Be the player, not the played: Advice for novice learners

What chess really teaches us about the path to mastery

Play is so often shunned in formal learning environments. The standard maths curriculum, for instance, is like a purgatory for student-novices; before they are given the chance to do mathematics proper, they have to consume a years-long diet of facts and procedures. ‘Play’ is the bit that comes after (if at all), once these supposed prerequisites are embedded.

Arguments against play centre on the idea that novices think differently to experts. There’s a large extent to which this is true. In a series of studies half a century ago, subjects were asked to memorise and recall chess board configurations. Two key findings emerged:

• If the arrangements represent plausible game-like scenarios, a subject’s recall improves in proportion to their level of chess expertise.
• If the arrangements are random, then chess expertise has no predictive power for recalling the pieces.

Two configurations. One represents an actual game scenario, the other is randomised. Chess enthusiasts will know the difference, and will exercise better recall of the authentic configuration (but not the randomised one). Source.

Expert chess players literally see the board differently to novices. More experienced players draw on their knowledge of the game to compress the arrangements of the board into more manageable chunks. For instance, if a bishop has pinned a knight against the queen; the three pieces can be seen as a…