Chess: What it Really Takes
Just as I was preparing to reproduce the article in full linked here from chessVibes, under 'What do we think of chess skill?', as I was typing this, first trying to find the source link to the referenced article below, found another similar but distinctly seperate article that chessBase JUST published, so must reproduce only the summary from chessVibes here, so that I can instead follow up with more content from the second article [1]:
'What are the effects of amount of practice, coaching and age of starting chess on chess skill? And how do we chess players view such notions as skill and talent? Dr Robert Howard of the University of New South Wales in Australia carried out a survey and its preliminary results answer a few of these questions.
'On June 15 we invited you to take part in a survey on chess skill by Dr Robert Howard of the University of New South Wales in Australia. Howard’s study of chess skill looks at effects of amount of practice, coaching and age of starting chess on chess skill and at chess players’ views about chess skill. The study involves a short online survey and is for anyone who has, or who ever has had, a FIDE rating. (Participating is still possible; if you’re interested and you have an FIDE rating, please click here.)
Double Click Image to Enlarge
'We have now received the preliminary results:
'Preliminary Results of FIDE Chess Survey
'Thanks to everyone who took part in this survey. Here are the preliminary results. The sample consist of 581 players to date, with five grandmasters, 25 international masters, 67 FIDE masters, two woman’s grandmasters, two woman’s international masters, and two woman’s FIDE masters. The results are only preliminary, however.
Some highlights:
'Players learned the moves at a median age of eight years old (masters about two years younger). The median age of starting serious play and taking part in the first rated tournament is 14, 12 for masters. Most players have had coaching. Players average around five or six hours of chess study a week, but the range is huge (0 to 60 hours). Number of hours of study of chess material is a factor in expertise level but only a relatively minor one.
'Most players firmly believe in natural talent for chess and most believe that top ten players have some special traits, that few really can reach that level. However, many believe that a lot of study and practice can take a player a long way. Some believe that almost everyone can get to FIDE master with enough practice and study.
'Views on what natural talent for chess consists of vary, but some common ideas are good spatial ability, high IQ, good memory, creativity, high motivation, a strong will to win, control over emotions, and psychological hardiness.
Le-Mont St-Michel
'Eventual grandmasters take a median 390 FIDE-rated games from rating list entry to gain the title. Most players do not play anywhere near enough rated games in their careers to have a realistic chance of becoming a grandmaster. About two thirds of those who do play over 900games actually succeed in becoming a grandmaster. However, those who play over 740 games without becoming a grandmaster on average seem to strike an impassable barrier at around 2400 level.
'Analysis of rating data of players who played over 900 FIDE-rated games show that eventual top ten players indeed are identifiable from list entry. They get on the rating list much younger on average, get the grandmaster title much younger and much faster, and rise in theratings much faster than other grandmasters.
'Most believe that playing rated games and studying are equally important in developing skill.
'Read the full article here [highly recommended, dk].
'For any queries, please contact Dr Robert Howard, University of New South Wales.
'Not very surprising results, although I’d like to mention a few that struck me.1) “Number of hours of study of chess material is a factor in expertise level but only a relatively minor one.” This sort of confirms my impression that playing many (tournament) games is the best way to improve your chess. But not everybody agrees: “Most believe that playing rated games and studying are equally important in developing skill.”2) “Some believe that almost everyone can get to FIDE master with enough practice and study.” I was one of those, and I was speaking of a purely theoretical situation where you pick a random person in the street and put him in some kind of villa where he receives 8 hours of excellent training every day for a few years, and plays against many strong players. As long as this person likes chess, I think he(/she!) should be able to reach about 2200, 2300 FIDE'.
Were these riches not enough, chessBase just published a monster article every bit as good:
'Mind Games: Who is Doing the Playing? [link, title left, dk]
10.12.2008 – Discoveries on consciousness have inspired Norwegian philosopher Rune Vik-Hansen to forge a new view on development of chess skills. Challenging the current pedagogical climate, which claims that talent is insignificant and exposure to material a magic formula, he clarifies why blunders in chess are caused by a lack of interplay between consciousness and mind. Treatise with summary.
