Saturday, January 09, 2010

Finished level 30

I actually finished level 30 about a week ago. But getting back on track at work from the holidays has taken most of my time. First the results (then the commentary)


>-------------------<
| Level 10 100% |
>-------------------<
| Level 20 97% |
>-------------------<
| Level 30 91% |
>-------------------<



The last time I did CT-Art, it took me until my 4th repetition of level 30 to get from this high of a percentage. So that indicates that I have made some tactical progress. On the other hand, my 5th (and final) rep of level 30 I did at 97%. So I have slipped from that level. And of course, this time through was much slower than what I was doing before.

Some of the level 30 problems are really quite difficult and require seeing a lot of variations. The fact that I was able to do them so quickly in the past raises an old question: Does repetition just teach us the solutions to particular problems? This is an important question, because our real goal is to do better in new positions. At the moment, my answer the question is a resounding "I don't know."

But, I'm inclined to just keep working instead of trying to optimize the process. My results on the most recent run through level 30 are significantly better than they were the first 3 times I did these problems. Since that was 2 years ago, the effect of memorizing the solutions is probably not that great (and I did not feel while solving the problems that I just knew the solution, I could really calculate the problems better).