Deliberate Practice: Necessary But Not Sufficient

PRESS RELEASE
October 21, 2011
For Immediate Release
Contact: Divya Menon
Association for Psychological Science
202.293.9300
dmenon@psychologicalscience.org
Source Link: www.psychologicalscience.org

Psychological scientist Guillermo Campitelli is a good chess player, but not a great one. “I’m not as good as I wanted,” he says. He had an international rating but not any of the titles that chess players get, like Grandmaster and International Master. “A lot of people that practiced much less than me achieved much higher levels.” Some of the players he coached became some of the best players in Argentina. “I always wondered: What’s going on? Why did this happen?”

Now a researcher at Edith Cowan University in Joondalup, Australia, Campitelli studies practicing. He’s written an article with Fernand Gobet of Brunel University in the United Kingdom on their and other people’s research on chess for Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

In one survey of chess players in Argentina, Campitelli and Gobet found that, indeed, practice is important. All of the players that became masters had practice at least 3,000 hours. “That was not surprising,” he says. There is a theory in psychology that the more you practice, the better you’ll do in areas like sports, music, and chess. “But the thing is, of the people that achieved the master level, there are people that achieved it in 3,000 hours. Other people did, like, 30,000 hours and achieved the same level. And there are even people that practiced more than 30,000 hours and didn’t achieve this.”

Campitelli and Gobet concluded that practice is necessary to get to the master level—but it’s not enough. There has to be something else that sets apart the people who get really good at chess.

Similar results on practice have been found for music. A study published in Psychological Science last year found that musicians need a lot of practice, but that practice isn’t enough. The researchers identified one additional factor: musicians who are better at sight-reading have better working memory, the ability to keep relevant pieces of information active in your mind.

But, for chess, that factor has not been pinned down. One possibility is intelligence.

A lot of studies have found that children who play chess have a higher IQ than the general population.

(Because of the ongoing debate on whether IQ really shows intelligence, Campitelli prefers to be conservative and call it “IQ.”) But studies have found mixed results on whether adults who play chess have higher IQs than adults who don’t play chess. And only one study—of several that have been performed—found that adults with higher IQs are better at chess.

Campitelli and Gobet suggest that more intelligent children may be attracted to chess, and use their good reasoning skills to play well, but later they need to practice hard to learn all the strategies and plans that make a good chess player—and intelligence isn’t much help.

Other things that set apart chess players are handedness—while about 90 percent of the general population is right-handed, only about 82 percent of adult chess players are right-handed. This could indicate some difference in brain development that makes people better at the spatial skills you need to be good at chess. But it still doesn’t explain what makes some people better at chess than others.

Campitelli was disappointed that he didn’t get to be a better chess player, despite all his practice. “But actually, when I started studying these things, I was happy, because I don’t play chess as well as I want, but I can do scientific research and I can coach other people.”

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For more information about this study, please contact: Guillermo Campitelli at g.campitelli@ecu.edu.au.

Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, publishes concise reviews on the latest advances in theory and research spanning all of scientific psychology and its applications. For a copy of “Deliberate Practice: Necessary But Not Sufficient” and access to other Current Directions in Psychological Science research findings, please contact Divya Menon at 202-293-9300 or dmenon@psychologicalscience.org.

IM John Donaldson, Photo Suzy Gorman

Contact: Allen Kaufman
(718) 544-5036
AllenKauf@aol.com

On July 1, 2011 International Master John Donaldson will become the new secretary of the Samford Fellowship Committee, replacing Allen Kaufman who has held the position since 1987. John will also continue as one of the judges who participate in selecting the new Samford Fellow each year. The other committee members are Frank P. Samford III, son of Frank P. Samford Jr., founder of the program, and Grandmaster Arthur Bisguier. Ms. Barbara DeMaro will continue as financial administrator.

