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Chess experts are known for their remarkable ability to recall configurations of chess pieces on a board. For decades, neurological experts have investigated how this memory functions and whether it can be applied to information beyond the gameboard.

To further probe this topic, researchers from The University of Texas at Dallas Center for Vital Longevity (CVL) turned to the UTDallas chess team. Since the chess programs inception in 1996, 24 Grandmasters and International Masters have played for the UTDallas team, which has competed in the Presidents Cup known as the Final Four of College Chess in 17 of the last 21 seasons.

Dr. Chandramallika Basak

The researchers tested 14 chess team members, along with 15 chess novices, on rapid-fire processing of visuospatial information in working memory.

Their findings, published June 14 in Memory and Cognition, help pinpoint the strengths and limitations of the subjects recall framework and how that framework can be applied to human cognition in general.

Prior studies have shown that chess experts advantage in visual memory is limited to chess pieces on chess boards, said corresponding author Dr. Chandramallika Basak, associate professor of psychology in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences. We wanted to see whether the expertise generalizes beyond chess pieces to unfamiliar, new stimuli, and where does this expertise break down for immediate memory.

Chess masters visual short-term memory for arrangements that can occur in chess has been of particular interest to cognitive scientists, said Basak, director of the Lifespan Neuroscience and Cognition Laboratory.

Its almost like chess experts have snapshots of these positions they demonstrate remarkable visuospatial working memory, given that the information is presented for less than half a second, she said. But is it driven by the visual aspects or spatial aspects of what they saw? Or a combination of both?

Evan T. Smith, a UTDallas cognition and neuroscience doctoral student, is the papers lead author. He described the difference between working and long-term memory as analogous to the gap between whats on top of your desk and whats filed away in a cabinet.

Evan T. Smith

The existing theory is that chess players have so thoroughly memorized and categorized board configurations that their long-term memory for this information functions like working memory, he said.

The researchers collaborated with Jim Stallings, director of the UTDallas chess program, to bring test subjects on board from the team.

Dr. Basaks study varies from other chess studies done with youngsters, Stallings said. This study goes directly to chess expertise and working memory. I look forward to sharing the results with the chess community.

The control group included UTDallas students of similar age and education level to the chess players who had never formally learned how to play chess.

In each test, participants saw a two-dimensional chessboard with a number of pieces displayed for three-tenths of a second. After a one-second pause, they saw a second chessboard and had to decide if there had been a change.

The tests were conducted with standard chess pieces and with novel, unfamiliar symbols. Basak said that this switch helped to determine if the chess players memory abilities were domain specific to chess or domain general to a wider range of objects.

One series of tests asks about changes in location; the second asks if the objects the pieces themselves have changed, Basak said. A third test incorporates changes in location or changes in object, or both, or no change at all. Finally, the grid of the board is removed.

The researchers found that while both chess experts and novices performed better with chess stimuli than with the unfamiliar symbols, the experts, for the most part, outperformed the control group for both chess stimuli and for the new objects particularly when detecting positional changes.

Section A of this figure from the Memory and Cognition article shows how each trial works: An initial configuration appears for three-tenths of a second, followed by a one-second pause. The three different trial types then could change an objects identity, location, or both. Section B shows the chess stimuli and novel stimuli used. Section C shows a trial with the grid removed.

When changing the identity of the objects, however, but not location, the chess players advantage was limited to the chess pieces. They performed no better than the control group at remembering when the identity of the novel symbols changed.

You would expect that this advantage that chess players have is related to a familiarity with the chess pieces or the chess players expectation of what they are about to see, Basak said. But results from our study say otherwise. It seems like the chess players can rapidly process a chessboard-like layout in a very holistic manner, like the brain does with faces. The next step in our research may be to do a functional MRI study to see if the face-processing regions of the brain are also used for chess.

The experiments also were split into tests using fewer than four pieces which is within the normal limits of an average persons focus of attention and five to eight pieces. With the larger number of pieces, long-term memory should come into play. The chess experts performed better than the controls in the tests with more pieces.

We observed an eight-item working-memory capacity for chess experts, Basak said. We assume that ties back to the idea that chess players are viewing the board and the set of positions as a single object, as they would recognize a face.