'Summary/Abstract
'Born out of recent findings from the field of consciousness and mind, the article explains that chess playing is based upon a fine interplay between a mind subconsciously triggering moves, and a well disciplined consciousness knowing what to keep and what to discard. The highly popular opinion that chess playing is done solely by a conscious self is challenged.
'Disputing the concept of “conscious memory”, it is shown that that one cannot remember material by acts of volition, and that development of chess skills cannot be explained by concepts revolving around consciousness.The article takes to task the current pedagogical claims that talent is of no significance and that exposure to chess material will bring the aspiring player equally far, and also the prevalent understanding that passion for, taking an interest in and believing in what you do are important components in improvement, chess or otherwise. On the contrary, the text demonstrates the significance of innate ability, and that passion and interest merely can direct our attention towards certain fields of study, but that acquiring skills involves different mental processes than these.Avoiding blunders being a major component in development of chess skills, they are here explained as caused by a flawed interplay between consciousness and mind, based upon the distinction between seeing and perceiving. A possible solution to the problem is suggested.
'A closer look is taken at the highly popular concept in chess lingua, “pattern recognition”. By pinpointing functional as well as conceptual problems, it is shown that the concept does not meaningfully lend itself to explain chess playing. Specific idiosyncrasies between patterns and structures are scrutinized to show that the conceptual problems run deeper than mere semantics. The fundamental difference is argued by looking at how these two relate to each other, and how they are expressed in chess discourse and chess literature. Since no formal definition of “pattern” in chess exists, it is impossible effectively to meaningfully communicate “pattern recognition” as a workable concept to explain the development of chess skills. To then explain chess playing and support the claim that the idea of “pattern recognition” is highly problematic, “exformation” is introduced as a new concept to chess discourse, thinking and communication.
'Upon closure, chess playing is compared with judgment in the field of morality, trying to explain that just as in morality, chess players constantly encounter and have to deal with situations (positions) never before encountered.Finally, it is offered why many present methods of study will not seriously improve or develop chess skills. In context of the undertaken analysis, Kotov’s method is suggested for chess improvement, and it is explained why it works.
Note: you can use the "Print" function on the left to get a printer-friendly version of this article'.
Hope you all enjoy! Warmest, dk
[1] I sent this to BDK and, to his great credit, already was aware of the article. Nice going!
posted by transformation at 8:12 PM
24 Comments:
It will take me an entire post to deal with this Heideggarian and his 'exformation.'
@chessyman: i appreciate your note, and i do not see any links to my post. you say you added it but your site indicates reciprocity first as a precondition. you say you added my link, but its very hard to find if its there.
now, what i am about to say is like when in the rarest case you dont get hired for the job or dont get the girl BUT the person making the choice takes thirty minutes to give you honest feedback. its a rare thing on earth, and should not be taken as an insult.
first, i really WANT to add you to my master list of blogs to be added here, but heck, i am a man who does a LOT and must wait. trust me, yes, its in writing, i have it all down.
i try to go to your blog, and i see a LOT of flash. it loads and loads and loads, and crashes my browser, and says something about adobe scripts. ok. i try again, same.
in the end, there must be motivation, must be reward. you know how many chess blogs are out there? you know, i have 483 high level GM games i look at, not counting the 5020 that the best of those can go in, many of which i already looked at.
then polgar, where i am leading a team of 7 persons in 7 countries to render 4158 chess positions in chessBase format, as a private non-commercial venture.
the ratio of noise to chess content at your blog is too high. too much noise.
you will attain your goal, but so far, i see a lot about who came by, who might come by, a lot of slick stuff, but in the end, we are chess players not social networkers. do not be insulted. this is rare feedback, few would bother to do.
but in the end, you have to reward people and, for now, focus on content more than distribution sternly suggested.
dk
@BDK: you are the man in this subject, thats for sure!
if you were to kindly let me know when you publish, i will be among the first to read it and serenaid your genius! thx for your visit, dk
*sigh* why weren't the links enough? i read the entire post thinking you were going to comment on the studies, but instead there is nothing. i'm not mad, just disappointed. too many chess blogs already copy everyone else...
