🚀 go-pugleaf

> 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.

/* 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

>> <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.

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

> 
> /* 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.

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 

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).

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.