Chess has evolved over a span of about 2300 years. The game was not always the “packaged game” that it is today. Its origins are traceable to Indian ashtapada boards commonly used among diceplaying games of that time. This game spread from culture to culture via several different means, periodically undergoing revision. Most chess players are aware of the radical reforms that shaped the game of...

Two large, diverse samples of tournament-rated chess players were asked to estimate the frequency and duration of their engagement in a variety of chess-related activities. Variables representing accumulated time spent on serious study alone, tournament play, and formal instruction were all significant bivariate correlates of chess skill as measured by tournament performance ratings. Multivaria...

Only 1% of the world's chess grandmasters are women. This underrepresentation is unlikely to be caused by discrimination, because chess ratings objectively reflect competitive results. Using data on the ratings of more than 250,000 tournament players over 13 years, we investigated several potential explanations for the male domination of elite chess. We found that (a) the ratings of men are hig...

Howard's (2005) claim that male dominance in chess is 'consistent with the evolutionary psychology view that males predominate at high achievement levels at least partly because of ability differences' (p. 378) is based on the premise that top level chess skill depends on a high level of IQ and visuospatial abilities. This premise is not supported by empirical evidence. In 1927 Djakow et al. fi...

AI is driving the next evolution of chess, giving players a glimpse into game's future.

Although the importance of high motivation to engage in deliberate practice has been acknowledged, no research has directly tested this hypothesis. Therefore, the present study examined this relation in adolescent elite chess players by means of a questionnaire. In addition, to provide an explanation for dropout among promising chess players, differences in motivation between persistent and dro...

We examine data from over 6.6 million games of tournament chess between players rated by the international chess authority, FIDE. Previous research has focussed on the low representation of women in chess. We replicate and extend previous analysis (Chabris and Glickman, 2006) on an international level. We find no support for differential variability, differential drop-out between male and femal...

In 2006, Guid and Bratko carried out a computer analysis of games played by World Chess Champions in an attempt to assess as objective as possible one aspect of the playing strength of chess players of different times. The chess program CRAFTY was used in the analysis. Given that CRAFTY’s official chess rating is lower than the rating of many of the players analysed, the question arises to what...

ELO is the key performance indicator in chess, a global and worldwide measure of chess skills and strength of chess play. Since their invention, ELO-systems are intended to be comparable and unbiased, so that chess players can know their level of play and can compare it among systems and internationally. Moreover, ELO is the defining feature of grandmasters with legal implications. Thus, it is ...

Two types of mechanisms may underlie chess skill: fast mechanisms, such as recognition, and slow mechanisms, such as search through the space of possible moves and responses. Speed distinguishes these mechanisms, so I examined archival data on blitz chess (5 min for the whole game), in which the opportunities for search are greatly reduced. If variation in fast processes accounts for substantia...