and "chessyman" is a complete fraud who is ripping off ICC lectures and posting them as content he supposedly has partnered for.
chessyman is too transparent, needs a better schtick.
dear annon: i had to read your comment several times to get your real message, and now i do. i see your point.
the simple fact is, i am unemployed and cannot blog as a focus. all this is, is some distraction from serious pressure.
my situation is serious. job markets are the worst in 30+ year in the usa, thousands looking for one job.
so, much as i wish i could have given an opinion, it seemed to me that it was already well said, and my focus lays elsewhere, at this time.
my goal was to share the links and alert readers to its existence. i dare say, not all readers scour these sites, so i achieved my aim.
you can make me wrong for not making a direct comment (see the negative, point out what is absent) or appreciate that i made the effort (see positive, point out what is present).
in the end, 'you' continue to visit, and you continue to trol me, and if i am so bad, why waste your time here?
regards, dk
A Mandatory Fun Day comic? Thought that scourge was gone forever.
Re: age and chess. Almost all my skill was gained when I was quite young...by high school I'd reached around 1600 strength, but haven't changed since then. Of course, not playing much has an effect as well...
I was just playing around with the template when you visited...thats why you couldn't see it but it's there...anyway what do you mean by "the ratio of noise to chess content at your blog is too high. too much noise." I am sure you haven't gone through my posts.anyway sorry for disturbing.I only wanted to be a part of the circle but if that's annoys you & your friends then i can only say this ....Goog luck & c u around...
just an advice...awitch to firefox
chessyman, listen carefully. number one, i am honestly glad you came by, and are here. many of us here have known each other for years. hundreds of comments each person, some upset, some kind, some calous, some indifferent, some defending us.
it takes time.
in the corporate world, many small or even midsized companies tried to get big by engineering profit. others steadily grew WITH ORGANIC GROWTH. those who didnt, never lasted.
no one is attacking you. keep visiting around and making comments that are genuine and constructive, and it flows. some will come, breathless, as your best friend, only to disappear in three month, commenting at every single chess blog here and abouts.
others, quiet or not seeking attention grew and grew but whatever they said was organic.
as your name shows up in commments and as you create and generate chess content that is useful, they will come.
i appologize if you are offended. its not my goal. i have nothing to brag of, and just a man on earth.
i sincerely wish you well and if as you say you like this blog, hope you come back.
i have added you to my list and in time will know to come back and see how you progress but, again, growth is not through links but taking an interest in others and they being interested in you.
hope thats clear, regards, dk
"growth is not through links but taking an interest in others and they being interested in you".That was my motive but alas you all misunderstood...anyway i would be happy to come by after & share my views with you
your intentions are obviously very good, and i thank you.
nevertheless, i have been to your blog three times, and each time got stuck. really stuck. dont be insulted, our new friend! i have misunderstood nothing.
peace brother. did you know that my brother was in the same hotel in mumbai days before the attack? he is in enterprise systems outsourcing, and works for a big indian company in travel and finance.
got to run, busy in job markets. dk
oh i see...is he ok ?there were attacks on different hotels ..which hotel are you talking about?
anyway as i told you switch to firefox...there is nothing too flashy in my blog...only takes a bit time to load bcoz of game iframes..ok see you around
All this blog drama is a little grating, but whatever.
