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Using Japanese professional chess (Shogi) players’ records in the setting where various external factors are controlled in deterministic and finite games, this paper examines how and the extent to which the emergence of technological changes influences the ageing and innate ability of players’ winning probability. We gathered games of professional Shogi players from 1968 to 2019, which we divided into three periods: 1968–1989, 1990–2012 (the diffusion of as information and communications technology (ICT)) and 2013–2019 (artificial intelligence (AI)). We found (1) diffusion of AI reduces the impact of innate ability in players performance. Consequently, the performance gap among same-age players has narrowed; (2) in all the periods, players’ winning rates declined consistently from 20 years and as they get older; (3) AI accelerated the ageing decline of the probability of winning, which increased the performance gap among different aged players; (4) the effects of AI on the ageing decline and the probability of winning are observed for high innate skill players but not for low innate skill ones. The findings are specific to Shogi as a kind of board games although it is valuable to examine the extent to which the findings hold for other labor market.

Pattern recognition is one of the most important mechanisms of chess improvement. This is well known. But what does pattern recognition actually mean? And how can you improve at it? If you realize a position has similarities with something you have seen before, you are recognizing a pattern. This helps you to get to the essence of a position quickly and find the most promising continuation. To get better at recognizing chess patterns, knowing which positions are worth remembering will save lots of time and energy. In this book Arthur van de Oudeweetering supplies building blocks for your chess knowledge. In short chapters he presents lots of well-defined subjects, easy to remember because of their specific elements. After working with this book you will experience something wonderful: your mind and memory will be triggered much easier and more frequently. An increasing number of positions, pawn structures and piece placements will automatically activate your chess knowledge. As a result, you will simply find the right move more often and more quickly!

Stereotype threat has been offered as a potential explanation of differential performance between men and women in some cognitive domains. Questions remain about the reliability and generality of the phenomenon. Previous studies have found that stereotype threat is activated in female chess players when they are matched against male players. I used data from over 5.5 million games of international tournament chess and found no evidence of a stereotype-threat effect. In fact, female players outperform expectations when playing men. Further analysis showed no influence of degree of challenge, player age, nor prevalence of female role models in national chess leagues on differences in performance when women play men versus when they play women. Though this analysis contradicts one specific mechanism of influence of gender stereotypes, the persistent differences between male and female players suggest that systematic factors do exist and remain to be uncovered.

Background The relationship between participation in Ma-jong, chess, and card games (PMCC) and cognitive function improvement among middle-aged and elderly adults in China is not well-established. This study aims to investigate the potential association between PMCC participation and cognitive function improvement in this demographic, using data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS). Methods Data from the 2018 wave of CHARLS were analyzed. Participants aged 45 and above who met the inclusion criteria were categorized based on their participation in PMCC activities. Cognitive function was assessed using a composite score incorporating episodic memory and mental status, alongside CESD-10 and CSI-D measures. Cross-sectional associations between PMCC engagement and cognitive function were examined using t-tests, chi-square tests, and one-way ANOVA. Group differences were assessed to evaluate the relationship between activity frequency and cognitive outcomes. Results A total of 19,816 participants (47.13% male; mean age 61.7 ± 10.3 years) were included in the study. The cognitive function related scores were significantly higher in the PMCC group (16.45%) compared to the non-PMCC group (83.55%) ( P  < 0.001). Moreover, the findings revealed significant associations between PMCC frequency and overall cognitive function scores ( P  < 0.001). Conclusions PMCC activities are associated with cognitive function improvement in middle-aged and elderly adults in China. These findings suggest that engaging in PMCC activities could serve as a potential protective factor for enhancing cognitive health in this population, providing a basis for incorporating PMCC into strategies aimed at promoting cognitive well-being and healthy aging.

While there is strong evidence showing the survival advantage of elite athletes, much less is known about those engaged in mind sports such as chess. This study aimed to examine the overall as well as regional survival of International Chess Grandmasters (GMs) with a reference to the general population, and compare relative survival (RS) of GMs with that of Olympic medallists (OMs). Information on 1,208 GMs and 15,157 OMs, respectively, from 28 countries were extracted from the publicly available data sources. The Kaplan-Meier method was used to estimate the survival rates of the GMs. A Cox proportional hazards model was used to adjust the survival for region, year at risk, age at risk and sex, and to estimate the life expectancy of the GMs. The RS rate was computed by matching each GM or OM by year at risk, age at risk and sex to the life table of the country the individual represented. The survival rates of GMs at 30 and 60 years since GM title achievement were 87% and 15%, respectively. The life expectancy of GMs at the age of 30 years (which is near the average age when they attained a GM title) was 53.6 ([95% CI]: 47.7-58.5) years, which is significantly greater than the overall weighted mean life expectancy of 45.9 years for the general population. Compared to Eastern Europe, GMs in North America (HR [95% CI]: 0.51 [0.29-0.88]) and Western Europe (HR [95% CI]: 0.53 [0.34-0.83]) had a longer lifespan. The RS analysis showed that both GMs and OMs had a significant survival advantage over the general population, and there was no statistically significant difference in the RS of GMs (RS [95% CI]: 1.14 [1.08-1.20]) compared to OMs: (RS [95% CI]: 1.09 [1.07-1.11]) at 30 years. Elite chess players live longer than the general population and have a similar survival advantage to elite competitors in physical sports.

