bithead@ihlpf.UUCP (P. Stein) (01/06/86)
>[ How does one improve at chess ] > >I have been told that postal chess will help. People I know who >have played in postal tournements say they find that their >over-the-board rating goes up quite a bit after a postal >tournement. > >In article <840@spp2.UUCP> kovalsky@spp2.UUCP (Bruce Kovalsky) writes: >> >> Becoming a chess master is no easy task, even if you spend hours >> and hours studying the game. I believe that you must have quite >> a bit of innate ability in order to reach a Master's rating, >> something which not many people have. > >This could be an intersting topic for discussion here: How good should >one be able to get at chess without any innate chess skill? > >Opinions I have heard range from "Any reasonably intellegent person can >reach World Championship level if he/she tries hard enough" to "you should >be able to reach expert, but to get past that you have to be special" > >Reply to the net. >-- >Tim Smith Bobby Fisher once claimed that he could turn anyone with an above average IQ into an IM. To my recollection nobody ever disputed this claim. I think the phrase "innate chess skill" is a grievous misnomer. People are not born with skills, with predispositions perhaps, but not with skills. The one common denominator among masters is motivation. Of course some masters have made tremendous achievments due to their predisposition for the game. Boris Spassky, who many times has been described as a great "natural player" comes to mind. Generally though, I think the difference between masters and non-masters is motivation. Masters are more willing to make the sacrifices necessary to achieve chess excellence. No I don't mean rook or bishop sacs, but sacrifices in your personal life to further chess skill. While the non-master is bar-hopping the master is probably studying the latest innovation in the Sicilian Dragon. Postal chess at reasonable limits is highly recomended. I found it extremely useful in testing new opening variations. I can't attribute much of my playing strength to postal though, since the constraints of over-the-board were absent. Pete Stein -- He's a master, she's a master, wouldn't you like to be a master too? --
bill@milford.UUCP (bill) (01/07/86)
> the phrase "innate chess skill" is a grievous misnomer. People are not > born with skills, with predispositions perhaps, but not with skills. I vaguely remember some psychological studies which indicated some unlearned traits which good masters possess but are relatively lacking in the rest of us. The term I remember is "eidetic memory" and the test was how well the subjects could reconstruct chess positions after examining it for a short time. It's seemingly obvious that this should correlate with the ability to mentally calculate variations and imagine possible 'successors' to a given position. How could someone 'learn' this except through repetition by playing again and again? > The one common denominator among masters is motivation. The classical counter example given is that of T. Petrosian, although some other early grandmasters like Schlechter might also be termed 'unmotivated'. True, these would have to be considered very wierd birds.
trb@haddock.UUCP (01/08/86)
/* Written 11:06 am Jan 7, 1986 by bill@milford in haddock:net.games.ches */ > I vaguely remember some psychological studies which indicated some > unlearned traits which good masters possess but are relatively lacking > in the rest of us. The term I remember is "eidetic memory" and the test > was how well the subjects could reconstruct chess positions after > examining it for a short time. It's seemingly obvious that this should > correlate with the ability to mentally calculate variations and imagine > possible 'successors' to a given position. How could someone 'learn' > this except through repetition by playing again and again? This seems misguided. If the test positions were sensible chess positions, then a master would see them the way you would see sentences. Remembering a sentence, or a sensible position, is much easier than remembering a jumbled string of letters or a nonsense position. Dancers develop an ability to store dance combinations quickly; I'm sure that other students develop similar powers of recognition. A chess master is more facile at recognizing sensible patterns in chess positions than the average player or non-player is, but I don't suspect it is due to natural ability. Reminds me of a story of a chess master who went to a small town to play a blindfolded simultaneous exhibition with ten local players. He didn't expect any problem with the exhibition, as he didn't recognize any of the players. Well, five of the players opened P-KN3, B-N2, N-KB3, and five opened N-KB3, N-N1, P-KB3. The master soon knew he was in trouble, as he was going to have an impossible time distinguishing one position from the other. He went to the bathroom and escaped out the window. Andrew Tannenbaum Interactive Boston, MA 617-247-1155
wendyt@isieng.UUCP (Wendy Thrash) (01/10/86)
>> <bill@milford> writes: >> I vaguely remember some psychological studies which indicated some >> unlearned traits which good masters possess but are relatively lacking >> in the rest of us. The term I remember is "eidetic memory" and the test >> was how well the subjects could reconstruct chess positions after >> examining it for a short time.... > Andrew Tannenbaum replies: > This seems misguided. If the test positions were sensible chess > positions, then a master would see them the way you would see > sentences.... Andrew is quite correct, but the studies were well-done. On positions arising from actual (or, at least, possible) games, masters were far superior. Random arrangements were also tested -- masters were no better than woodpushers. This is often used as an illustration of chunking in psychology texts, as the masters simply noted who had castled where, which files and diagonals were controlled by what, and so on.