The grid-versus-no-grid portion of the study something that Basak said has not been examined before produced some of the more striking results.

The grid is the linchpin that supports the scaffolding of this memory structure, Smith said.

Basak added: Any expertise-related advantage disappeared in the absence of the chessboard display. It appears to be essential, acting as a road map, a familiar framework to aid the memory.

Collectively, the results indicate that visuospatial memory advantages associated with chess expertise extend beyond chess stimuli in certain circumstances, particularly to position changes with between five to eight items. But the grid appears to be necessary for experts to leverage these advantages.

We cannot generalize our findings beyond what we tested, so we cannot claim, based on our data, that chess experts will be better at studying for school, Basak said. But their advantage does go beyond chess pieces, provided the grid remains. We believe this indicates that experts are automatically encoding spatial-relational information.

Other contributors to the research were Dr. Daniel Krawczyk, UT Dallas professor of psychology, holder of the Debbie and Jim Francis Chair in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, deputy director of the Center for BrainHealth and associate professor of psychiatry at UT Southwestern Medical Center; and Dr. James Bartlett, a distinguished scholar in cognitive neuroscience and cognitive psychology and a longtime UTDallas faculty member who played a key role in the beginning of the project. Bartlett died in 2019.

Jim Bartlett played a big role in designing the experiments and in bringing Jim Stallings and the chess team on board, Basak said. He was a mentor, friend and valued collaborator, and we dedicate this publication in honor of his memory.

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Where Is the Endgame in Chess Experts' Visual Memory Abilities? - University of Texas at Dallas

Anticipation was in the air that bright October afternoon in 1987 at Pala, a bustling town in central Kerala known for its rubber plantations. Some 40 young chess players had come from across Kerala for the State junior championship.

For some of us, it was our first big tournament. So, the fact that we were playing at such an event was cause for excitement.

But there was another reason why we were so excited that afternoon: we were to meet Viswanathan Anand, who had recently been crowned the world junior champion in the Philippines. The States chess association was felicitating him.

Anand had come along with his mother, who used to accompany him for tournaments those days. He also took part in an exhibition event called simultaneous display, a term that has now become familiar because of a recent controversy following an online fundraiser.

In simultaneous chess, a strong player takes on several less talented opponents, ranging from 15 to 50 mostly, at the same time. There have been instances of Grandmasters playing against hundreds, too. In fact, Irans Ehsan Ghaem Maghami set a world record in 2011 when he took on 604 players at Tehran (for the record, he won 580 of them, drew 16 and lost eight).

Usually the number is much lower. The player makes a move on one board and then goes to the next one. While the multiple participants get plenty of time, the strong player has to make his calculations quickly. But as the statistics from Maghamis simultaneous display suggest, the Grandmaster wins most of the games. Grandmasters can defeat a large number of opponents even while playing blindfolded.

At Pala, if I remember correctly, Anand won all games but two.

He did, in due course, go on to win games more important than that in a career that has had few parallels in world sport.

As a reporter of The Hindu, I have written on some of his finest moments over the years. I have also been privileged to interview him on several occasions, including a memorable one at his residence in Chennai three years ago. He greeted me with the same friendly smile which I first saw in Pala three decades ago.

It was a pleasure listening to him talk for well over two hours. Anand is one of the greatest minds of our time. The entire chess world and those who have come across him anywhere would agree that he is an incredibly nice, polite, humble gentleman, on whose head sit lightly five world championships and the credit for single-handedly revolutionising chess in India.

It is little wonder then everyone felt bad when news emerged earlier this month that some of Anands celebrity opponents had cheated, using the computer, during the simultaneous display organised by chess.com to raise funds for COVID-19 relief.

It would count among Indian sports great fiascos. Anand didnt deserve to be treated like that. The celebrity event featuring film stars, singers and businessmen was supposed to gain publicity for chess, which isnt as popular in India as other sports like cricket or football. It generated publicity alright, but of the negative kind.

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Of Anand, simultaneous chess and the cheating controversy - The Hindu

While others have come close, GM Anton Korobov became the first player to score 10.5/11 in Titled Tuesday, earning him a full-point tournament victory on June 22. GM Aryan Tari came in second with 9.5/11 on a tiebreak over GM Oleksandr Bortnyk. Rounding out the top five was GM David Howell in fourth with 9/11 on the tiebreak over GM Aleksandar Indjic.

583 titled players participated in this week's Titled Tuesday, the exact same number as last week. The tournament was the typical 11-round Swiss with a 3+1 time control.

The live broadcast of the tournament, hosted this week by GM Aman Hambleton.

Korobov started with 9/9, including wins over GM Hikaru Nakamura in round six, GM Daniil Dubov in round eight, and Tari in round nine. He was finally held to a draw by Bortnyk in the 10th round.

Korobov's win over Dubov in the battle of 7/7 scores was perhaps his best game of the event. He obtained a strong position out of the Exchange Grunfeld and found a Puzzle Rush-like checkmate, which he got to play on the board for a 31-move win.

In the 11th and final round, Korobov only needed a draw to clinch outright tournament victory. His opponent, GM Vladimir Onischuk, needed a win to move up in the standings, however. Korobov won as Black from a drawish position to set the Titled Tuesday scoring record.

Also in the final round, Tari defeated Dubov and Bortnyk took down Nakamura to lock up their top-three finishes. Bortnyk's win was particularly impressive, as he built up up a winning attack without much time on the clock.

There was also an interesting positional game in round six that Hambleton called a "really, really nice game" on the live broadcast. Argentina's GM Federico Perez Ponsa defeated FM Roman Yanchenko.

June 22 Titled Tuesday | Final Standings (Top 20)

(Full final standings here.)

Korobov won $750 for first place, Tari $400 for finishing second, Bortnyk $150 for third place, and Howell taking $100 for fourth. GM Aleksandra Goryachkina, who scored 8/11, took the $100 prize for the top female player.

Titled Tuesday is Chess.com's weekly tournament for titled players. It begins at 10 a.m. Pacific time/19:00 Central European every Tuesday.

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Korobov Wins June 22 Titled Tuesday With Record-Setting Performance - Chess.com

Sometimes even a shooting star can leave a permanent mark in the sky.

John Jarecki had a brief but notable chess career in the 1980s, holding the record for a time as the youngest American player to earn the title of master. But as so often happens, Jarecki decided against the life of a full-time chess player and decided to pursue other career paths.

But he would have a major impact on the game in an unexpected way through his mother. Carol Jarecki, who died June 13 at the age of 86, went from toting her kid to weekend Swisses in New Jersey to becoming one of the premier organizers and international match arbiters of the past four decades. (A nurse, a licensed pilot and with her late husband, Richard, a notable student of how to win at the roulette table, a nice summary of her remarkable life can be found at Chess Life Online).

Jarecki was an invaluable resource for this columnist at the 1995 PCA world title match at the top of the World Trade Center between Garry Kasparov and Viswanathan Anand, oversaw numerous Olympiads and U.S. national events, and was the arbiter for the celebrated second Kasparov-Deep Blue match in 1997. Her storied career is another useful reminder that our game could not exist without the people who rent the playing halls, police the boards, and update the wallcharts.

John Jarecki played some notable games in his too-brief career, and even represented the British Virgin Islands in a number of Olympiads. His best performance was at the 26th Olympiad in 1984 in Thessaloniki, Greece, going 11-3 on Board 2. He scored a nice win against Paraguayan master Alejandro Bogda, a taut Sicilian Scheveningen in which young Jareckis tactical acumen wins out in the end.

White tries to get his kingside attack rolling, but Black beats him to the counterpunch: 18. g4?! (already restraining lines such as 18. Rd1 Bf6 19. Rd3 were in order) Bf6 19. Nd1 Bh4! (alertly switching gears to exploit some combinational opportunities) 20. Nf2 d5 (the classic Sicilian freeing move, though also good was 20e5 21. g5 exf4 22. Bxf4 Nde5, with a clear edge) 21. Rd1 Bxf2, and after a series of more or less forces moves, Jarecki winds up after 26. Qf3 Qd7 with domination of the open d-file.

