Is chess just a memory game

In reading an article on how knowledge helps reading comprehension, learning, and thinking, I came across this interesting summary of some work in cognitive science about chess players.  The bit about how grandmasters have over 10,000 “chunks” in memory is well known.  But I found the study of speed chess interesting.  Here is the passage from that article (cited below).

“Most of the differences among top chess players appear to be in how many game positions they know, rather than in how effective they are in searching for a good move. It seems that there are two processes to selecting a move in chess. First, there is a recognition process by which a player sees which part of the board is contested, which pieces are in a strong or weak position, and so forth. The second process is one of reasoning. The player considers possible moves and their likely outcome. The recognition process is very fast, and it identifies which pieces the slower reasoning process should focus on. But the reasoning process is very slow as the player consciously considers each possible move. Interestingly, a recent study indicates that the recognition process accounts for most of the differences among top players. Burns (2004) compared the performance of top players at normal and blitz tournaments. In blitz chess, each player has just five minutes to complete an entire game, whereas in a normal tournament, players would have at least two hours. Even though play was so sped up that the slow reasoning processes barely had any time to contribute to performance, the relative ratings of the players were almost unchanged. That indicates that what’s making some players better than others is differences in their fast recognition processes, not differences in their slow reasoning processes. This finding is rather striking. Chess, the prototypical game of thinking and reflection, turns out to be largely a game of memory among those who are very skilled. Some researchers estimate that the best chess players have between 10,000 and 300,000 chess-piece chunks in memory (Gobet and Simon, 2000).” see http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/issues/spring06/willingham.htm

I suspect that few among us would be willing to say that chess is just a memory game, which challenges our devotion to the game.

Perhaps more interesting, the actually 2004 Burns chess study can be found at http://www.psychologicalscience.org/pdf/ps/burns.pdf

Nice links, Thanks!

I might suggest you look at Adrian De Groot's experiments in "Thought and choice in chess" ... he even goes as far as to determine the differences in brain activity between an Expert and a GM .... lots of good stuff :)

Will I ever dismiss Chess as a memory game? Hmmm....

Well rather than think of it as pure pattern recognition (and the memory-game inferences you mentioned), I prefer to think of it as using an existing pattern or template in one's chunked-up-database and being able to discern variations from it, both good and bad. Even better when we use one idea that works in one set of parameters and take it someplace totally different, where it still works :)

Pretty much everything we've invented since the dawn of time has been a Variation on a theme.  I think the ability to incorporate such creativity and imagination into our games will continue to make this game fun for us, regardless of how "booked up" the game becomes.

Shivsky

Neither does the Burns study quoted:

"These results do not show that search in chess is irrelevant. Players given only 5 min to play all their moves may utilize some limited search, but they would almost certainly perform well below their ratings if their opponents had the amount of time provided in nonblitz tournaments. However, the results are consistent with the finding that search does not improve
much as players' skill levels rise (e.g., Charness, 1981, 1991; de Groot, 1965), which implies that search should not account for much of the variance in players' performance. The contribution of search processes to performance may be real but fairly constant past a certain skill level."

I don't usually play from memory.  I have a hard time thinking more than 3 or 4 moves ahead of time.  I think reasoning plays a part in my game more than anything.   I am finding that I am not improving as quickly as I like.  Most of my chess friends that know my game think I need to memorize more moves.  I think that I need to figure our a way to improve my reasoning.  Time will tell.

By that guys logic, everything is a "memory game." The running back doesn't make a great juke and shake off a tackle because he studied the field and made good calculation. Its muscle memory, instinct, etc.

Chess, it seems to me, is a memory game only in two senses...

1. A certain amount of memorization in the endgame and opening phases is helpful.

2. In the middle game, you get better by playing a position over and over, until a complex position becomes a matter of habit, rather than calculation.

Chess is partly a memory game.  Of course, chess is also a calculation (tactical) game.

I challenge anyone to find a mental pursuit where this isn't the case.

In this book, the authors ask various chess masters about various topics. one of the topics is memory. The masters are asked how important is memory to chess and most of the answers say that memory is important but not as important as having an imagination getting a sense of the position.

This is really something of a philosophical debate, probably of no practical value.  But what I find intriguing is not the idea that memory is important either to chess or in general, but that as we commit more facts to memory, our ability to think critically improves?  So with more chess patterns properly committed to memory, our ability to think critically about a new position may improve?  And our brains can do so almost instantly, which is why grandmaster can crush peons like us, even when they are given no time to let the brain critically analyze a position.

Does this mean anything?  Probably not.  Maybe its all semantics.  But perhaps it means that when people try to improve by studying middle games, end games, tactics, openings, or even general principles, all they are really doing is trying to expand the brain's stable of memorized chess patterns, and we should be more interested in that training exercise than trying to improve our chess analytical skills in some abstract way.

Shivsky, thanks for the cite to the book.  If I can find it in print somewhere, I'll add it to my library! 

Thanks for the article, it is really interesting!