thorinn@diku.UUCP (Lars Henrik Mathiesen) (01/10/86)
In article <117@milford.UUCP> bill@milford.UUCP (bill) writes: >> the phrase "innate chess skill" is a grievous misnomer. People are not >> born with skills, with predispositions perhaps, but not with skills. >[...] unlearned traits which good masters possess but are relatively >lacking in the rest of us. The term I remember is "eidetic memory" and the >test was how well the subjects could reconstruct chess positions after >examining it for a short time. Other studies have indicated that chess masters do not have to remember each single piece on the board, but rather a smaller number of "common groupings." When tested on random (i.e. non-game) positions, their advantage was much smaller. -- Lars Mathiesen, DIKU, Copenhagen, Denmark mcvax!diku!thorinn
bl@hplabsb.UUCP (01/11/86)
> > /* Written 11:06 am Jan 7, 1986 by bill@milford in haddock:net.games.ches */ > > > I vaguely remember some psychological studies which indicated some > > unlearned traits which good masters possess but are relatively lacking > > in the rest of us. The term I remember is "eidetic memory" and the test > > was how well the subjects could reconstruct chess positions after > > examining it for a short time. It's seemingly obvious that this should > > correlate with the ability to mentally calculate variations and imagine > > possible 'successors' to a given position. How could someone 'learn' > > this except through repetition by playing again and again? > > This seems misguided. If the test positions were sensible chess > positions, then a master would see them the way you would see > sentences. Remembering a sentence, or a sensible position, is much > easier than remembering a jumbled string of letters or a nonsense > position. Dancers develop an ability to store dance combinations > quickly; I'm sure that other students develop similar powers of > recognition. > > A chess master is more facile at recognizing sensible patterns in > chess positions than the average player or non-player is, but I don't > suspect it is due to natural ability. Correct. The experiments were done with three subjects, an amateur, a medium strength player, and a master. They were asked to reconstruct positions taken from grand master level games after viewing them for a short period of time (seconds). The amateur could get about seven pieces correctly placed, the medium strength played would do a bit better. The master player could reconstruct the positions almost perfectly. The experiment was also tried with randomly placed pieces. The master player did worse than the other two subjects! The theory is that the human short term memory can hold about seven "chunks" of information. As to what the "chunk" of information is depends on the subject. For the amateur, it is a piece placements. For the master, it is piece relationships and patterns. For some of the positions, the master could not only reconstruct the position but could also recite the tournament from where the game came, who the players were, and what the next move was! In one position where Hans Berliner was the master subject, he reconstructed the position perfectly except that he placed a rook on the same column of a piece that it was attacking instead of the same row. He remembered that the rook was attacking the piece but forgot from where. Learning chess has been compared to learning a language. The longer you work at it and the younger you start, the larger your vocabulary (chess patterns) will be. The number of patterns that a chess master knows has been compared to the vocabulary size of a college graduate. When a master looks at a position, he is able to instantly "understand" the position and knows what the important issues are.
