The Philosophy of HitThePin #4: Post-Game Analysis

Hello, chess.com! My name is HitThePin, and I am here once again to wax philosophical on the tomes of chess. Thank you for joining me.

Post-game analysis is a tricky thing. It's almost as important as the game that was played itself. Yet while there are vast tomes of work that tell us all how to PLAY chess, there's very little talk about how we should be STUDYING chess. Incorrect studying of your chess games can be disastrous. 

For many of us, the limits of our post-game analysis is setting the computer to ¨Quick¨ and watching the computer complain about how we played. After its done, we look over it, hit "Save Analysis", and go do some tactics or something. We can tell our coaches or whoever that we are "throughly analyzing" our games, with the help of the computer. 

This is not really helping us. We barely learned anything from this hypothetical session of analysis. There are far better ways to analyze.

First off, before you use the computer, it is better to use "Self-Analysis" BEFORE seeking the advice of the engine. Why? Because when we see the device spit out a value, we are being hand-fed. OUR personal image of the game is skewed by the perceptions of the computer. We learn less.

Also, I find that it is far more educational to find a mistake by myself than to have it identified for me. When a person finds something by themselves, it sticks in their memory in a far more powerful way. After all, it was their own handiwork that led to the knowledge.

It is important to be very in-depth in your analysis. Finding alternate lines, considering the situation outside of the board, possibly even leaving annotations. All of this is needed for the best possible self-analysis.

However, AFTER self-analysis is completed, it is OK, and definitely important, to turn on the computer and have it check your work. You may have missed the things the computer finds, and sometimes, vice versa. While the computer runs, it helps to also have open a tab with your analysis on the side. Only after all of this will you have learned all that you can from your post-game analysis.

Why is this the case? The answer is relatively simple. A human and a computer, working together, are always better than the lone computer. Of course, it is well-known that eventually that computers will become so strong that there will come a point where this will not be the case anymore. By then, who knows what chess will look like.

But until then, it is better for both entities to analyze than passively sit back and have one watch the other. Only this way will you learn.

Thanks for reading, as always. Be sure to leave a comment. Did this help you; or am I a total fool? Input is always appreciated. See you around chess.com!