It has been interesting to see the world embrace Netflix's The Queen's Gambit with enthusiasm. As alluded to in the title, it champions a female lead and makes chess more approachable to a broader audience. Unlike many other movies or shows about sports or games, Netflix bothered to get the details right by consulting experts like famed American chess teacher Bruce Pandolfini and former world champion Garry Kasparov. This helped the series also gain wide approval in the chess community. There are thousands of articles about the Queen's Gambit so I wanted to focus on chess in the real world and what makes it interesting for me.
Chess memory
There are many stories of chess Grandmasters1 (abbreviated GM) walking by a chess board and announcing mate in 6. Strong players are also able to play blindfolded chess, sometimes simultaneously. If that wasn't impressive enough, they can also recall positions from games that were played decades ago by other players with perfect precision. How is it that these players are able to achieve super-human performance?
Studies have shown that GMs have no more working memory than regular folks but have excellent memory for chess positions2. This is due to the chunking effect where configurations of chess pieces are learned and stored in long-term memory. So instead of memorizing the location of individual pieces, they remember chunks like openings, pawn structures, or checkmating attacks. Even as a mediocre player, I started recognizing checkmating patterns like the smothered mate3. Better players will have far larger chunks and a bigger database of chunks to draw from.
The SCC
Chess.com - one of the major online chess sites - has taken full advantage of the chess boom to host the 2020 edition of Speed Chess Championship4 (SCC). SCC consists of 90 minutes of 5/1 blitz (i.e. players start with 5 minutes on their clock and gain 1 second per move. This is called a time control), 60 minutes of 3/1 blitz, and 30 minutes of 1/1 bullet chess. It attracts some of the best players in the world including GM Magnus Carlsen (reigning world, world rapid, and world blitz chess champion) and GM Hikaru Nakamura (highest ranking blitz player and a popular Twitch streamer). The games are played in rapid succession with breaks between the three time controls.
For the broadcast, there are commentators (who are often GMs themselves or IMs5) that add colour and explain tactical sequences that may elude viewers. They give their thoughts on the players’ moves and keep the audience engaged. There is money on the line too - SCC has a total prize fund of a cool quarter million dollars. Other events like the Champions Chess Tour has a total prize pool of $1.5M. Despite being one of the oldest games in the world, chess has reinvented itself as an esport.
What's happening behind the scenes?
Needless to say, playing chess with such short time controls requires a tremendous amount of concentration. Blunders or mouse slips can turn the tide of the game instantly and give a player momentum to launch comebacks. Given that every game of chess is independent of each other, these momentum shifts highlight the importance of psychology in player performance. Players with strong psychological resiliency bounce back easily from mistakes while others spiral out of control.
Another interesting aspect of the SCC is the players' opening choices throughout the match. With modern chess engines, top players may analyze and memorize up to 20+ moves in a single theoretical opening variation. As your opponent will have to figure out complex positions on the fly, this will help tremendously on the clock. To combat this, some players will play offbeat moves to get the other player off their book6 or prep.
Between games, the players are also thinking of how to refute the other player’s opening. They think about where they might have gone wrong and how they can pose a problem to their opponent. I believe this is similar to a driver analyzing their driving while on track. Novice chess players will spend much of their time trying not to make tactical blunders (and blundering anyway) while the expert player is able to spare some mental resources to look at pawn structure, positional weaknesses, or preparing a plan of attack for the next game.
What makes things enjoyable?
Back in university, I played a lot of FIFA with my friends. After a while, I noticed that I enjoyed watching actual soccer matches more because I’m able to analyze the positions of players on the pitch and appreciated an amazing set piece goal or agonize over a missed opportunity for a through pass. With a better tactical eye and positional understanding, I was watching the exact same game but got more out of it.
In his book So Good They Can't Ignore You7, Cal Newport argues that the oft-touted advice of ‘finding your passion then getting a job in that field’ has it backwards. Once you build rare and valuable skills, you will find it enjoyable and develop a passion for it. I think that applies other activities and hobbies that don’t necessarily make you any money8 as well. Deliberate practice - the process needed to acquire rare and valuable skills - is hard. But the delayed gratification you'll experience pays off with added interest. Whatever your hobby is, if you're going to do it anyway, you might as well get good at it. You will enjoy it more.
1GM – Grandmaster – highest title awarded to chess players based on Elo rating and tournament performance
2Lane, D.M., Chang, YH.A. Chess knowledge predicts chess memory even after controlling for chess experience: Evidence for the role of high-level processes. Mem Cogn 46, 337–348 (2018). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-017-0768-2, accessed November 25, 2020
3Smothered mate, (n.d.), Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smothered_mate, accessed November 24, 2020
4IM – International Master, title just below Grandmaster
52020 Speed Chess Championship, Nov 19, 2020, Chess.com, https://www.chess.com/article/view/2020-speed-chess-championship, accessed November 22, 2020
6Book move – a move that is considered standard or conventional, that is established opening theory
7Newport, C. (2012). So good they can't ignore you: why skills trump passion in the quest for work you love. New York, NY: Business Plus.
8Other people can make money if they are sufficiently skilled – but the enjoyment can come before that