rl@ucsfcgl.UUCP (Robert Langridge%CGL) (01/11/86)
In article <192@isieng.UUCP> wendyt@isieng.UUCP (Wendy Thrash) writes: >>> <bill@milford> writes: >>> ...some psychological studies which indicated some >>> unlearned traits which good masters possess but are relatively lacking >>> in the rest of us... > >> Andrew Tannenbaum replies: >> This seems misguided. If the test positions were sensible chess >> positions, then a master would see them the way you would see >> sentences.... > >Andrew is quite correct, but the studies were well-done. On positions arising >from actual (or, at least, possible) games, masters were far superior. Random >arrangements were also tested -- masters were no better than woodpushers. Does anyone have pointers to the original reports? Bob Langridge rl@ucsfcgl (ARPA, UUCP, BITNET) Computer Graphics Laboratory University of California +1 415 476 2630 San Francisco CA 94143 +1 415 476 1540
hen@bu-cs.UUCP (Bill Henneman) (01/15/86)
Langridge asks for pointers to the original reports on studies of chess master's position parsing. The book "Thought and Choice in Chess" by DeGroot is a very readable introduction (my copy is out on loan, so I can't find the publisher). It was still in print in 1980 (last time I saw it on the bookstore shelves).
robie@msudoc.UUCP (Jonathan Robie) (01/25/86)
The DeGroot book is a classic. Further important work was done by Simon and Chase. The paper _Perception in Chess_, published in 1973 by Chase and Simon, is a true classic. I think the journal was Cognitive Psychology, but I'm not sure. The basic contention is that through practice chess players develop models which describe the various patterns that occur in chess. These models are used to allow rapid perception of the board. Chase and Simon felt that practice was the important factor, rather than innate talent. I have not seen evidence that chessmasters tend to have eidetic imagery. There are certainly some chessmasters who do not.
seltzer@learn.DEC (DECWORLD/MGMT MEMO/EMPLOYEE COMMUNICATIONS) (01/27/86)
I've been particularly interested in the subject of how one becomes a chess master because my ten-year-old son, who has only been playing in tournaments for a little over a year, now has a rating in the upper 1800s has set himself a goal of reaching master before the age of 12 (and, if at all possible, before the age of 11). Although I very much enjoy the game of chess, I'm not much of a player myself. I only started playing in tournaments when he did and have a rating of only about 1350. I've read the books that he's read. I've sat in on the chess lessons he's had (with Murray Turnbull in Cambridge, Mass.) But his rating has climbed 500 points in a year, while mine dropped about 100 points. So what it takes to improve and keep improving is somewhat of a mystery to me. Instinctively, I've felt that experience is an important factor, so I've given in to his constant urging and somehow scraped together the money to take him to tournament after tournament. So he has played in nearly 160 rated tournament games in 15 months. And maybe another 40 unrated tournament games. I sensed that young kids have an advantage in terms of the speed with which they can learn and also time-wise and energy there are not so many conflicting commitments and responsibilities. What seemed most lacking was experience. So if that's what he wants, that's what I'll give him. But I wish I had some clearer sense of direction. I'd like to provide him with some advice and guidance. But never having played at the level at which he now plays, I'm at a loss to tell him what he should do to reach a higher level. Especially since my own efforts to improve my own mediocre play have proven fruitless. In addition to play, play, play, what advice do you folks out in netland have for an aspiring ten-year-old? Richard Seltzer decvax!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-learn!seltzer
ron@ada-uts.UUCP (02/01/86)
Having seen your son play in lots of tournaments over the last year or so, I say don't worry very much. He's going to be fine. The only thing that I would suggest is that you continue to ensure that he gets adequate guidance from a strong player (at least 2300, such as Murray) that is also very into teaching. (Not a cut at Murray; I have no idea whether he's a good teacher or not.) I do know that John Curdo is good, and Jim Rizzitano has apparently done wonders with Ilya Guerevich (sp?). Good luck.