BGonline.org Forums

Learning from your blunders – how do you review and categorise them?

Posted By: Timothy Chow
Date: Monday, 21 January 2013, at 2:52 a.m.

In Response To: Learning from your blunders – how do you review and categorise them? (DaveT)

I do believe that this is one of the main ways to improve, and I believe that it has helped my game a lot.

A further problem is that some blunders will be blunders under any score - others might be blunders only under certain scores and accordingly how should these be best labelled?

Generally speaking, score-based considerations are fairly subtle, and if you're blundering then you're probably suffering from an unsubtle misconception. Your best strategy in most cases will be to immediately check to see if your blunder is a blunder for money (or 25-away/25-away if you prefer), once you place the cube in a sensible location. If it's still a blunder, which it usually will be, then treat it as a money-game error. The relatively small number of remaining blunders can be set aside as lower-priority study material until you accumulate enough of them to start noticing patterns within that group.

Bill Robertie has around 30 Chapter Headings - would those chapter headings make sense to use as a foundation?

That's not a bad idea, but 30 is rather a lot and some of the categories may not be so relevant. "Hit or not?" for example, is such a broad category that it is probably not so helpful without further subdivisions.

Generally speaking, it's better to let your data drive your categories if you can, rather than to force your data into preconceived categories. When you collect a new blunder, compare it with your existing list. Does it seem vaguely similar to a previous blunder that you made? By "similar" I mean that the type of position is similar—opening, priming, blitzing, racing, holding, backgame, etc. If so, then put them together. If not, then make a separate category. Pretty soon you should see some patterns emerging.

Is there a particularly good way to approach the labelling of doubling blunders

The same general principles apply. Put decisions involving similar types of positions together. For example, all your non-contact racing positions should go together, regardless of whether you made a doubling error or a taking error.

Messages In This Thread

• Learning from your blunders – how do you review and categorise them?
  DaveT -- Sunday, 20 January 2013, at 11:07 a.m.
  • Learning from your blunders – how do you review and categorise them?
    Hall Skåra -- Sunday, 20 January 2013, at 8:58 p.m.
    • Learning from your blunders – how do you review and categorise them?
      PINO -- Monday, 21 January 2013, at 8:51 a.m.
  • Learning from your blunders – how do you review and categorise them?
    Timothy Chow -- Monday, 21 January 2013, at 2:52 a.m.
  • Learning from your blunders – how do you review and categorise them?
    Smcrtorchs -- Monday, 21 January 2013, at 10:25 a.m.