Chess is a game that involves decision making and strategy. The best chest masters take time studying their opponents' move very much ahead of time. The chess moves to win are being looked into as the masters' secret to success is revealed.
Chess has been a popular game. Amateurs and professionals play chess to either pass time, or else it is used as a way to sharpen strategy making. Scientists from the Cluster of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC) at Bielefeld University are looking into how chess masters are winning the game constantly.
Professor Thomas Schack is head of the chess research project as well as a sports scientist and cognitive psychologist at CITEC. He has said that chess can be a good way of testing out theories regarding how the brain controls attention and problem solving. In chess players have to be attentive as well as be fast in making decisions.
Schack and his team are working on Ceege, or the Chess Expertise from Eye Gaze and Emotion together with Inria Grenoble Rhones-Aples. Dr. Kai Essig, a researcher for the project, as said that the team is studying player tactics, behavior and body language. The study aims to see if predicting a winner can be done more accurately in chess as well as see how strong that player is, according to the Bielefeld University site.
Various techniques have been used to get information on players, as Science Daily reports. Eye tracking glasses have been used to study eye movement, while cameras look at a player's body language and expression. Professor James Crowley from the Inria institute are looking into a player's emotion and gestures for possible clues.
120 participants have joined in the study. One third of those who participated are chess experts, while the rest are said to be novices. Essig has observed that experts have different expressions and posture from novices. He has also noted that the experts have control on their pieces more efficiently than the novices.
To further test their hypothesis, the researchers have followed the chess world championship last November. They have noted early on that Norwegian chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen would win, based on their observations on his expression and body language, among others. Physicist Thomas Kuchelmann did state that it would have been better if Carlsen and his opponent, Sergej Karjakin, would have been tested with their equipment so as to make a better assessment.
The researchers hope to make a chess assistant in order to analyze experts and novices as well. The chess assistant would also be used to train players with tips and explanations. With the study, chess moves to win have been determined, and the masters' secret to success has been revealed. In another study, the brain's master clock has also been revealed.
