Inside the Grandmasters' Brains

dunkerz writes: "The BBC News site has an article on how the great chess players play so well: they use a different part of their brain (or so German scientists say)."

Plus...

[SpanishInquisition]

They're all drunk on low quality vodka when they play.

using heuristics

[mordorian]

So basicly what they have proven (or strongly suspect) is that the human brain can adapt to useing specialized heuristics much like the chess programs that they play against(alpha-beta, min-max).

no news - see de groot

[ehack]

http://www.ex.ac.uk/sheu/DR/psych.html this is 50 year old tachistoscopic research. Woeld champions are also much better than GMs . tests done by de groot on Euwe and, i think botvinnik ...

Re:no news - see de groot and Ericcson & Simon

[4n0nym0u53 C0w4rd]

In addition to de Groot's work, Ericcson & Simon's "The Mind's Eye In Chess" provided an even more complete picture of the phenomenon, and described the processes that differ in players of differing abilities. Essentially, experts can chunk the board into meaningful units, while less capable players cannot. (It's kind of like in The Matrix where everyone can see what's going on, even though it looks like a bunch of green characters flying by.) Experts don't "see" farther ahead than less expert players, they are able to explore better options.

One interesting finding that Ericcson & Simon found is that if a chess board is arranged in a pattern that could arise during a game, experts were much better than novices at remembering the layout. However, if the same pieces were randomly placed on the board, novices actually performed better!

The really sad thing is that these cognitive photographers don't even cite the relevant literature (e.g., deGroot and Ericcson & Simon), and that they think they've discovered something new. If you read the Nature article, it is apparent that they have a cool tool, and they are studying problems they don't understand. Seriously, reinventing the wheel isn't that impressive.

Top 10%

[corporate zombie]

Scientists say people use only 10% of their brains. Now I'm using that much too. --Bart Simpson

Re:Top 10% -- It was Homer

[jlttb]

When he had the crayon removed from his brain. "Most people use 10% of their brains. Now I'm one of them!"
Is it that people run on 10% utilization, or 100% utilization 10% of the time?

Pattern matching

[fava]

Its been known for many years (how many I don't know) that the best chess players rely on pattern matching rather than analysis to decide which move to make.

This is why a grandmaster can play dozens of people simultanously and win most of the matches, spending only a few seconds at each board before moving on to the board. In essence they are treating each turn on each board as a seperate puzzle, without considering what came before it.

What is interesting is that computers play chess much like amateurs do, by analysing each move and trying to think ahead. However computers are much faster than your average chess player and therefore can suceed at a higher level that a person can.

Re:Pattern matching

[ZahrGnosis]

I got to play Kasparov about 10 years ago, during a visit he made to the states. It's amazing to watch these top players run around to 50 different opponents at a time, immediately move, and win every match. If it wasn't clear from his speed, it was clear from talking to him that he did almost no analysis at each board; rather he "recognized" the position, or recognize how similar it was to positions he'd been in many times before, and remembered his strategy for that position.

At the same time, tho, one of the other things I remember from hearing him talk was that he routinely looks 8 or 9 moves ahead in a game if it does require analysis. I'm sure it's a combination of both skills (pattern matching and analysis) that makes the best the best.