Mr. Donaldson has decades-long experiences in almost every phase of the chess world. A keen tournament competitor, he has played in two U.S. Championships and made Grandmaster norms at Lindsborg 2002 and Stratton Mountain 2003. He is the Director of the Mechanics’ Institute Chess Club of San Francisco, a full-time position he has held since October, 1998. John is also a well-known author having written over thirty books, specializing in opening theory and chess history. His best-known works are the two volumes on Akiva Rubinstein he co-authored with International Master Nikolay Minev.

For the past decade he has served as a member of the selection committee for the United States Chess Federation (USCF) Hall of Fame, as a committee member for the Professional Health and Benefits Program and as the Chairman for the USCF Awards committee. The respect John commands among both players and administrators is further indicated by his selection as team captain of the U.S. entry in the last three Chess Olympiads, 2006, 2008 and 2010 and the 2009 World Team Championship. The U.S. teams won medals in three of these tournaments. In July, 2011, he will captain the U.S. entry in the World Team Championship in Ningbo, China.

Mr. Kaufman is retiring after twenty-five years of affiliation with the Frank P. Samford, Jr. Chess Fellowship. He assisted the late Mr. Samford in creating the program in 1985 and 1986 and has continued working with Mr. Samford’s son, Frank P. Samford, III in expanding the benefits of the Samford Fellowship to both individual players and to the game of chess in America. During this period twenty-six young American chessmasters have been chosen to receive the benefits of the two-year program, many of whom have gone on to achieve significant victories in chess competitions. Several are potential challengers for the world chess championship; others have become effective teachers who pass the values of the game on to future generations.

PRESS RELEASE

April 29, 2011

HOUSTON — NASA astronauts Greg Chamitoff and Greg H. Johnson, who will launch into space Friday, April 29, are challenging the people of Earth to a chess rematch. NASA and the U.S. Chess Federation (USCF) hosted the first Earth vs. space match in 2008 when Chamitoff lived aboard the International Space Station.

The public won that match thanks to help from chess champions at Stevenson Elementary School in Bellevue, Wash.

“Chess is a great game that challenges the mind and helps young people develop critical thinking skills that will serve them well in math, science, and all aspects of their future careers,” Chamitoff said.

He and Johnson will play the game during their 14-day space shuttle flight to the International Space Station. The USCF will facilitate the match on its website at: http://www.uschess.org/nasa2011/

At the site, the public can suggest or vote on a chess move. The USCF will decide how to respond to the astronauts’ moves. NASA and USCF will use Twitter and Facebook to notify participants about the status of the game and when to vote on moves.

“We hope the excitement and interest this game generates will inspire students to become interested in chess,” said USCF Executive Director Bill Hall.

Chamitoff, who will conduct two spacewalks during the shuttle mission, is a chess aficionado. He took a chess set when he launched to the space station in May 2008, and brought it back when he returned home in November 2008. He will be taking a different chess set for this trip.

“We hope to do better in this Earth vs. space match,” Chamitoff said. “But, I have to admit it will be a challenge because we have an extremely busy flight ahead of us.”

Updates on the chess match will be posted on the USCF Twitter and Facebook sites, Chamitoff’s Twitter account and the International Space Station’s official Facebook page:

http://twitter.com/chessmagnet

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Earth-vs-Space-Chess-Match-2011

http://twitter.com/Astro_Taz

http://facebook.com/ISS/

For more about Chamitoff, the space shuttle and the space station, visit: http://www.nasa.gov

Photo credit: NASA/KSC

About this NASA MISSION

“The crew members for space shuttle Endeavour’s STS-134 mission are Commander Mark Kelly, Pilot Gregory H. Johnson and Mission Specialists Michael Fincke, Greg Chamitoff, Andrew Feustel and European Space Agency astronaut Roberto Vittori.

During the 14-day mission, Endeavour and its crew will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) and spare parts including two S-band communications antennas, a high-pressure gas tank and additional spare parts for Dextre.”

Congratulations Alex!

