Deep Chess Work

Why depth is good, and how to go deep

Do you do deep chess work?

To paraphrase Cal Newport, Deep Work is

Chess activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.

Illustrations: irasutoya

Why should you consider incorporating more deep work into your chess?

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Deep work is rare

Most people follow the path of least resistance and spend most of their time on shallow work.

Shallow work, in a chess context, is

• often done online

• doesn’t take much time

• not cognitively demanding

• often performed while distracted

• easily measurable and thus feels useful.

Shallow work can help your chess, but in the long run, having the ability to do deep work has a better chance of unlocking your potential because it challenges you to your limits and helps you develop your skills and grit.

With the proliferation of online resources, we have access to many of the same tools for learning around the world.

• Knowing how to do deep work and

• Consistently performing deep work at home

can differentiate you from your rivals. Because everyone is used to doing shallow work, it’s also hard to realise the cost of ignoring the importance of deep work. Personally, I’ve noticed from conversations with Australian GMs in recent years, how they have consistently performed deeper kinds of chess work than I have.

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Deep work is valuable

Deep work is especially useful for playing serious games over the board.

In classical chess, the abilities to

• delve deeply into a position and

• maintain your concentration for hours are crucial.

Because of this, classical games feel a lot more difficult than your day-to-day training.

If you’re able to concentrate as deeply or as long in your training, though, you’ll find it easier to perform at your best in competitions, because your brain is used to putting in, and thus also feels less resistance to, exerting maximum effort.

Of course, the quantity of chess study/chess work you do is important.

But while you can think of quantity as additive, the quality or depth of training can be multiplicative when it comes to planting seeds in your chess garden.

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Deep work is meaningful

Have you ever felt totally immersed in a game of chess that you seemed to lose track of time, and it felt incredibly satisfying and purposeful to be so into it?

Doing deep work is conducive to generating flow states, because it

• requires concentration

• can make you lost in an activity

• stretches your mind to your limits.

One reason you might enjoy playing classical OTB so much is because there’s no other environment you can concentrate so hard on something. To feel like your next action is do-or-die significant, that your thoughts matter, can feel very rewarding.

But you don’t have to wait for your next tournament to experience this.

When you get into the habit of concentrating hard in your training, you might find that it wasn’t only the competitive significance of OTB games that imbue you with a sense of flow, but gradually slipping into a deeper and deeper state of concentration.

Deep work can allow you to enjoy the complexity of chess itself, separated from results.

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Do you want to get into deep chess work?

Now you’ve read how deep work is rare, valuable and meaningful.

Of course, deep work is rare because it’s not easy to put in so much effort at home.

The first step is to think about

• how deep or shallow the chess work you currently do is, and

• whether you want to incorporate more deep work into your routine.

If you’re just playing chess for fun, the extra effort might not feel like it’s worth it.

But if you’re serious about wanting to improve your chess, you should consider it.

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Some examples of deep chess work

It wouldn’t be practical to go from your usual chess work to full throttle, deep ocean. Start with ramping up the depth a little, and once that feels routine, go one level up.

• If you’re reading an annotated game or playing through it on a screen, try setting it up on a real chess board. It might feel tedious at first, but having to move the pieces should make it easier for you to pause and think independently.

• If you tend to immediately analyse your longer games with an engine, force yourself to be patient. Put in the effort of noting all of the impressions and thoughts you had during the game and then go through the game and look for improvements yourself before comparing with the engine as the final step.

• If you usually only play blitz and bullet, try incorporating slower games. Even better, make it a habit to play against training partners so it feels more serious.

• If you tend to play through lots of games quickly on programs like Follow Chess or ChessBase, again, set it up on a physical board and take it move by move. You won’t get through as many games, but it’s more important to focus on each one. Once you get into the habit of actually thinking about each move even when you spectate games, you can learn a lot more from each game.

• Instead of only doing Puzzle Rush or Puzzle Storm, take on some exercises from books where you have to think about it for at least 10 minutes, writing your solution down, before comparing with the solution.

• Instead of only working on openings from books, courses or pre-made PGN files, dig into a position you’re curious about using your own brain and creating a new file from scratch, or playing some games with an opening and trying to work out the moves yourself before checking out some model games.

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Sustainable deep work

Because deep work is difficult, here are 3 tips:

1. You don’t need to do deep work all the time

Especially if you’re not used to deep work, you should start with baby steps. You’re probably working on chess already in different ways—for each one, think about how you could do it in a slightly deeper manner, and reflect on how it goes in practice.

2. Enlist the support of others

If you already work on your chess with others, such as with a coach or training partners, ask them to support and encourage you as you start trying deeper work. When it comes to doing difficult things, it’s good to have people you can talk to that you can trust and who believe in you. You can also take on tasks with others so there’s a competitive element, or you can have some sort of accountability partner.

3. Create a routine

Deep work is not going to be fun from the get-go. It might take a while until you’re even comfortable doing it for a short amount of time, so it can be helpful to have some sort of ritual that tells your brain it’s deep work time.

• Decide how long you’ll work (e.g. minimum of 20 minutes)

• Decide how you’ll work (e.g. minimum 2 calculation exercises)

• Decide where you’ll work (e.g. with a chessboard on the dining table)

• Decide how you’ll support your work (e.g. put your phone in another room)

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The truth is always an abyss. One must—as in a swimming pool—dare to dive from the quivering springboard of trivial everyday experience and sink into the depths, in order to later rise again—laughing and fighting for breath—to the now doubly illuminated surface of things.

—Franz Kafka, Conversations with Kafka