Brain Power
Chess players burn a lot of calories.
It doesn’t look that way.
They’re just sitting there, right?
But gram for gram, our brain burns more calories than any other organ.
Our brain is a very resource intensive organ.
Chess players, if they don’t eat enough, lose a lot of pounds during chess tournaments.
In fact, all of our biases evolved to conserve brain energy.
All of the so-called “Cialdini” factors of influence are there mainly to keep our brains from using too much energy.
To give our ancestors effective shortcuts in thinking.
Just like a physical shortcut.
If you wanted to get from point A to B, and the main route was 4 miles, that would require a lot of energy.
But if you found a physical shortcut, that made it only 2 miles, whoever knew about that shortcut would save a lot of energy.
And have a significant advantage.
Impossible Shortcuts
Imagine having an arm wrestling contest.
Two different people.
And it was clear that one guy spent a lot of time creating and maintaining body strength.
The other guy, not so much.
It would be obvious who would win.
I saw this weird documentary about a guy who tried to create a “shortcut” in learning chess.
A bunch of memorized moves, derived from a cloud based “AI” chess match analysis system.
An allegedly fool proof way to “win” without having to put in the practice.
And for entertainment purposes, they had the dude who created this system play a game against Magnus Carlsen, five time world chess champion.
The AI computer guy was utterly destroyed by Carlsen.
Sometimes shortcuts work, sometimes they don’t.
But knowing when they are appropriate, and when they aren’t is, in itself, a brain intensive exercise.
Necessary Shortcuts
In our ancient past, all brain shortcuts were evolved when it was “us” vs. the environment.
Animals that didn’t want to be killed.
But when it’s human vs. human, like in a chess game, there aren’t really any shortcuts.
This is when practice and experience triumphs over everything.
And when it comes to practice and experience, there are two kinds.
The very specific kind, like playing chess.
And the very general kind.
In sports, specific practice would be specific moves in a specific sport.
General practice would be endurance, strength, flexibility, etc.
But what about in mental skills?
Brain Skills
What would be general practice skills?
Long game thinking.
Delayed gratification.
Strength of focus.
Strength of memory.
These can absolutely be practiced.
Giving you an advantage over pretty much everybody.
Learn How:
Mental Strength
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