Contact: Allen Kaufman
(718) 544-5036
AllenKauf@aol.com

The FRANK P. SAMFORD, JR. CHESS FELLOWSHIP, marking its twenty-sixth annual award, has selected Grandmaster Aleksandr Lenderman of Brooklyn, New York, as its 2011 fellow. The Samford is the richest and most important chess fellowship in the United States. It identifies and assists the best young American chessmasters by providing top-level coaching, strong competition and access to study materials. The Fellowship also supplies a monthly stipend for living expenses so that the winners may devote themselves to chess without having financial worries. The total value of the Fellowship has been increased several times over the years and is now $42,000 annually. The prize is awarded for one year and can be renewed for a second year.

All in all, it gives these brilliant young American chessmasters the support and resources necessary to enhance their skills and reach their full potential.

Shortly before his tenth birthday Aleksandr was taught the game by his grandfather. Two years later the young chessplayer began achieving surprising results in open tournaments. He captured first place (and the $2,700 prize) in the under-1600 section of the Foxwoods Open. That same year he tied for second in the World Open under-1800 section, collecting $2,900.

Next, Aleksandr decided to concentrate on improving his chess rather than winning big cash prizes. For the next three years he studied with Mikahil Trosman going from 1800 to 2300 rating level. He captured first place in the 2005World Youth Chess Championship under 16 division and two years later won the High School National Chess Championship.
More recent results include winning the Marshall Chess Club Championship and the Eastern Open.

Aleksandr’s term as Samford Fellow will begin on July 1, 2011. He will now be able to increase his lesson time with his current coach, grandmaster Giorgi Kacheishvili and also work with other trainers. To quote the new Samford Fellow, “I love chess more than anything else in the world aside from my family.”

The winner was chosen by the Samford Fellowship Committee, consisting of Frank P. Samford III (son of Samford Fellowship founder Frank P. Samford, Jr.), former U.S. Chess Champion Grandmaster Arthur Bisguier and International Master John Donaldson. The winner’s potential was determined based on his chess talent, work ethic, dedication and accomplishments. The Fellowship is administered by the U.S. Chess Trust with particularly valuable services provided by Barbara DeMaro.

The Samford Chess Fellowship was created by the late Frank P. Samford, Jr. of Birmingham, Alabama. Mr. Samford was a distinguished attorney and CEO of Liberty National Life Insurance Company (now Torchmark). He was active in civic, business, political, educational and cultural affairs. Mr. Samford was also an enthusiastic competitor in chess tournaments. After providing financial support for several chess projects he decided to do something significant for American chess. The result was the Samford Fellowship.

Since its inception the Fellowship has proven very successful. Several Samford Fellows have become grandmasters and a few have won the U.S. Chess Championship or played on the U.S. team in the chess olympiad. America’s two top players today, both potential world champions, are Gata Kamsky and Hikaru Nakamura. Both are former Samford Fellows.

Generous contributions from the late Mrs. Virginia Samford and Torchmark Corporation support the Fellowship. The Samford Fellowship is a fitting memorial to an extraordinary man. The dedication, creativity and achievement that marked Mr. Frank P. Samford, Jr.’s life are examples for all chessplayers to admire and emulate.

My Life As the Chess Queen by Raven Niles

(Age 18, Ryan Academy High School, Norfolk, Virginia)

Life is a constant battle. People come and people go. Things are give and are torn away from us. We have to work for everything we have, and we have to work twice as hard to keep it.

Life is not an easy game to play, it is thrown at us and we are expected to catch it fast as it comes. Life gives us the unexpected. There is not one smile that is permanent. Love comes and goes. Heartache is a deleterious emotion that can make our ways of thinking very destructive. This is our battle.

Every move we make affects the rest of our lives and everyone around us. One day we could be standing proud and strong and the next day we have fallen on our own lies and mistakes.

Life is a daily battle and one big game of irreversible strategic moves.

