Wednesday, August 15, 2007
It's all about HOW you think!
I remember when I first started to play chess seriously I spent many hours reading all kind of books on every aspect of the game. One of the things that struck me when I read it was a study about Grand Masters (people that have achieved a coveted title for their prowess in the professional chess world) and other players. The common thought before this study was that GM's somehow just "saw" a lot further then anyone else did in the same position. That is that there were able to evaluate say 50 positions in a second rather then 3 or 5 that a normal player could. What the study proved through a variety of methods was that in fact that is completely untrue, a GM can see or evaluate slightly more positions then a rank amateur per second, but an identical amount to that of any semi serious club chess player or above. So what was the difference? It turned out it was simply HOW they evaluated the positions. A GM will simply only consider lines (lines is a synonym for "possibilities" in chess lingo) that are strong, whereas a normal club player will often consider moves that are quite simply much weaker. In other words the GM is able to achieve more with an identical amount of processing power because of HOW they think. I never thought of this being relevant in IT until I read this comment.
Labels:
babblings,
Geek Matters,
Thoughts
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