Introduction:

Chess, through history, has been used to determine someone’s intelligence; it has been used geopolitically in 1972 when the famous American Bobby Fischer defeated Boris Spassky from the USSR, signaling Western intelligence over Eastern one. Not only that, it was also the first time humanity was in danger from computers, after the fatal defeat of Gary Kasparov in 1996 vs. IBM Deep Blue, where many thought it was the end of humanity. But what if I tell you this game that has existed for more than 1500 years can also teach us about human psychology?

In our project, we decided to tackle multiple aspects of human behavior, by what and how it is affected, drawing some conclusions and hypotheses from the data collected (source: Lichess). For anyone who would like to see the complete visuals with a story. And if someone wants to familiarize with some chess terms please check the last paragraph. 

1) What factors contributes to mistakes made during the game :

First, we studied the relationship between mistakes and different time formats. What was astonishing is that players tend to make almost the same amount of mistakes across all time formats even though they use more time in longer time formats.

This drew the obvious question: if we humans won’t perform better with more time, what factor would influence our results?                                                                                       Apparently, after studying the relationship between mistakes and Elo (players strength in chess), the higher the Elo of a player, the fewer mistakes he tends to make, dropping by a whopping 50% between the weakest and strongest category. This highlighted a key finding in our project: Expertise is attained by the number of hours and training we have, instead of the additional time given to think more.

2) Mental psychology in chess :

The other aspect we wanted to tackle is mental psychology. We want to see how probable a comeback is. We looked at the number of players that tend to win a game after having a piece disadvantage (which in chess is a big enough advantage); we found out that 37% of players who were first losing could turn the tables around by winning (25% of the time) or making a draw (12% of the time).

After these findings, we wanted to determine the percentage of resignation by Elo categories. Surprisingly enough, higher-rated players resign twice as much as their counterparts.

Aren’t we taught in chess and in real life to never give up? Then how do these successful players resign more while staying in the top 5%? After further examination, we discovered that stronger players tend to play more moves, meaning that they fight on average more than the average player. Resignation is just a sign of respect for their opponent, when they know that their situation is hopeless.

3) Time adaptability and the punishment of overthinking:

Another dimension was the average thinking time for each player and its consequences. After examining the longest think during the game, we found out that, on average, 35% of the time, players tend to use the mostamount of time only to end up making an inaccuracy or a mistake! This shows that in every game there is a 70% chance that one player will overthink his move and make a bad move:

“The more you overthink, the less you will understand.” ~ Habeeb Akande.

The second finding showed that higher-rated players are more adaptable; if given more time, they use it wisely, almost 3 times more than the lowest categories. But when rushed, they tend to use the least amount, knowing well that they should move fast, relying on their intuition and decision-making skills.

4) The consequences of low endurance:

In the final part we examined the effect of fatigue. We found out that games that tend to last longer, (above 300 sec) tend to have the most mistakes.We thought this was because of players’ endurance; they tend to be more tired the longer the game lasts; nonetheless, this could be due to other factors such as time pressure!

In addition, we studied the effects of different phases of the game, the opening is where players tend to make the least mistakes; they usually make more mistakes during the middlegame; finally the endgame is where players tend to have the most amount of mistakes, which is another evidence that this could be due to a lack of endurance, or it could be simply that we are more careful in the beginning than the ending.

 

“If you are as careful at the end as you are at the beginning, there will be no failure.” ~ Lao Tzu

Conclusion:

To conclude, chess is not simply a game, a war over the board, but it is a history of human beings, something that connects us with our inner selves. Whether you are chess enthusiasts or someone who has never considered the game, we cannot deny its teaching us the complexities of human psychology.

We demonstrated that expertise is about the training that we need, how to always fight because there’s always a chance, the effect of overthinking on our decisions, and how we human beings tend to make less optimal decisions when tired.

Further investigation, lead us to find out that when a stronger player competes against a weaker one, the later spend 44% more time thinking.

Is this due to stress and underconfidence from the weaker player? Or is it simply because the other is just stronger, forcing the opponent to think more? But what we know for sure is that the next time you see some pieces of wood moving on a 8 by 8 square, it might be a game, but also it might be chess.

 

Familiarizing ourselves with some chess terms:

This part just covers some basic introductory to chess and terms that are used through out the project.  First, achess game can end by time forfeit, which means one of the players has run out of time. Or mate, it’s when a player checkmates the other, meaning he won in chess terms. Draw is when neither player has clearly won the game and finally resignation is when a player decides that his situation is hopeless and won’t continue playing.

Time formats which are classical typically a game is around 20 mins for each player, rapid 10 mins, blitz isaround 5 mins and bullet between 1-2 mins.

Elo indicates a player’s strength, the bigger the number the stronger a player is with 1400-1600 category having the biggest player base.