Chess is very similar. When playing chess you have to think outside the box and plan your moves in advance. One irrational decision, without strategic thinking, could cause the entire game to make a bad turn. You don’t play chess alone. There is another, an opponent, who can affect how much you progress in the game. It’s the same with your life, you make a move and then fate makes a move. These moves and decisions constantly play off against each other, just like chess.

In the complicating and mind stimulating game of chess, the Queen is the most important piece. The Queen can move anywhere She wants. The Queenhas more power than any piece on the board. She has all the control. In life we are just as powerful as the Queen. We are completely in control and it’s up to us if someone takes that away. We are the Queen in our game of life. We can make any moves, life’s just waiting for us to move it.

Life is the biggest game of all. Good decisions will set your life, or chess game, on the path you need it to go. But persistent bad moves and decisions can make life a very poignant journey. A good chess game is never guaranteed, just like life.

It is scaaaarrrry to see how great Nimzowitsch was.

Here is a beautiful and instructive game with notations by Aron Nimzowitsch.

Enjoy!

FIDE Rating: 2826; Photo Credit: http://rwcc.g-star.com/

According to FIDE, Magnus Carlsen is the highest rated player in the world with a rating of 2826.

Does That Make Him the Best Chess Player?

What do you think?

Post your response on our website! You can also e-mail your response to support@uschesstrust.org.

‘Question of the Month’ is brought to you by Jim Eade, President of the U.S. Chess Trust

Alton Logan was innocent of murder, U.S. Chess Trust CEO, Harold Winston who is also a Chicago Public Defender, sought justice.

Harold Winston was made President of the U.S. Chess Trust, a national chess charity, in 1999, and has served diligently as CEO of the Trust since the following year. What is perhaps not as well known in the chess world is a certain accomplishment of Winston as a public defender in Chicago. So we will talk about it.

In January 1982, two men burst into a MacDonald’s in Chicago, shot and killed a security guard there and shot but missed killing a second guard. Shortly thereafter one Edgar Hope was arrested for the murder, having been found with possession of one of the guard’s guns. Alton Logan was also arrested for the murder on flimsy evidence, although he was not known to be a friend or associate of Hope. In fact, police had found evidence linking one Andrew Wilson, an associate of Hope, to the crime, but did nothing about it.

Logan and Hope were tried together and convicted but Andrew Wilson was never charged. Hope got the death penalty and Logan received life, courtesy of two jurors who would not vote for death. Both got a second trial and were again convicted many years later. Hope had committed a second murder to which he pleaded guilty but appealed his death sentences. He managed to stay alive until Illinois Governor George Ryan commuted his death sentence and emptied out Illinois’ death row.

Alton Logan always insisted on his own innocence in the MacDonald’s murder and in fact Andrew Wilson was the real second killer. After the second trial, Winston’s Cook County Public Defender’s Office was appointed to represent Logan. The case lingered on, as Winston’s office uncovered facts questioning Logan’s guilt. Winston had been told by some one to contact attorneys of Andrew Wilson if Wilson ever died. Wilson had been serving a life sentence for another crime.
In late November of 2007, Winston opened the Chicago Reader to find that Andrew Wilson had departed this earth. The next morning Winston sought out Wilson’s former attorneys and by coincidence was in touch with one of them, Attorney Jamie Kunz, and asked to have a talk.  Kunz agreed and advised Winston that he would make disclosures about the Alton Logan case if authorized by a Court. Winston filed an appropriate motion, and Kunz and Dale Coventry, the other attorney, then revealed an old affidavit of theirs that Andrew Wilson had told him that Alton Logan had not committed the crime. Wilson’s attorneys were orally authorized to disclose this fact on Wilson’s death and they later testified that Wilson had, with considerable amusement, confessed the murder of the MacDonald’s guard. After further hearings, Alton Logan was convincingly exonerated and released from prison in 2008.

For chess players everywhere, that is the story of the efforts of the CEO of the U.S. Chess Trust in the cause of justice.

Excerpt from Chessbase.com

Fantastic article on chessbase.com! Read the excerpt below then check it out on chessbase.com!

