Chunking Theory in Chess

by Bill Wall

Chess has one of the

longest legacies of any
game or sport and
known for its
intellectual depth,
going back to 1905 and
Alfred Binet in the first
work on chess
psychology. Chess has
well-documented
cognitive and
educational benefits Bill Wall
and how it can be used
to study common
abilities and tasks in
life. The study of chess
players can be related
to mental imagery and Chess is like a language.
problem-solving. By The top players are very
looking how strong fluent at it. Talent can be
chess players approach developed scientifically,
chess problems and but you have to find first
positions in a game of what you are good at.-
chess, researchers can Viswanathan Anand
better understand (1969- )
cognitive processes
like perception,
memory, and
visualization. One of
these areas of research
deals with the chunking
theory in chess and
how strong players
show remarkable
memory with their
ability to reconstruct a
chess position of many
pieces after viewing it
for just a few seconds.
Chunking in
psychology is a process
by which individual
pieces of information
are bound together into
a meaningful whole. A
chunk is defined as a
familiar collection of
more elementary units
that have been inter-
associated and stored in
memory repeatedly and
act as a coherent,
integrated group when
retrieved. For example,
instead of remembering
strings of letters such
as E-L-O-F-I-D-E-U-S-
C-F, chess players will
find it easier to
remember the chunks
Elo-FIDE-USCF
consisting of the same
letters.

Chunking is a grouping
together of a number of
pieces and has been
attributed as the main
mechanism that
differentiates novices
from chess
Grandmasters with
regard to chess skill.
Expert players acquire
knowledge of chunks
by studying master
chess games. This
knowledge assists the
player to select the
right move without the
need to search many
moves ahead.
A chunk in chess is a
unit of information in
long-term memory
containing a
meaningful grouping of
some of the chess
pieces on squares
(POSs) that appear on a
chessboard, plus
associated moves and
ideas. It is a patterned
cluster of chess pieces.
The action of chunking
is the grouping together
of chess pieces. Chess
chunk examples would
be a castled position
(kingside or
queenside), or a
fianchettoed bishop, or
a familiar pawn chain,
or common bank-rank
piece positions. A
chunk representing a
standard castled white
king can be represented
as the set {Rf1, Kg1,
Pf2, Pg2, Ph2}. These
five pieces can make
up to 31 different
chunks.

A castled king position

with the knight
developed in the f3
square can be
represented as the set
{Rf1, Kg1, Nf3, Pf2,
Pg2, Ph2}, which
represents one chess
chunk. That is now 6
pieces that any
moderate chess player
can remember. Any
good chess player can
recognize all 6 pieces
that can be put on 6
squares of the 64
possible squares on a
chess board in seconds.
But someone who is
not familiar with the
castled position with a
knight develop to f3
would have trouble
remembering it. I could
even add 7 pieces with
a fianchettoed bishop
and a castled king with
(Rf1, Kg1, Nf3, Pf2,
Bg2, Pg3, Ph2} and
any good chess player
could recreate this
position on a board in
seconds after seeing the
position in just a few
seconds. This would
represent another well-
known chess chunk.

A chunk is a long-term
memory symbol that
has arbitrary subparts
and properties, and can
be used as a processing
unit. Each chunk can
be retrieved by a single
act of recognition.
According to chunking
theory, first introduced
by Chase & Simon in
1973, pairs of pieces
that have numerous
relations are more
likely to be noticed
together, or chunked. It
takes at least two
seconds to retrieve a
new chunk of
information. A chess
master's vocabulary is
over 50,000 acquired
chunks, which is
similar to the number
of words used in many
languages. A
grandmaster has
learned an estimated
300,000 chunks.

A chess player stores

chunks in long-term
memory, but the
chunks are processed
through short term or
working memory. A
master can store about
3-5 chunks of working
memory at any one
time. To visualize the
entire board and hold
in short-term memory
requires a strong player
seeing the entire chess
position in only 3
chunks. Therefore, the
chunks need to be quite
large as more pieces
are on the board.

It is proposed that
chess masters perceive
and remember 'chunks'
of chess pieces in
frequently occurring
configurations. It is this
knowledge that gives
the master the ability to
focus quickly on the
right move when
selecting a move.
When confronted with
a difficult chess
position, a weaker
player may calculate
for half an hour, often
looking many moves
ahead, yet miss the
right continuation. A
grandmaster will see
the right move
immediately, without
consciously analyzing
anything at all. A
novice will take more
time and double check
his moves, but a master
will move faster (and
have greater chunks in
long-term memory),
having confidence in
his move decision.

