MINI ESSAY

When You Just Know The Answer

Intuition is real, but not everywhere

Image by Clark Van Der Beken

On Intuition, Recall, and Skill-Acquisition

An example of how Gobet and Simon turned a real chess position (left) into a contrived one (right) by swapping quadrants of the board. Note the placement of the white king with three pawns for context.

He [Fischer] used half his allotted time in 5-minute chess and scored 19 out of 22 against some of the strongest players in the world, including three past world champions Petrosian, Tal, and Smyslov. After the tournament, he rattled off the moves of all 22 games he played without a mistake

…To the experienced player, chess is not a random bunch of moves, but is as meaningful as a literary work, like reciting a poem. The logical sequence of moves links them together in memory as are verses by their cadence.

Predictability

A glimpse into the science of skill-acquisition, and the environments that allow for mastery (Source)

Repetition

Verifiability

Intuitive No Man’s Land

An excerpt from a 2013 paper by Metaxas et al. highlighting a testimony from a commentator (Source)

Where We Stand

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I write about things every week(ish).

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