Chess is a game of the mind that takes talent, many years of practice, training and more practice and something else…

For one to reach the level of nationally ranked “Expert” status, talent and dedication fuel the rise.  But what does the talented chess Expert do to reach a new level of success?  He has already been studying and practicing and appears to have reached a plateau.  How can he break through this very successful level?

The professional analyst is one who has had solid training, lots of practice and he has had professional application; that is, he has seen the success of his work and it has received affirmation by adjudication, confession, polygraph, and so on.  This analyst knows what he is doing.

By this point, he has likely taken more than a few courses, and he has moved from well discerning deception from truth, on to content analysis.  He may have repeated some of these courses, knowing that absorption requires much repetition.

This is the professional, successful analyst.

He has dismissed his earlier training in which he was taught common error, such as,

“Truthful people give an abundance of detail” and “didn’t is stronger than did not“, and so on.  The latter, a ‘Reid Technique’ is statistically false, but the former continues to get press.

As to “truthful people give an abundance of detail“, please note:

A.  When a deceptive person is giving an abundance of detail, it is a signal of memory in play, but not  necessarily experiential memory of the event.  We have many examples of fraud in which the subject gives an abundance of detail of the non existing perpetrator; using a description of self, or someone close to him, to accomplish this.

B.  See Casey Anthony’s description of “Zanny the Nanny.”

These techniques often sell books, but the trained analyst knows these, and other early academy mandatory trainings do not work but serve, at best, to embarrass the new investigator.

A chess Expert is ranked above 2000 ELO and, for practical purposes, beats everyone he plays in casual games, wherever he goes.  It is only in tournament play where he meets his equal.

But what of the Expert who desires improvement to Master and Grandmaster status?

He may study all he wants but he will not improve until he plays against those better than himself.

In bicycle racing, one of the most common questions new riders ask is,

“How do I gain speed?”

The answer never changes:  “Go faster.”

The cyclist learns that there is no short cut and if he wishes to reach 25 mph, but can only ride at 20 mph, he must force himself to go 22 mph, even if he can only do this for a 10 minute period of time.  If he continues to exhaust himself in this way, followed by rest and nutrition, the 10 minutes at 22 mph will turn into 20 minutes, and so on.  He now must go with riders that sustain 22 mph and push himself towards 25mph.

To go faster, he must go faster.

The professional analyst does well to repeat courses until they are committed to memory, but in diagnosing the professional analyst’s strengths and challenges, if he is committed to going to the next level, he must analyze with professionals better than himself.  

This is accomplished through monthly, guided training, in which he is set up against other professionals who possess similar training but varied experiences in analysis.

Consider several points:

1.  The other analysts are just as nervous and insecure as you are.

2.  The other analyst (singular) has been exposed to something you have not.

3.  The other analysts benefit from one another, which leads to team work, cooperation and…

4.  Support

For example, in analyzing the phrase “I don’t remember” given in an open statement, one analyst may say, “I encountered this several times over the years, with each time the subject passing the polygraph, as he was not being deceptive.  He was thinking about this other event when…”

Human language is almost as vast as human nature, and it is a dual exposure:

A.  To professionals who have different backgrounds and applications with the same trainings as you have;

B.  To professionals who have different professional experiences and encounters with the same trainings as you have.

This is to say that the other analyst has encountered what you have not, as you have encountered what the other analyst has not.

If you use this formula, there will be increase, but better still is if you use this formula and have various experts from various fields present the breadth of understanding is deepened.

There is no substitute for “iron sharpening iron” and we offer an affordable, once per month live trainings that will greatly improve your skills.

When someone signs up for one of our two courses, Statement Analyst I and Statement Analyst II certifications, the requirement for minimum hours for certification is stated, but it is that it generally takes a single session to convince the analyst of the value of analyzing with other professionals.

They quickly learn how supportive each is, and how various backgrounds benefit, greatly, their own understanding of analysis.

The nationally ranked Expert must now plan his course of study to include tournaments where he regularly plays against higher ranked professionals.  He will lose many games, but as he reviews and learns, the 2000 ELO player finds that he is now ‘holding his own’ with the 2200 field.  At this level, when he loses, the victor often magnanimously conducts the ‘post mortum’ review of the game, and offers constructive advice for the Expert to improve, as the camaraderie and bonding of higher levels of success reveal.

For more information on how you can have your analysis diagnosed, so that you may move to a deeper understanding of the text, visit our Training Page to move well past “truth versus deception” into deeper content, psychological profiling, anonymous author identification and motive.

At the end of a single training, there is both exhaustion and exhilaration for the analyst.

He or she may need a month to recover.

My own work has grown through this interaction.  Most often, I enter the training ‘cold’, not even reading the statement before us.  This pushes me.

The trainings have exposed my weaknesses, allowing me to address them for improvement, as well as introducing me to new elements. The presence of business experts, security experts, psychological experts and professionals of strong IQs, has, each new session, given me deeper and more accurate understanding of the various elements and personalities of those who deceive, commit crimes and bring harm to society.

They experienced things that I have not and these ‘things’ were verbalized.