One problem I would have with the study is the same problem you have when studying either successful risk takers or mutual funds for that matter. It's the fact that you're only looking at the survivors. In other words did they look at an objective sample? I doubt the losers (in the clinical sense) would come forward to participate. I'm not a scientist so maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way but it's the first thing that came to mind. One other comment. I've read a couple of books in the past year on plasticity (so I'm a real authority), the most recent being The Brain That Changes Itself. One thing that is made clear in these books is the central importance of concentration in plasticity. You can perform an act over and over but if concentration is not involved to some degree then plasticity will not kick in. The greater the concentration the greater the strengthening of the neural connections. I know I'm not describing this right but hey I just got back from a bar and am up way to late so cut me some slack. Anyways this may sound self evident but it was not to me. The whole concept of the link between plasticity and concentration was pretty amazing. Plasticity itself is mind blowing. Anyways I'm thinking this is why playing games over anything else is so important. When are you ever concentrating so hard as when playing a game, when your ego, your manhood, your very identity is at stake. Obviously any form of practice where concentration either willed or derived would be effective but my guess is it's never as intense as when playing an actual game, with another human. After all when did Kasparov reach new heights, it was during his long drawn out battle with Karpov over the board. Another thing, up to a certain age, I can't recall as read the book months ago, your brain has some huge multiple of neural connections compared to when you're an adult and as you get older these shed off so this seems to make clear that you're never going to have the advantage you had in your youth, when you were an idiot and didn't know what you had under the hood. At least that was the case with me. I know I work a lot harder now and it's very frustrating because I just can't absorb stuff the way I could when I was a feckless youth. But what also is made clear is that throughout your life plasticity reigns. There's a great quote from Warren Buffet, your habits are to light to be noticed till they are to heavy to be broken. To me at least this captures it or I just think it's very cool quote.
DK I wish you the best in your job search. I wish I could offer some advise but I think in general attempting to edify others is tacky unless you're their doctor, priest, or sensei, none of which I'm close to being. All the best. :)
Anon: yes there is the problem of selection bias with their study, only compounded now that they use preliminary results to solicit more participation.
I also think the most reliable indicator of how fast you will improve is how old you are. Older people improve more slowly.
Oh, and how can you now like blog drama!
chessyman: read this post.
annon: thank you for your most constructive comment. as you might guess, its hard for me to comment, my not being a cognitive or mind-brain researcher.
i do appreciate what you say about the flaw of only measuring winners. in investment, as you rightly intimate, there are amazing track records of traders with long strings of wins. now, i am not one who believes that SUPER traders are just lucky only, and great skill in being able to parse out minimal signals is involved.
at the same time, one human potential thinker who also wrote a very good book on investment, called 'Why the Best Layed Investment Plans Usually Go Wrong', and in it he says, that if you have 50,000 traders, never mind skill, or in random distribution under a bell curve, there will always be some person who not only had nine great trades in a row, but among THEM somebody will make ten. Thus, somebody with skill had to have ten bad trades in a row.
its like poker. its not how you play em, but how you fold em, they say.
wang yue is not only a great Chinese Grandmaster of chess, but loses rarely. his current streak rivals those of Capablanca, and Tal, as noted recently at chessDom.com:
' Wang Yue's Unbeaten Streak
82 games and counting...
Chinese top player and current FIDE Grand Prix leader, Wang Yue, is only weeks away from breaking Mikhail Tal's record of the longest streak without a lost game. Since 4th March and the first round of Reykjavik Open against FM Bjorn Thorfinnsson (replay here), Wang Yue has remained unbeaten in the next 82 games!
'According to our reader Kaleid, this score is equal to Vladimir Kramnik's series of 82 games in the period January 1999 - July 2000. Mikhail Tal signed the top two records: 86 games in the period July 1972 - April 1973 and 93(!) games between October 1973 - October 1974. It should be added that the great Jose Raul Capablanca was immune from February 1916 until March 1924, but "only" over the course of 63 games.'
thank you again for your kind thoughts. these are extraordinarily tough times for me now, and i must reCreate myself. i have no choice. i cannot go back to the past.
warmly, dk
Most of follows should all be in quotes but I’m paraphrasing a lot. According to the book Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain, a one year old has twice as many neuronal connections as it's mother. A one year old has 100 billion or so neurons which connect to on average 2,500 other neurons, though the number can range from a few thousand to 100,000. For the next two or three years they go on a connectivity spree until they form an average of 15,000 synapses each at age two or three and that is as connected as the brain gets regardless of subsequent learning. After that the brain starts a pruning process losing about half the connections in early childhood. By one estimate, some 20 billion synapses are pruned everyday from childhood to early adolescence (12 to 14 in boys). Taking 1,000 as a conservative mean for the number of connections each neuron makes, then the adult brain has settled back to an estimated 100 trillion synapses less than half as many as at it's synaptic peak.