With a positional plus, Black does not fear the tactical complications on 27. Nd2 (a5 Qd1+ 28. Rf1 Qxf3+ 29. Rxf3 Rd1+ 30. Kg2 Nxa5) Qxa4! 28. b3 Qa1 29. Nxc4 Qxc1+ 30. Kg2 b5 31. Ne5 Nd5, emerging a clear pawn to the good. Whites desperate attempts to gin up an attack predictably backfire: 37. Ne4+ Kh8 38. Nxf5 (see diagram) Ne5! 39. Qf4 (Rxe5 Qxh2+ 40. Qh3 Qxe5), and Bogda resigned not needing to see 39Ng6+ (also cute is 39g5+! 40. Qxg5 Nf3+ and wins) 40. Kh5 Nxh4+ 41. Kh4 g5 mate.

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The COVID-19 shutdown of the global chess scene came at a particularly bad time for U.S. GM Sam Shankland. Shankland had a breakthrough year at the board in 2018 including his first U.S. national championship and a dominating win in the Capablanca Memorial but has had trouble building on that success as the tournaments dried up and the game moved online.

Happily, we can report that the California GM looks to be back on track to judge from his convincing 51/2-11/2 win at the recent Prague International Chess Festival over a quality field. Its a result that will put him comfortably above the 2700-rating mark once more.

Shankland combined accuracy and aggression in a fine Four Knights English win at the event over Czech GM David Navara.

The fight for the center breaks out in earnest with 16. Nd2 Rad8 17. d4 c6 18. f4 exf4 19. gxf4 f5 20. e5 c5, and Black emerges with a slight pull given the unhappy state of Navaras bishop on b2. White compounds his problems with 25. dxc5 Bxc5 26. Qb5? (either 26. a5 or 26. Bc1, going into a defensive crouch, was indicated) Be3! 27. Rxd8 Rxd8, when 28. Bc1?? Rd1+ exposes the clumsiness of Whites set-up.

After 28. a5 Nc4 29. a6 bxa6 30. Qxa6 Bd5, Whites big pieces on the queenside are a sorry spectacle as Blacks kingside pressure builds. Shankland doesnt miss his chance: 31. Rd1 Bd2 32. Bc1 (Nxd2 Qxd1+; 32. Rxd2 Nxd2 33. Nxd2 Bxg2+34. Kxg2 Rxd2+ 35. Kg3 Qg4 mate) Kh8! (a nice bit of housekeeping to avoid any annoying checks ahead of the final assault; the tempting 32Qg4?! is bad because of 33. Rxd2 Nxd2 34. Qa5 Rd7 35. Qc5!, defending because of the threat of 36. Qc8+) 33. Rxd2 Nxd2 34. Qa5 Rd7, and White resigns as his position collapses; e.g. 35. Nxd2 (Bxd2 Bxf3 36. Qa2 Bxg2+ 37. Kxg2+ Qe2+; or 35. Qa6 Nxf3 36. Qc8+ Bg8 37. Bxf3 [Qxd7 Qxh2 mate] Qxf3+ 38. Kg1 Rd1 mate) Qd1+ 36. Nf1 Qxf1 mate.

Bogda-Jarecki, 26th Olympiad, Thessaloniki, Greece, November 1984

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 d6 6. Be2 Be7 7. O-O O-O 8. Be3 Nc6 9. Kh1 Qc7 10. f4 Na5 11. Qd3 a6 12. a4 Rd8 13. Rae1 b6 14. Bf3 Nc4 15. Bc1 Bb7 16. Nb3 Rac8 17. Qe2 Nd7 18. g4 Bf6 19. Nd1 Bh4 20. Nf2 d5 21. Rd1 Bxf2 22. Rxf2 dxe4 23. Bxe4 Bxe4+ 24. Qxe4 Nf6 25. Rxd8+ Rxd8 26. Qf3 Qd7 27. Nd2 Qxa4 28. b3 Qa1 29. Nxc4 Qxc1+ 30. Kg2 b5 31. Ne5 Nd5 32. f5 exf5 33. Nc6 Ne3+ 34. Kg3 Qg1+ 35. Kh4 Nxg4 36. Re2 Rf8 37. Ne7+ Kh8 38. Nxf5 Ne5 39. Qf4 and White resigns.

