[Neurons] 2024 Neurons #52 STRATEGIC THINING AND CHESS

Sun Nov 24 10:12:07 EST 2024

From: L. Michael Hall

2024 Neurons #52

November 25, 2024

A Deep Dive Into Expertise #7

STRATEGIC THINKING AND CHESS

If you want to make a deep dive into expertise, you need to learn to think
strategically.  When you learn this kind of thinking, you learn to think in
terms of the future and you do so from today's perspective.  Strategic
thinking is a Now-Then thinking that answers several questions: What do you
want?  Where are you today?  What do you have to do to achieve your future
vision? Having recently completed my next thinking book, Strategic Thinking,
I realized that we could actually use the game of chess as a tool for
developing this kind of thinking.

Now if there's any game that without question facilitates strategic
thinking, it is chess.  And not only strategic thinking, but also tactical
thinking.  Now what's fascinating about chess is that a young child can
learn the required "knowledge" about chess in just a few minutes.  It's not
that complex.  There are only six kinds of players in the game- pawns,
knights, bishops, rucks, the queen, and the king.  And the way they move is
also pretty simple.  Only the knight is a bit strange as it moves in an "L"
shape (two spaces forward, one to the side).  So actually learning to play
chess is remarkably easy.

What's difficult is the complexity of the interactions of the parts.  Now
you have to do some strategic calculating about future consequences.  "If I
move X-piece to this or that space, what will happen?"  In this, with chess
you learn to consider lines of play-"If I do this, my partner will do this
other thing."  Accordingly, you learn to calculate with care, with
precision, and with concentration.  And with that, you are learning to think
strategically-you learn to think about the future from where you are today.

As you play chess, you learn to plan, but also you learn that the value of
your planning does not last very long.  As soon as you plan, and your
partner makes a move, your plan goes out of the window.  Now for some new
planning.  And while you do the long-term thinking of planning, in the
meanwhile you have to do the short-term thinking of coping with the
situation on the board and adapting to what's happening right now.

Accordingly, to play well, you have to stay constantly alert to the feedback
that you're getting from the other player and manage your own state about
mistakes.  That's because mistakes are inevitable especially when beginning
to learn and even at the professional level, everyone makes mistakes.  It's
part and parcel of the fun, the adventure, and the challenge.

The solution is to learn to see the whole game in all of its dynamism.  And
to do that is make systemic thinking part of your strategic thinking.
Systemic thinking means understanding the whole will often have properties
which do not arise from  the sum of the parts.  When everything is
connected, then new properties can emerge.  Jonathan Rowson explains:

"Chess players are intuitive systems thinkers because we learn tht if we do
not see the relationships and interactions that define the whole position,
we are key to misunderstand the parts, the pieces, and put them on th wrong
squares.  Chess can therefore be a source of tacit learning about systems."
(The Moves that Matter: A Chess Grandmaster on the Game of Life.  2019, p.
121)

"Chess can help you think of the world in relational and system terms and
perhaps even cultivate some ecological sensibility.  The game serves to
highlight perspectives that can transform our understanding of how we might
think more clearly and wisely." (Ibid., 2019, p. 105)

The meta-detailing aspect of strategic thinking is learned as you play chess
because to succeed you have given attention to minute detail.  You might
think it would be so simple to see six kinds of players and 16 pieces on
each side-yet due to the many different kinds of interactions and the
constant changing of the board, it requires a lot of focus.  And not only
focus, but keeping the pieces in mind.  When you can do that, then you are
getting into the place where you can do effective pattern recognition.

In chess, pattern recognition is the essence of strategic thinking.  That's
because it is pattern detection whereby you grasp the complex system as a
system which enables you to do relevant and effective calculations as you
plan and adapt.  From there you can begin to do effective heuristic
thinking.  That is, you use some basic guidelines (heuristics) to inform
your strategy: Develop your nights before your bishops; Don't move your
queen in the opening; Capture towards the center.

The bottom line is that if you want to develop your strategic thinking
skills-play chess.  Chess gives you a desired outcome-checkmate your
partner.  Then with that goal, now you have to plan your moves to see if you
can arrange things to achieve that outcome.

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

738 Beaver Lodge

Grand Jct., CO. 81505 USA

(970) 523-7877

meta at acsol.net

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