Dr's R/X

Dr. Detecto's Mariner prescriptions.  The Mainframe circuit boards were originally designed to solve chess positions before they started fritzing out on baseball shtick.  Like Bobby Fischer said, "Chess is not that hard a game.  Whatever position you've got, it's been played before."

Well, yeah - if you can fit an Isolated Queen Pawn position into a block of similar patterns that you recognize, THEN you can ask "in what ways is this situation subtly different?"  Figure out what has been done before, and what has been said before, and you might be able to organize your thinking as to how you judge the situation in front of you to be different.

When Tim Lincecum came into pro baseball, one thing different about him was that he could throw 150 pitches on Friday and then enjoy an easy game of foul-line-to-foul-line long toss the next day.  Scott Bankhead he wasn't.  Nolan Ryan less a few inches was more like it.  Get you the right basic template, and then it's easy and pleasant to start asking where you see differences.

Ah, but what's the right basic template?  That's what makes a ball game ... :- )