“Two weeks ago we published an interview by the German magazine Der Spiegel with Magnus Carlsen, with a picture that one of our readers found familiar. “He looks remarkably like my son,” thought Professor Nancy Carlsson-Paige of Lesley University of Cambridge, Massachusetts. After a little research we discovered that the two are second cousins. Guess who the American relative is.”

Find out now! Click Here to Read this article on ChessBase.com

NOTE:  As everyone knows, this was an April Fool’s Joke.  : – )  Find out more about this Chessbase prank here — >  http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=6232

by Tim Hanke and Beatriz Marinello

In The Morals of Chess, Benjamin Franklin wrote:

The Game of Chess is not merely an idle amusement; several very valuable qualities of the mind, useful in the course of human life, are to be acquired and strengthened by it, so as to become habits ready on all occasions; for life is a kind of Chess, in which we have often points to gain, and competitors or adversaries to contend with, and in which there is a vast variety of good and ill events, that are, in some degree, the effect of prudence, or the want of it.

Chess has fascinated educators for generations as a pure intellectual activity that is not culture-bound. As a cross-cultural activity that appeals to people of all ages and both sexes, chess has the potential to be used in after-school programs, social clubs, senior centers?wherever people come together for education or recreation.

These days, chess is even being integrated into some school curricula: in the New Jersey public schools, in the Canadian Province of Quebec, and in a growing number of university campuses such as the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). Both of these universities offer academic scholarships to chessplayers, and UTD offers a graduate certificate program called “Chess in Education.”

Chess is versatile

Chess is interesting from many perspectives. It engages powers of reasoning, including calculation and visual-spatial reasoning, which is why chess has been such a popular object of study for scientists in the field of computer-based artificial intelligence. Chess also has been shown in studies to be an effective practical tool for teaching children to concentrate on a task?an important skill that often needs development. Studies in K?12 classrooms have shown a correlation between chess instruction and an increase in reading and other cognitive skills.

We must not forget that chess is also a game: a fun, competitive activity. Several non-scientific anecdotal reports in the media indicate that teaching chess to children, especially children in predominantly minority school districts, can increase the children?s self-confidence and self-esteem, leading to a general increase in the children?s overall school performance. Bob Cotter, an elementary school teacher in Indianapolis, took his team of inner-city kids to a national chess tournament. He reported that “After we won, the kids met the President, they traveled to Japan, and received all sorts of recognition.”1

A vignette

In an after-school chess program taught at the middle school level by one of the authors, one of the coolest and most rational chessplayers was a slim, self-contained girl about eleven years old, named Bernadette.
As in most chess classes and practically all chess tournaments, a large majority of the players were male. The chessplaying style of many of the boys was best described as rash optimism: they would play aggressive moves without thinking for long about the possible consequences, and hope for the best. The boys tended to “trash-talk” during their games, ridiculing the opponent and boasting about their own prospects.
But Bernadette thought before she moved. Watching her play, it was evident that she tried to work out a plan for her game. During her games she sat quietly, hardly ever speaking, except occasionally to express chagrin if something went wrong on the board. At the end of this article, we will return to Bernadette.

Chess teaches useful life skills

One or two studies suggest that chess skills are not transferable to tasks outside of chess, but these studies are narrowly defined. It is clear that we have few opportunities to play “king takes bishop” in our daily lives, and admittedly chess skill in itself does not automatically translate into financial rewards (except in chess tournaments!). Rather, as Benjamin Franklin wrote, chess is valuable because of the qualities of mind it promotes.

Here is a partial list of benefits that chess offers to educators and students:

Chess helps kids improve their concentration.

As a competitive activity, chess is very goal-oriented and rooted in the here-and-now. As such, it forces the player to pay attention and focus the mind. Children who learn to play chess have been observed to carry over improved habits of concentration to other activities. Beckie Levatino, mother of Elian, said, “Elian was having some problems in his Montessori school. I went to observe . . . and saw that he rushed through his activities, trying always to be the first one to finish. . . . We feel chess has helped him immeasurably, especially in learning how to slow down and concentrate on one thing.”2

Chess helps kids improve their academic performance.

