Genius and the Power of Mental Visualization

For the first time in my life, I played not merely with my hands, but with my mind.
— Dr. B., Chess Novella

In Stefan Zweig’s Chess Novella, the reigning world chess champion, Czentovic, is on board a ship from New York to Buenos Aires, and is challenged to a game by a group of passengers. The passengers, realizing they are outmatched, seek assistance from another passenger, Dr. B., who, to everyone’s surprise, manages to draw the game against Czentovic. Dr. B. later reveals his story: he was imprisoned by the Nazis and kept in solitary confinement. To maintain his sanity, he stole a chess book from a guard’s coat.

“In those days I played hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions of games, all on my own, but against myself, splitting into two personalities.”

This intense training regime made him a formidable player…but it also drove him to the brink of madness.

Playing chess in your mind, painted by DALL-E.

Zweig’s story is a great example of two important concepts in human and artificial learning: Dr.B. improved his chess by building a powerful internal representation of the chess board and the intricacies of the game, splitting his mind apart, and leveraging that representation to improve his understanding of the game via self-play.

“I knew the board and the pieces better than the palm of my hand; they were…