Study by subject
Chess
In chess you learn openings, piece values, elementary checkmates, special rules and algebraic notation by heart. Lumi asks them back until you play them without hesitation, before your next game.
How to turn this subject into cards
Make one card per opening with its first moves and the idea behind it, one per elementary checkmate, and one per special rule, castling, en passant, promotion. For notation, practise going from a square to its coordinates and back. The trap is reciting moves without understanding the idea, which collapses as soon as your opponent deviates. So always write the why of the move on the card. Pulling the answer from memory before seeing it fixes it better than rereading (Karpicke and Roediger, 2008). Come back to your openings at spaced intervals so they stay available in a game (Cepeda et al., 2006). Keep the piece values on a separate card.
What you need to know by heart
- Common openings with their first moves and their idea.
- Piece values, pawn 1, knight 3, bishop 3, rook 5, queen 9.
- Elementary checkmates, king and queen against king, king and rook against king.
- Special rules, castling, en passant, promotion.
- Algebraic notation, files from a to h and ranks from 1 to 8.
How Lumi helps you remember it
You teach your cards to Lumi, openings, values, checkmates, rules. It forgets over time, like you do, then quizzes you right before you would forget. As the deadline approaches, the Mist settles over what you know less well and Lumi asks that first. You arrive at the game able to produce the right move, not only to recognise it.
Example cards
Three cards the way you would write them, with the answer Lumi expects.
How many points is a rook worth?
Five.
When can you castle?
When neither the king nor the rook has moved, the squares between them are empty, and the king is not in check and does not cross an attacked square.
Where is the square e4?
On the e file, fourth rank.
Example card
Try it, Lumi turns it into fill in the blank questions in your browser.
Chess · teach this card to Lumi
A queen is worth 9 points, a rook 5, and a bishop or a knight 3. The move called castling tucks the king away and brings a rook into play. A pawn that advances two squares can be captured en passant by a neighbouring enemy pawn. The move 1.e4 pushes the king’s pawn two squares forward.
Lumi’s question
A queen is worth _____ points, a rook 5, and a bishop or a knight 3.
Pick the missing word
Answer right to light Lumi up
Its lamp fades when a fact slips away.
Frequently asked questions
- Can Lumi help me play better?
- It helps you retain what can be memorised, openings, values, rules and notation. Calculation and intuition are built by playing.
- How do I memorise an opening?
- Make one card per key position with the move to play and the reason. Lumi asks the moves back at spaced intervals, which makes you remember longer (Cepeda et al., 2006).
- Should I learn openings by heart?
- Learn the first moves and above all the idea behind each. When your opponent deviates, the idea is what guides you.
Read next
Sources
- Karpicke, Roediger (2008). The critical importance of retrieval for learning. Science, 319(5865). doi.org/10.1126/science.1152408
- Cepeda, Pashler, Vul, Wixted, Rohrer (2006). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks. A review and quantitative synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 132(3). doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132.3.354
Teach this to Lumi
Give Lumi your chess notes, it gives them back as questions at the right moment.