• My name's Mr. Make-No-Points

    From pepstein5@gmail.com@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jul 31 11:04:25 2022
    Help! I'm continually making utterly grotesque 0.3 or worse whoppers
    against XG by trying to run my checkers to safer points, completely overlooking obviously much stronger plays that make a point instead.
    Is there any cure for this? As soon as the analysis points this out
    to me, I realise my stupidity. This is definitely an example of overlooking
    a play, rather than rejecting it. I suppose "Play slower" might be a good idea. I don't know. Thanks for any advice.

    Paul

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Tim Chow@21:1/5 to peps...@gmail.com on Sun Jul 31 18:41:23 2022
    On Sunday, July 31, 2022 at 2:04:27 PM UTC-4, peps...@gmail.com wrote:
    Help! I'm continually making utterly grotesque 0.3 or worse whoppers
    against XG by trying to run my checkers to safer points, completely overlooking
    obviously much stronger plays that make a point instead.
    Is there any cure for this? As soon as the analysis points this out
    to me, I realise my stupidity. This is definitely an example of overlooking
    a play, rather than rejecting it. I suppose "Play slower" might be a good idea. I don't know. Thanks for any advice.

    I have a folder that I call "blind spots" for precisely these kinds
    of "stupid" errors. I think you've already won half the battle by
    identifying a pattern in your mistakes: you run when you should
    make a point. So now you know what the remedy should be:
    when you are about to make an obvious running play, stop and
    look to see if you can make a point instead.

    It's easy to chalk up such blunders to carelessness or stupidity
    or playing too quickly. But there is usually more to the story. There
    is usually a pattern of thinking that you can diagnose, and then
    target specifically.

    ---
    Tim Chow

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)