The making of Chess champions

by Nandkumar Kamat

THE victory of Ivana Furtado in World under eight chess championship should interest child psychologists, neuroscientists and mathematical philosophers. She might also be having outstanding mathematical, programming and computing capabilities. Thanks to her involved and caring parents and the timely and expert coaching by the trainers she got moulded into the world’s first under eight junior chess champion. But she has not so far got the press coverage, which a lawn tennis star Sania Mirza once got. There is always discrimination between games involving muscles and mind.

Chess is a perfect brain game. It converges mind and consciousness on a single platform-the chessboard.

In creating Chess champions like Ivana both nature and nurture, genes and training are involved. Chess was probably discovered by the ancient Vedic mathematicians to understand the concept of infinity. There are mind boggling permutations and combinations. The Arabs popularised it in the middle east as ‘Shataranj’ from where it reached all over the world. The rules of Chess are simple but the winning strategies are complex. Computers like the “deep blue” built on chess programming theories have come very close to defining winning strategies against the world chess champions. This proves that the moves of chess have to be coded in our genes. There are relatively scanty attempts to probe into the minds of the champion chess players - Fischer, Spasky, Karpov, Kasparov and Vishwanathan Anand.

There is no direct connection between a person’s Intelligent Quotient (IQ) and chess playing skills. Scholars of maths or expert computer programmers do not necessarily turn out to be chess champions. What must be going on in the mind of Ivana Furtado at such a tender age when she was pitted against players of Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Peru, Ukraine and from her own country? Her trainers feel that it is her unique concentration skill, the prolonged attention span - which is the hallmark of her success. But how the brain functions when a child concentrates on a challenging task? It is an established fact that children can acquire most of their intelligence up to the age of 12. Then they have to struggle. It is difficult to make a child smarter after 12. Ivana picked up Chess at four and half years - perhaps the right age when neurons – the cellular microcomputers in the brain are in their final burst of building a network of connections.

Chess is not merely a brain game. It is also a game of neurons against neurons. Obviously neurons with superior dendritic connections and complex networks would win. For building a superior neuronal network there are three requirements - a happy childhood, the right brain stimulating stimuli and a genetic endowment of excellent genes. A happy childhood depends on loving, caring and understanding parents. Children feel emotionally secure when their parents are around. The personal presence of Ivana’s parents in Georgia was a clinching factor in raising her confidence level. Brain stimulation in childhood depends on exposure to a variety of sound, speech, colours, symbols, patterns, textures, tastes - or rather exposure to material, cultural and natural diversity. Children pick up all types of stimuli to complete in a short duration the evolutionary programming of millions of years of human cognitive development. Deprivation of these stimuli makes the children mentally stunted. The neurobiochemical potential of neurons is not realised in such children. It is not known whether human mathematical and computing abilities are encoded by the genes, yet to be identified. But with a poor package of genes it is not possible to be a chess champion. Consciousness is an emergent property of the architecture of the brain. This architecture is a function of an intricate synaptic interconnections of billions of neurons.

A chess player uses the focused consciousness as a switch to turn on this neuronal supercomputer to analyse the opponent’s moves, compute the pros and cons of millions of possible moves in real time and prepare a strategy to win the game. Chess champions like Ivana have powerful neuronal resources. As she would continue to focus on her game without losing the momentum, the world would probably see the making of a young Chess genius.

There is a lesson for parents dreaming to make their children follow her footsteps. Normal schooling and education is one part of life. It does not make anyone intelligent. The problem solving, decision making, logistical skills are more important. Unfortunately such skills are rarely taught in our education system from pre-primary to university level. We are turning out a generation of dumb degree holders. To this crowd World Chess champion Ivana offers a beautiful example. Success is possible with focus and concentration, attention and dedication. Chess is not a game for the faint hearted or lethargic persons. There is a complex neurochemistry behind it. All of us are born with billions of neurons. Till death no human being has been able to use even one per cent of its capacity. In fact at young age the more you train the neurons more dendritic junctions are formed.

Within just three years of picking up the game and with relatively little exposure to competition - Ivana performed a feat - which shows how best she could utilise her neuronal resources. A focused person refuses to be narcissistic. If Ivana speaks less and is not overwhelmed by her achievement it shows how best she has trained her mind - to be stoic. This is exactly the type of temperament, which makes the world champions. It is a high time that we understand Chess as a game of mental discipline based on a complex neurochemistry. The players are merely physical vehicles for the neuronal strategies.

The Buddhist philosophers have not yet commented on the Zen of chess playing. The neuroscientists have not delved deeper into the minds and the brain chemistry of the chess players. There may certain secrets waiting for them. Unfolding of these may give science some useful clues about developing artificial intelligence (AI).

Ivana Furtado would be a showpiece for Goan society for some time but let us not forget that she represents a new generation in Information age with superior neuronal resources. India is known to be a country where coals are polished and diamonds lose their shine. May Ivana go on to conquer many more chess championship crowns, without falling into the traps of promotional industry.

Category: Articles , Chess