undefined | Better HN

0 pointsRadim12y ago0 comments

Occult drivel. Where on earth did you read that about Magnus Carlsen?

To say good chess players (not to say grandmasters, let alone world champions) don't calculate moves borders on insulting.

0 comments

6 comments · 2 top-level

jlgreco12y ago· 2 in thread

Obviously their actions are calculated, unless you pull in some notion of a non-materialist brain (some sort of strange "dualism" for which there is no evidence), everything they do is calculated in the strict sense. Saying that is missing the point of what is being said though. He is saying that Carlsen does not perform some of these calculations at the same "level of consciousness".

For instance, I know that if I have two apples, and give one away, I now have one apple. I also know that the prime factors of 87 are 3 and 29. One of those I "calculated" in my head, the other I know intuitively. Of course for both my brain performed calculations, but thinking of it like that is rather missing the point.

_delirium12y ago

That part happens atop a huge logical base, though, a creative supplement that distinguishes the fine shades of world-class expertise among those with huge amounts of knowledge and analytic ability. Carlsen, like everyone who is competitive on a high level in chess, has spent a large amount of time accumulating vast stores of factual knowledge and analytical skills. He knows the opening books, he knows the end-game solutions, he knows basically all the heuristics that have been developed. On top of that, he makes some brilliant creative plays, but not in place of it. Someone who did not have a high-level grounding in rigorous chess theory as their basis would never make it anywhere in modern chess, no matter how intuitively brilliant.

jlgreco12y ago

I think you can say that, to various extents, for all forms of "intuition". The only reason I can intuitively bang through basic arithmetic is because I spent plenty of time as a child studying it, and doing it over and over again until the skill started to "become a part of me". Large amounts of practical experience or rigorous formal education both fill more or less the same role in creating a basis on which intuition about something can emerge.

Anyway, I don't think that we disagree on the actual point here, that claiming that somebody has "intuition" isn't somehow attributing their proficiency to the occult.

redmaverick12y ago· 2 in thread

According to Kasparov, Carlsen has a knack for sensing the potential energy in each move, even if its ultimate effect is too far away for anyone — even a computer — to calculate. In the grand-master commentary room, where chess’s clerisy gather to analyze play, the experts did not even consider several of Carlsen’s moves during his game with Kramnik until they saw them and realized they were perfect. “It’s hard to explain,” Carlsen says. “Sometimes a move just feels right.”

RadimOP12y ago

Now, that concept I'm familiar with. In fact, I think that's a rather common feeling, not even exclusive to chess or pros.

Intuition (whatever that is) plays a great role, especially at the top level.

Double_Cast12y ago

"Noobs use approximately 95% calculation and 5% intuition, whereas a grand master has a ratio closer to 40% calculation and 60% intuition."

I vaguely paraphrased this from a paperback chess guide of mine (hopefully more credible than the internet). According to my guide, grand masters can effortlessly memorize the positions of realistic matches. But for "nonsensical chess matches" where the positions were randomly generated, the masters were just as bad at recall as the noobs. From this data, my guide inferred that masters rely on recalling attack-patterns from their experience more than brute-force calculation. Similar to how a tourney-strength player has openings memorized by heart, I imagine that a master recognizes common middle-game patterns like the back of his hand.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse