Susan Polgar Chess Daily News and Information: Blitz Changed My Brain

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Susan Polgar Chess Daily News and Information -- Bringing you updated, timely, fair, and objective chess daily news and information from around the globe -- www.ChessDailyNews.com

Blitz Changed My Brain Jun 28th 2013, 03:27 Speed Chess Changed My Brain Mastering the three-minute game saw improved skills in unexpected places, from poker to planking. Mark Samuelian Jun 24 2013, 6:10 PM ET The poker table was down to three players. I had a queen and a 10. It wasn't the strongest hand, but I'd been analyzing my opponents' playing patterns and knew I needed to send an aggressive signal. As soon as I saw the leader start to move, I went all in and pushed my pile of chips to the center of the table. Both folded. "You didn't even give me a chance to finish my bet," he exclaimed. By the end of the three-day MBA Poker championship held earlier this year at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas, I left with $1,000 in winnings. Yet what was even more satisfying was how I placed: I came in fifth out of 135 players Friday and third out of 35 players that Sunday. Those rankings aren't phenomenal, but they matter to me because of how much I improved. In the same tournament two years earlier, I had placed in the bottom half of players. Here's the mysterious part: I had barely even played poker over the last year, let alone worked at elevating my game. What I had played was chess. Specially, I knocked out some 2,000 games of speed (or "blitz") chess in the two months leading up to the tournament. In fact, I played so much that I'm currently in the top half-percent of more than 1.3 million of blitz players at an online chess competition site. I've always thought of chess as my game, and I was ranked as a national master at age 16. I'd simply come to accept that I would always be an average poker player. Chess has generated a lot of buzz lately as a learning tool to help children and young adults improve their decision-making ability, concentration, personal responsibility, and sportsmanship. As a supporter of a New York City charity that promotes chess in schools, I've been delighted to see the popularity of the game surge across the nation, especially as a slew of studies link chess with higher grades and better reading comprehension. Chess nights are being held at urban recreation centers. There's even a chess camp for girls to help them become interested in the game. And globally, the ages of the latest crops of chess grand masters are getting younger and younger. Full article here. Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar

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