Podcast Episode 41 - Al's LG strategy

mellomel

I just listened to the podcast episode with Al (highly recommended!) where he mentions how he practiced LG to account for his nerves by learning to distinguish between 'brute force games' vs. 'inference based games' (he didn't use these exact terms but that was the idea I think). I just loved his idea but felt the need to solidify his approach so I can apply it too. From what I gather, he mainly practiced two things for this:

1. Speed/bruteforce practice

• Infer the plainly obvious (for like 10 secs) and stop. Proceed to other rules/questions.

• He did 2 sections this way every day.

1. Untimed practice for inferences

• Trying to solve the game as much as possible from the rules.

• He did this for harder games (games 3 and 4) without worrying about the time.

I feel like if you're like me (and Al for that matter) and you do well with typical sequencing/grouping games but choke when you get to the toughest/misc. game because you can't find the inferences (and are also unable to brute force because you want to find inferences), I think you'll really benefit from Al's approach. Here's how I'm thinking of putting his method into practice:

• Take a full LG section and do the easier games (generally games 1 and 2 but I suppose it could change) by brute forcing, trying to finish them under the target time.
• When you get to the harder games (again, prob games 3 and 4), stop worrying about the time and try to infer as much as possible before moving onto the questions.

I'm curious how everyone else who listened the episode thinks about his method and how to apply it. Couldn't find his username but Al, your input would be very much appreciated if you happen see this post!

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st_cupertino

Interesting! Thanks for sharing