Much of the evidence

of chunking in chess is
taken from
psychological
experiments such as
Adriaan de Groot's
memory test on master
and novice chess
players. Dozens of
experiments have
shown that chess
masters (but not
novices) are able to
reconstruct meaningful
chess positions after
rapid glances almost
perfectly, but cannot
reconstruct with the
same ease a random
scrambling of the chess
pieces found in a
position. Masters only
slightly do better than
amateurs in
reconstructing random
chess positions after a
few seconds of
glancing at the
position. Further
experiments have
shown that masters can
reconstruct an
unfamiliar game with
22 pieces after viewing
it for 5 seconds with
about 93% accuracy.
Masters (rated over
2200) have an 81%
accuracy. Experts
(rated 2000 to 2200)
have an accuracy of
72%. Class A players
(1800-2000) have an
accuracy of 51% and
novices have an
accuracy of 33%. It
seems that real chess
positions carry deep
meaning, but random
chess positions do not.
Advanced chess
players remember
pieces in structured
positions, and that
pieces are remembered
as groups or chunks
rather than the
individual pieces
together.

Chess masters have

access in their memory
to a large database of
these stored chess
patterns, or chunks as
they are called. These
chess chunks are
associated with
plausible plans and
ideas as they play over
a game of chess and try
to recall past patterns.
A chunk usually
consists of 3 to 6
pieces, and the size of
the stored chunks is
positively correlated
with skill. Both novices
and masters can retain
as many as 7 (plus or
minus 2) chunks in
short-term memory, but
the more skilled
players can make better
use of their short-term
memory because they
have the right chunks
available, have more
experience, and have
practiced longer. Thus,
the difference in chess
skill is based on
differences in the
number and the size of
the chunks stored in
long-term memory.

Positions taken from

master chess games
(random chess
positions could not be
remembered very well)
were examined by
grandmasters and
novices. Grandmasters
were able to remember
almost every pieces of
a presented positions
perfectly while novices
could barely place 50%
of the pieces correctly
on a new board after
examining the position
between 2 to 15
seconds. Masters do
not encode chess
positions as isolated
pieces. Rather, they see
the positions as large,
dynamic complexes
which also include
empty squares, because
the empty places play
an important role in
reconstructing the
exact position. The
ability of the masters to
encode these large
complexes is based on
the amount of
knowledge and
experience that they
have acquired over
time from lots of chess
practices and study.
Masters recall bigger
chunks and more
chunks than novices,
and they store that
information in their
long-term memory.

From the original

chunking theory, the
concept of a chunk was
later expanded to more
complex and large
retrieval structures,
called templates.
Templates are formed
if positions re-occur
frequently and can
contain free variables
such as pointers to
symbols representing
plans, moves,
strategical and tactical
concepts. The template
theory is that masters
encode knowledge as
relations between
chunks and store other
information besides the
location of the pieces.
These common
patterns of specific
chess pieces on squares
are fundamental for
recognition.

Chess masters rely on

chunks and templates
and not on purely
visual information of
pieces on squares to
retrieve relevant
information from long-
term memory.
Furthermore, abstract-
level relations
(sacrificial
combinations) and
analogies from past
positions and games
become more
important to the chess
master. Chess masters
and grandmasters excel
because their
representations are on a
high level of
abstraction and not
based on chunking
alone. Chess masters
rely on abstract
representations in their
chess positions while
non-experts
concentrate on
superficial abstracts.

To account why chess

masters can play high
quality chess games in
blitz chess (2 to 5
minutes), masters
access information in
their long-term
memory (LTM) rapidly
by recognizing familiar
patterns of chess pieces
on the board. These
common chess patterns
act as cues that trigger
access to the chess
chunks. Because these
chunks are associated
with possible moves,
masters can usually
choose good or best
moves with very little
look-ahead search.
Chess masters perform
very well in recall tasks
of possible chess
positions that might
show up in a real game
because storing one
chunk on short-term
memory (STM) gives
access to a number of
pieces. However, it is
too hard to chunk
positions with no
meaning or purely
random. There is no
pattern to base these
random positions on.
Recall of random
positions is almost
equal among masters
and novices, with less
than a 50% success
rate.

Experiments have been

done with unrated
amateurs to strong
masters on grouping
positions (pair the
chess positions which
intuitively seemed
similar) for 20
middlegame or
endgame positions. The
pieces and their
respective positions on
the chess board were
very similar. Novices
almost always paired
positions based on
visual similarity, while
masters grouped the
positions into abstract
pairs, such as an
endgame with bishops
of the same color,
endgames with bishops
of opposite color, or
material gain was
possible due to a
double attack. Masters
were able to associate
positions with future
development and plans.
Chess amateurs were
unable to do this. What
differentiated masters
and novices was the
level of abstraction at
which positions can be
represented.