For reasons not perfectly understood, children who are taught chess have been observed to raise their test scores in reading and math. Perhaps this is partly due to enhanced concentration ability. Also, chess has a strong element of visual-spatial reasoning, which relates to mathematics performance. “For young students, an independent study in Pennsylvania showed that those involved in chess classes improved their standardized test results by 17.3%, compared with only 4.56% for students participating in other activities.”3

Chess teaches kids to appreciate cause-and-effect and to develop a variety of reasoning skills.

Chess offers immediate feedback on the quality of decision making, in a relatively innocuous setting. Kingdoms may topple on the chessboard, but the players risk only a temporary blow to the ego! Math teacher and chess-club sponsor Jan Brandt, a Richmond, Virginia, mother of four, describes chess as, “probably the best game there is for developing logical, precise thinking.” Pete Shaw, a computer science teacher, has taught hundreds of kids in Pulaski, Virginia, to play chess. “It?s like turning on switches in their heads. You feel as though you can watch the brain working through a window. The game demands both inductive and deductive reasoning. You see the kid looking at a problem, breaking it down, and putting it back together. The process involves recall, analysis, judgment and abstract reasoning.”4

Chess helps kids become more self-confident.

Kids who learn to play chess gain confidence as they feel themselves gaining more control over the game environment. Confidence, as educators know, is the most transferable skill of all! According to Jeffrey Chesin, who teaches inner-city kids in Philadelphia, children do not have to be particularly bright to enjoy chess. “The majority of the kids I work with would be considered ?average.? Some are below average. But they get interested, and they work at it. Determination is definitely a factor.” Bob Cotter, the Indianapolis teacher, believes playing chess has helped his kids not only academically but socially: “For one thing, they see it doesn?t matter where you come from; if you set a goal and never lose sight of it, you can attain it.”5

Chess offers an intellectual model for developing expertise in any activity.

Advanced research suggests that chess expertise is acquired in two ways: (1) building up a database of knowledge; and (2) developing analytic skills. In Chessplayers? Thinking Revisited, Fernand Gobet argues for further research in this important realm, writing, “Even though each domain of expertise may have idiosyncratic properties, research on chess may help identify some of the potential conditions under which search, pattern recognition, or some combination of both, may be the best way to cope with the complexities of the environment.”

A vignette revisited

What about Bernadette, the 11-year-old girl who played chess with a coolness beyond her years? For the last session of the eight-week chess class, we organized students into two-person teams for a dramatic chess game played with giant pieces on a chessboard inlaid on the auditorium floor. Each two-person team took turns making their side?s moves, sharing the decision-making. Bernadette and her partner (another girl) could easily have become frustrated when their careful planning was thwarted by other teammates? decisions. Their side, “White,” lost many pieces and a victory by “Black” looked inevitable. However, the girls remained careful and attentive players, and did not despair. When their final turn came, they found an unlikely checkmate to steal the victory from their opponents.

Article reprinted from Connect (Vol.17 No.2, November/December, 2003)

Notes
1,2,4, and 5. The quotations were provided by Ann Graham in :”Chess Makes Kid Smart.”
3. Marcel Milat (2001). “The Role of Chess in Modern Education.” May be found on the Web CLICK HERE

Franklin, Benjamin. “The Morals of Chess.” On the Web CLICK HERE.

Copyright 2003 by Synergy Learning International, Inc. All rights reserved.

Tim Hanke – Tim was Vice President of Finance of the U.S. Chess Federation, author of many articles about chess, and has taught chess to children in after-school programs.
List all articles by Tim Hanke

Beatriz Marinello – Beatriz was the first woman President of the U.S. Chess Federation, a chess master, and a leading chess teacher of children.
List all articles by Beatriz Marinello

Chess: Ancient Game, Modern Learning Tool