From the book The Brain That Changes Itself "Finally, Merzenich discovered that paying close attention is essential to long term plastic change...In numerous experiments he found that lasting changes occurred only when his monkeys paid close attention. When the animals performed tasks automatically without paying attention, they changed their mind maps, but the changes did not last...divided attention doesn't lead to abiding change in your brain maps." Both books make a strong case that attention is indispensable for neuroplasticity. Attention takes a physical form capable of affecting the physical activity of the brain. Attention pumps neuronal activity. One of the books cites numerous recent experiments done on Buddhist monks for whom attentional training, through meditation, is central.
This is just scratching the surface of these two very interesting books. One other morsel from Train Your Mind Change Your Brain "Running, voluntarily, increases neurogensis and increases learning, even in very, very old animals. If you put them in a learning test, they're smarter."
Agreed that there are great investors and possibly traders whose results are not entirely due to luck (I've read such dangerous books as Market Wizards.) I was thinking more along the lines of some of the inane articles you see on MSN that advise that if you want to get rich you must take more risks! Why? Because we interviewed ten entrepreneurs and they all took risks! Well they didn't interview all those who took risks and ended up bankrupt (a lot of those lately.)
By the same token perhaps there are chess players who played 900 games and didn't end up GMs. Maybe becoming a GM is due to something far less obvious. For example, I believe in order to become a GM you have to learn how to manage stress. For a couple reasons, one for sanities sake and the other perhaps less obvious even to professional players is that stress can hinder plasticity and thus improvement. That said I'm certain all those factors cited in the study weigh heavily in becoming a GM as does motivation and age perhaps age more than anything else. Thinking about it further, if I had to pick two things I would pick intellectual aggressiveness and motivation (besides age which seems like an obvious critical factor with respect to becoming a GM, and obviously a ton of study). I’m recalling a video (1) (I really have no original thoughts) I watched recently of a person with an ultra high IQ and she posited that these were the two most critical factors to high-level intellectual functioning. By intellectual aggressiveness she meant understanding. Playing chess requires and engages high level intellectual functioning, although I wouldn’t go so far as to say the highest but it does seem to take up a lot of brain space. (2)
(1) The video can be found here: http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=marilyn+vos+savant&hl=en&emb=0&aq=f#. I promise, you won’t get Ric Rolled.
(2) http://www.ninds.nih.gov/news_and_events/press_releases/pressrelease_chess.htm. This is only the abstract. I could not access the actual study. There was another study titled “Do Chess and Go need ‘g’? This sounds like a very interesting study but again I couldn’t access it. G meaning general intelligence factor, generally associated with IQ. But this may be what it was driving at http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/PTO-20030522-000001.html, i.e. success at chess is more dependent on spatial processing abilities than logic and computation.
dear annon, it took me some time, but i have had proper opportunity to reread your wonderful email, and to view the three links.
marilyn mach, what a creature! i have heard of most of these sort of persons but had never heard of her. thank you.
the market wizards is a great book, and i have read the first and second ones. what is writen there is true and doable, but not many can. you might know that george soros before he was really famous, The Alchemy of Finance of a real time trading experiment.
only after 18 years of trading can i approach this book, it really is a book many can read, but to understand such abstractions as the dollar, or oil, or equities or interest rates (intermarket analysis compares specifically these four).
i cannot comment much on what you expound directly, as i have no such knowledge. but i have lived a long time time already and know less and less what to do, but a lot more about what NOT to do.
young chess player prodigies really can calculate like a GM in some instances, but the wily older players do have so much more experience.
then the matter of not just 'power', or 'accessment', but as you aply suggest, 'confidence or aggression'.
somehow it all comes together, and the best ones not only take in a lot of data and proces it at a very high level, but remember most if not all that they have learned.
i am fifty, and now there is truly so much i prefer to forget but the things i remember are vivid. its like a gigantic iceburg, with most of it hidden, just to take a nap before dinner.
warmest, dk
DK,
Anno from above. Basically what these books seem to state, unless I'm misinterpreting them is that all else being equal if you start at chess at a very young and persist to become a GM you're going to have a permanent neuronal advantage over your chess peers. "The synapses that endure are those that carry traffic." So a GM that started at a young age doesn't simply know more, i.e. patterns, openings, endings, etc, and not only have they thickened their neuronal structures through all this mental pumping iron but they've had a greater frame to start with. A frame that otherwise would have melted away.