Another experiment
with a different group
of experts and novices
performed the same
test as above, but was
asked to label the
characteristics of the
position pairs that they
paired. Most of the
novices grouped their
pairs as visual
similarity. But the
experts were able to
group their pairs as
checkmate in one
move, endgame with
opposite colored
bishops, endgame with
bishops of the same
color, pawn endgame,
passed pawn in the
pawn ending. None of
the novices were able
to label and categorize
the paired positions
like the experts.

It is interesting to note
that chess masters will
describe a position by
the type of opening or
main strategic plans,
but almost never
mention clusters of
pieces sharing relations
of defense, attack, or
proximity. Chunks of
pieces are missing from
their description, either
because they are so
self-evident to a
master, or they may not
have verbal labels for
these perceptual units.

The chess master not

only has more chunks
in long-term memory,
can retrieve the chunks
faster, but have also
stored many more
move sequences. Chess
masters have thousands
of sequences of
opening moves stored
away in long-term
memory. Grandmaster
have thousands of
opening variations,
sometimes running 20
moves deep or more,
committed to memory.
There are also
thousands of traps and
winning combinations
of moves that every
master knows.

One aspect of chess is

unexplained by
chunking theory.
Blindfold chess is
where a player can play
an entire chess game
(sometimes multiple
games) without looking
at the chess board (and
repeat all the moves
after the game).
Playing blindfold chess
requires access in
memory to a
tremendous amount of
information. Most
novices are incapable
of playing even a
handful of moves
blindfolded, never
mind a whole game.
However, many
masters and
grandmasters can do it
effortlessly. There have
been several players
who have played over
40 chess boards
simultaneously
blindfolded. In fact,
studies have shown that
there are no significant
differences between
chess play during rapid
(15 minutes) blindfold
chess and regular rapid
chess among
grandmasters.
According to chunking
theory, the master's
short-term memory
would be completely
filled at any given
point in a blindfold
game, so the master
should not be able to
calculate or plan, but
this is not the case.

The key to becoming a

strong player is to learn
chess positions, and
learn lots of them.
Learn what moves
work in these positions
and what moves are
bad or contribute to
anything in these
positions. The learning
of patterns or chunks is
dependent on repetition
and timing. The
patterns to learn are the
opening patterns, early
middlegame patterns,
positional patterns,
tactical patterns,
strategic endgame
patterns, and technical
endgame patterns. My
books on chess
miniatures and traps
would be a good start
to look at opening
patterns and tactical
patterns.

References:

Adesman and Frey,

Recall Memory for
Visually Presented
Chess Positions,
Memory & Cognition,
1976
Atlas, Berger, Cooke
and Lane, The role of
high-level knowledge
in memory for chess
positions, American
Journal of Psychology,
pp. 321-351, 1993
Berger, Cognitive
Organization in Chess:
Beyond Chunking,
AFIT Thesis, 1989
Bilalic and Gobet, The
influence of instruction
on chess expert
perception, Cognitive
Science, 33(5) pp. 743-
747, 2009
Brum and Linhares,
Understanding Our
Understanding of
Strategic Scenarios:
What Role Do Chunks
Play? Cognitive
Science, 31, pp. 989-
1007, 2007
Chabris and Hearst,
Visualization, pattern
recognition, and
forward search: Effects
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sight of the position on
grandmaster chess
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2003
Chase and Simon,
Perception in chess,
Cognitive Psychology,
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Cook, Chunk Learning
and Move Prompting:
Making Moves in
Chess, 2008
Cook, Computational
Chunking in Chess,
PhD Thesis, 2011
de Groot, Thought and
Choice in Chess, 1946,
1965, and 1978
Freyhoff, Gruber, and
Ziegler, Expertise and
hierarchical knowledge
representation in chess,
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Skill, 1990
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A Simulation for Chess
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Gobet and Simon,
Templates in Chess
Memory, Cognitive
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1-40, 1996
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Expert Chess Memory:
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Memory, 6(3), pp. 225-
255, 1998
Gobet, Lane, and
Smith, Checking Chess
Checks with Chunks: A
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Proceedings of the 9th
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2009
Gold, Opwis, and
Schneider, Chess
expertise and memory
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children and adults,
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Experimental Child
Psychology, 1992
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chess skill,
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1992
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Categorization and
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What role do chunks
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Analyzing the
dynamics of free recall,
Psychonomic Bulletin
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PhD Dissertation, 2008
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coding in chess,
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Experimental
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607-630, 1994
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recall chess positions,
2012

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