Inside the Grandmasters' Brains 12
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)."
I'm always looking for a new idea that will be more productive than its cost. -- David Rockefeller
Plus... (Score:3, Funny)
using heuristics (Score:1)
no news - see de groot (Score:1)
Re:no news - see de groot and Ericcson & Simon (Score:1)
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% (Score:1)
Re:Top 10% -- It was Homer (Score:1)
Is it that people run on 10% utilization, or 100% utilization 10% of the time?
Pattern matching (Score:2, Interesting)
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 (Score:4, Informative)
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.