Of course Brue Pandolfini says if you can see three moves ahead, your move, your opponents move, and your next move you can be a 1600-1800 rated player, "no problem". It's the "The Rule of Three" as he calls it, "requiring only the ability to focus and think and consider the consequences of ones actions. It's nothing profound. It's not what people think." His words, not mine. You’re in a much, much better to position to judge than me but this seems like a pretty achievable bar.
I don't have a traders mind set. I suspect you do particularly given your propensity for speed chess which I would have to imagine has only further hypertrophied your speed of thought or mental reflexes. Trading requires tremendous emotional discipline, a discipline I do not possess, at this time. However I do possess an interest for investing. In the last quarter I read The Snowball, The Four Pillars of Investing (good one), John Bogle's The Little Book of Commonsense Investing (another good one), and right now I'm into a really interesting one, Investing the Last Liberal Art by Roger Hagstrom which expounds on Charlie Munger's theory of mental models, which may be the only book that comes close to describing how Warren Buffett thinks, albeit indirectly. Munger says Buffett thinks in probabilistically weighted decision trees, computes combinations, all naturally. Most people he says have to learn to think like this, and if they don't then getting by in life is like “being a one legged man in an ass kicking contest.” He says you need to have about a 100 of these mental models.
BTW apparently Marilyn Mach vos Savant’s son was an international master (IM) in chess, however I think he later quit to pursue a degree in medicine.
Also all this writing about chess led me to spending five hours this weekend playing, most on one game, and 25 minutes this evening staring at the board position from where I left off. And now I’m up far to late and must get to bed. Best.
Re the two articles;
Dr Robert Howard's work is essentially asking the opinion of a vast array of players and translating this into a map of the prerequisites for chess improvement. The only problem I have with this is the real learning phase for these players happened along time ago and hence they might not actually remember what they did. I tend to fall into the acquired skill camp more than the natural talent camp on these discussions and would generally cite the Polgar sisters as a test case for the effort over natural talent debate.
The chessbase article didn't really light my fire in light of the above stance.
My opinion is that chess like chemistry, is learned by repeated testing and over learning. Just as planning a synthetic route takes weeks and months of thinking and using building blocks to make new patterns so does chess.
I remember reading about football players in the UK and the amount of practice they had undertaken. The best players tended to be those who spent the most time at their chosen art.
dear will:
very, very nice to see you will.
fyi, i tend to be very 'on-top' off comments, but A, goggle is eratic therein (and never got the comment for moderation), and B, have been more than fully occupied in an assiduous job search, as a senior person, in a job market undersupplied by job opportunities.
thank you for stopping by.
warmest, dk
ps, i cannot comment here accept to thank you and let all my friends visited so far that A.
i plan to make my 200th post in the next few weeks, after 4,000 visitors in 2.5 years,
but have been delayed since RT Solo very kindly sent me some information i need to B, post first, so its delay, delay, delay, but if i had the time and energy, would! that is post 199.
the 200th post must be 'THE BIG CHESSBASE article' i have been talking about for long, so cannot be slap dash at all, but job search takes all my real amps, watts, ergs, joules... chakras, whatever.
love to all of you, dk
Would advise checking spelling in your on-line resume, "throught"? as well as punctuation. Should be "a, b and c", as opposed to "a, b, and c." Some simple things like that can get you sifted right out given volume. Just finished my own resume. Could not post anonymously so using this conduit to send message. Good luck.
thanks. i have a polished version, of course, and had that up there as a proxy, much more focus on word version and now, today, more professional uploaded videos.
i changed the resume today, and brush up the format in the days ahead.
its tough out there. thank you, david korn.
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