f3, a draw might seem likely.

When I did encounter this position in tactics training on Chess.com, my first thought was to threaten checkmate with 1.Kc4. My intuition was influenced by the knowledge that there was a tactical opportunity. I quickly deduced that some sort of rook sacrifice to deflect Black's rook from the h-file was the intent of the exercise. After examining a line or two that begins with the mate threat, I spent a minute (or less) on Ke4, too.

Try it yourself at Puzzle 42645.

2 comments:

  1. Instructive example. I’m not entirely sure it fits the “intuition versus analysis” lesson, though.

    I too found the correct answer quickly, based on exploiting the black K position to either divert or block (via white achieving Rh5!) his R from stopping the h-pawn.

    But as with so many puzzles, my chief takeaway from this was, “If told, ‘White wins,’ I will find it. But if not — i.e., if reached in a game — I probably would overlook it.”

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for the comment. What I was getting at was not intuition vs. analysis, but how intuition leads to different ideas in puzzles than in play.

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