How Chess can sharpen your Wits
Speaker: You did a lot of research for this book, and you've also written a book about Alzheimer's so what's the nexus there, how do these two things come together, Alzheimer's and chess?
David Shenk: Right. Well, everyone in the Alzheimer's community is searching for a way to prevent Alzheimer's, and it turns out one important way. It's not a sure-fire, but you need to use your brain, as you get older, particularly, you need to exercise your brain in anyway. The more exercise you get in your brain, it's just like keeping your mind fit. The better off you are, the better chance you stand of preventing diseases like Alzheimer's.
Speaker: It certainly makes sense.
David Shenk: Sure.
Speaker: I mean, if you're keeping your mind active, then maybe you're warding off potential problems and chess is particularly good for this.
David Shenk: It turns out to be a particularly good brain builder, it's a fairly easy game to learn if you want to. It takes a little while but you can learn it, but the possibilities of play are endless, you never run out of that challenge. It's not like you play for a year and then you get bored of that.
Speaker: I was surprised to read that the number of possible combinations on a board is -- what is the number?
David Shenk: 10120.
Speaker: So you're never going to run out of game.
David Shenk: No person and no computer will ever be able to really touch the Tipply (ph) for the chess. So it keeps going.
Speaker: Wow! When should you start playing, I mean, is it good to start as a young person, get your kids into chess?
David Shenk: The earlier the better, absolutely. We now have studies. They've been thinking that this probably was true for a long time, but now they have the studies to show, that particularly for young kids, chess is like a Stairmaster for logical thinking. I mean, it helps you build your logical thinking and think symbolically which of course is what intelligence is based on.
Speaker: Well, tell me more about what it is about chess that's exercising your brain because you actually looked into one of your ancestors and the study was your great, great grandfather. He was a chessmaster and was part of a study where they were trying to figure out how chessmasters think, how their brain is working.
David Shenk: That's right, and this is by the famous psychologist Binet, 100 years ago in France, and it turned out -- he wanted to know what makes a great memory. So he studied a lot of different groups, particularly chessmasters, and he thought he was going to find that they had this photographic memory, this used to be the old that we could think.
Speaker: That they would memorize the board.
David Shenk: That's right. You just have the snapshots. The great thinkers had these amazing snapshots. That's really not how memory works, and chess helped Binet to understand that it's more of a pattern recognition. So if we think about in terms of music, it's not the individual notes, it's more that you recognize the cores of the melody. It helps you think farther and faster than the next person.
Speaker: So when a great player is playing chess, what are they seeing or how are they computing the game?
David Shenk: Partly because of how much they play, partly because of their ability to recognize patterns. They are not just seeing a bunch of distinct pieces and having to calculate what every little piece will do, they are seeing the pieces that are working together. They are seeing patterns the way we see words or phrases or musical melodies in other walks of life.
Speaker: With your understanding of Alzheimer's from the other book that you wrote, are there other games that would -- I mean, checkers or backgammon or the puzzles?
David Shenk: Anything that's challenging is great. If you find it boring it's not going to do you any good. If you find it challenging, if it's a new language, if it's chess, anything that's truly challenging will be great.
Speaker: It can be helpful. You have to tell the story about your great, great grandfather, because there is a little more to it, and that was so fascinating for me to read about. You actually traced back some of your own ancestors --
David Shenk: That's right.
Speaker: -- and made links that you had --
David Shenk: Yeah, I mean, as far as I knew was a myth, the guy didn't even exist, right. So I wanted to know and they said that there was his watch that he had been given by one of the Napoleons and I ended up tracking that down and now I'm actually back together with -- a part of my family I didn't even know existed.
Speaker: Oh, there is the watch --
David Shenk: -- until I've got a better of that.
Speaker: I've got a better picture of that, yeah.
David Shenk: Yeah. So now, actually chess and way I couldn't have anticipated when I started writing the book has brought my own family together.
Speaker: That's great! Are you a good player?
David Shenk: I'm very mediocre.
Speaker: Let's see your first move, give me your first move.
David Shenk: I would go e4 probably but --
Speaker: That's what I've been trying, right, and then I do the counter there.
David Shenk: Yeah, well, then I probably move the knight, I probably move the knight, but --
Speaker: We'll be going here all day, exercising our minds. If you want to read a chapter of this new book 'The Immortal Game: A History of Chess', you can log onto our website, that's at abcnews.com. Thanks so much, very interesting!
David Shenk: Thank you.
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