Most people believe chess skill is associated with intelligence. The game instils focus, discipline, etc., and children who play chess also seem to improve academic performance. There are definite connections between chess ability and talent in music, maths and the “exact sciences”, computer science, architecture, financial trading, etc.
There are downsides. Chess emphasises seeking concrete solutions. In real life problems, where those aren’t available, thinking in chess matrices may be sub-optimal. Also the game is asocial and individualistic in nature. Practitioners find it difficult to cooperate. One glaring example of chess fostering a lack of cooperation is Fide itself.
Recently two world champions gave lectures highlighting connections between chess and general intelligence. Garry Kasparov spoke at the Alan Turing Centenary Conference at the University of Manchester. Turing was a keen chessplayer and a maths genius. He made a huge contribution to winning World War II with his code-breaking skills. But unforgivably for the times, he was openly homosexual and he was more or less hounded to death for it.
One of Turing’s experiments was a “paper chess computer”. He wrote some simple algorithms to play chess. The amazing thing is, he did this before computers existed. The engine works. Chessbase cleaned up the rules and compiled them to create an engine which Kasparov beat (in 16 moves) in a demo game. As the former world champion said — the Turing engine was primitive in the same way that early cars were primitive.
The other lecture was by Anand, on “Analysis to anticipate the future and make the best decisions" at an Accenture conference in Madrid. It’s a 45-minute explanation of how memory and pattern recognition works with some fascinating details about chess preparation and meta-analysis.
The Diagram (McShane Vs Carlsen, Tal Memorial 2012) , WHITE TO PLAY, is an interesting example of two players applying the same algorithm — only black did it better.
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Normal would be 21.Qe2, Rad1, etc. and it’s about equal. White saw weaknesses on the black Kingside. Black saw weaknesses on the white Q-side and in the centre. Both played optimistically.
Play went 21.Qe1?! a5 ! McShane looked at 21.--Qxd3? 22 Rad1 Qb5 23. Ng5 with an attack. But black's reply emphasises weaknesses on the q-side. Play continued. 22.Rd1 a4 23.bxa4 Rxa4 24.a3 Rf8 25.Bc1 Ra8! 26.Qg3 Bb3! Black's better and 27. Rd2 Bh6 is not pleasant.
White bashed on regardless with 27.Rde1 Qxd3 28.Ng4 Be6 29.Nh6+ Kh8 30.Qh4 Bf6 31.Bg5 Bxg5 32.Qxg5 Kg7 33.Qc1 Rf4? The only black inaccuracy – white could now complicate a little with 34. Ng5 but he missed out, playing 34.Rd1 Qc4 35.Rfe1 Raf8 36.Ng5 Bc8 37.g3 Rf2 38.Nf5+ gxf5 39.Nh3 Re2 40.Qg5+ Kh8 (0–1).
Devangshu Datta is an internationally rated chess and correspondence chess player