This paper investigates experimentally the relationship between inequality in endowment and deception. Our basic design is adopted from Gneezy (2005): two players interact in a deception game. It is common knowledge that player 1 has private information about the payoffs for both players of two alternative actions. Player 1 sends a message to player 2, indicating which alternative putatively will end up in a higher payoff for player 2. The message, which can either be true or false, does not affect the payoffs of the players. Player 2 has no information about the payoffs. However, player 2 selects one of the two alternatives A or B, which is payoff-relevant for both players. Our paper adds value to the literature by extending Gneezy (2005) in two ways. First, we systematically vary the initial endowment of players 1 and 2 (common knowledge to both of them). Second, we do not limit ourselves to the standard population of university students but also recruit chess players that are not enrolled in any degree program. Doing so, we want to find out if our results remain robust over a non-standard subject population which is known to be experienced to some extent in strategic interactions. Our main findings are: (i) non-students behave more honestly than students, (ii) students are more likely to trust the opponent’s message, and (iii) students and non-students behave differently to variation in initial endowment.

The present study aimed to analyze differences in the electroencephalogram (EEG) power spectrum (theta, alpha, and beta) between participants who won (winning group) and those who lost (losing group) in three different chess games: against their same Elo (100% chess games), 25% over their Elo (125% chess games), and 25% under their Elo (75% chess games). EEG was assessed at baseline and during the chess games. Method: 14 male chess players (age: 35.36 ± 13.77 and Elo: 1921 ± 170) played three games of 3 min, plus two additional seconds per move, while EEG was assessed. There were three difficulty levels (75%, 100%, and 125%), with two games (one with white pieces and another with black pieces) per level. The winning group showed higher theta power in the frontal, central, and posterior brain regions when difficulty increased (p-value < 0.05). Besides this, alpha power showed higher values (p-value < 0.05) in 125% games than in 75% chess games in C3, T3, T4, T5, and T6. The losing group showed a significant decrease (p-value < 0.05) in the beta and alpha power spectrum in frontal, central, parietotemporal, and occipital areas, when the opponent’s difficulty increased. Moreover, between groups, analyses showed higher theta power in the losing group than in the winning group, in C3, T5, T6, P4, and Pz (p-value < 0.05). Therefore, the winning group was able to adapt to each difficulty level, increasing theta power in the frontal, central, and posterior brain areas, as the efficiency hypothesis postulated. These changes were not observed in the losing group. Moreover, increases in alpha power during the most difficult games, in comparison with the easier, could have been caused by creative ideation and divergent thinking, as participants looked for alternative solutions against a higher-skilled opponent.

Asthma is the most common pediatric illness in the United States, burdening low-income and minority families disproportionately and contributing to high health care costs. Clinic-based asthma education and telephone case management have had mixed results on asthma control, as have eHealth programs and online games. To test the effects of (1) CHESS+CM, a system for parents and children ages 4-12 years with poorly controlled asthma, on asthma control and medication adherence, and (2) competence, self-efficacy, and social support as mediators. CHESS+CM included a fully automated eHealth component (Comprehensive Health Enhancement Support System [CHESS]) plus monthly nurse case management (CM) via phone. CHESS, based on self-determination theory, was designed to improve competence, social support, and intrinsic motivation of parents and children. We identified eligible parent-child dyads from files of managed care organizations in Madison and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA, sent them recruitment letters, and randomly assigned them (unblinded) to a control group of treatment as usual plus asthma information or to CHESS+CM. Asthma control was measured by the Asthma Control Questionnaire (ACQ) and self-reported symptom-free days. Medication adherence was a composite of pharmacy refill data and medication taking. Social support, information competence, and self-efficacy were self-assessed in questionnaires. All data were collected at 0, 3, 6, 9, and 12 months. Asthma diaries kept during a 3-week run-in period before randomization provided baseline data. Of 305 parent-child dyads enrolled, 301 were randomly assigned, 153 to the control group and 148 to CHESS+CM. Most parents were female (283/301, 94%), African American (150/301, 49.8%), and had a low income as indicated by child's Medicaid status (154/301, 51.2%); 146 (48.5%) were single and 96 of 301 (31.9%) had a high school education or less. Completion rates were 127 of 153 control group dyads (83.0%) and 132 of 148 CHESS+CM group dyads (89.2%). CHESS+CM group children had significantly better asthma control on the ACQ (d = -0.31, 95% confidence limits [CL] -0.56, -0.06, P = .011), but not as measured by symptom-free days (d = 0.18, 95% CL -0.88, 1.60, P = 1.00). The composite adherence scores did not differ significantly between groups (d = 1.48%, 95% CL -8.15, 11.11, P = .76). Social support was a significant mediator for CHESS+CM's effect on asthma control (alpha = .200, P = .01; beta = .210, P = .03). Self-efficacy was not significant (alpha = .080, P = .14; beta = .476, P = .01); neither was information competence (alpha = .079, P = .09; beta = .063, P = .64). Integrating telephone case management with eHealth benefited pediatric asthma control, though not medication adherence. Improved methods of measuring medication adherence are needed. Social support appears to be more effective than information in improving pediatric asthma control. Clinicaltrials.gov NCT00214383; http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00214383 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/68OVwqMPz).

Individual differences in memory performance in a domain of expertise have traditionally been accounted for by previously acquired chunks of knowledge and patterns. These accounts have been examined experimentally mainly in chess. The role of chunks (clusters of chess pieces recalled in rapid succession during recall of chess positions) and their relations to chess skill are, however, under debate. By introducing an independent chunk-identification technique, namely repeated-recall technique, this study identified individual chunks for particular chess players. The study not only tested chess players with increasing chess expertise, but also tested non-chess players who should not have previously acquired any chess related chunks in memory. For recall of game positions significant differences between players and non-players were found in virtually all the characteristics of chunks recalled. Size of the largest chunks also correlates with chess skill within the group of rated chess players. Further research will help us understand how these memory encodings can explain large differences in chess skill.