Navara-Shankland, Prague International Chess Festival, Prague, June 2021

1. c4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. Nf3 Nc6 4. g3 d5 5. cxd5 Nxd5 6. Bg2 Bc5 7. O-O O-O 8. d3 Re8 9. Bg5 Nxc3 10. bxc3 f6 11. Bc1 Be6 12. Bb2 Bf8 13. Qc2 Qd7 14. Rfd1 Qf7 15. e4 Na5 16. Nd2 Rad8 17. d4 c6 18. f4 exf4 19. gxf4 f5 20. e5 c5 21. Nf3 Be7 22. Kh1 Nc4 23. Qe2 Qh5 24. a4 Nb6 25. dxc5 Bxc5 26. Qb5 Be3 27. Rxd8 Rxd8 28. a5 Nc4 29. a6 bxa6 30. Qxa6 Bd5 31. Rd1 Bd2 32. Bc1 Kh8 33. Rxd2 Nxd2 34. Qa5 Rd7 White resigns.

David R. Sands can be reached at 202/636-3178 or by email at dsands@washingtontimes.com.

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Carol Jarecki: From chess mom to one of the game's greatest referees - Washington Times

On May 29, the worlds top 16 chess players competed in the FTX Crypto Cup. Hundreds of thousands of fans tuned in to Chess24.com, Twitch, YouTube and the Champions Chess Tour website to watch their favorite players duke it out in the nine-day event. But unlike prior tournaments of this scale, where the prize pool is almost always denominated and paid in U.S. dollars, the FTX Crypto Cup was different. Thanks to cryptocurrency derivatives exchange FTX and its CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, the tournaments $220,000 prize was supplemented by 2.1825 BTC, split among the winners.

Bitcoin enthusiasts have spent the better part of a decade advocating for the currency. They argue that bitcoin will transform the world, democratizing finance by mitigating and decentralizing the power currently wielded by Wall Street, politicians and technocrats. Skeptics have called bitcoin a scam, a ponzi-scheme and a speculative bubble. Nevertheless, over time bitcoins most ardent critics have slowly flipped their positions, institutional investors have bought in and the digital gold continues to permeate throughout our society. The FTX Crypto Cup represents just another example of bitcoins move into the mainstream. On the surface, thats all the news there is to report a crypto company sponsored a chess tournament with bitcoin.

But I think theres a deeper story here. What else do bitcoin and chess have in common? What can chess players learn from bitcoin and what can Bitcoiners learn from chess? Is there an overlap between the two communities? Does Magnus Carlsen hold bitcoin? How good is Sam Bankman-Fried at chess? To answer these questions, I interviewed world champion and #1 rated player Magnus Carlsen, FTX Founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, prominent YouTubers GothamChess and BTCSessions, vice president at BTC Inc. Flip Abagnale and Bitcoins wunderkind, Jack Mallers, who plays a mean game of chess himself.

More than 1,600 years ago, the Gupta empire reigned over a prosperous India. Trade with kingdoms in south and southeast Asia was flourishing. For the first time in human history, the number zero was incorporated into decimal place numerical systems. Scientists hypothesized that the Earth revolves around its own axis and that the moon reflects light from the sun. Great poets, sculptors and architects altered the course of art forever. Significant strides made in science, culture and technology laid a foundation for the trajectory of Indian civilization. And it was here, sometime as the Gupta empire began to wane, that two people sat in front of a board and played the first game of what would come to be called chess.

Originally known as Chaturanga, the early predecessor to chess bears a striking resemblance to its modern counterpart. Kings, generals (queens), chariots (rooks), elephants (bishops) and horses (knights) spanned the back rows of an 8-by-8 grid, shielded by a row of foot soldiers (pawns). The rules of the game changed significantly when Chaturanga arrived in Europe. By the year 1500, the modern game of chess was capturing southern Europe by storm. That game was, barring some rule changes made in the 18th and 19th centuries, the same chess played today. How does a game born in the sixth century and solidified hundreds of years ago retain its integrity over hundreds of years? The answer is hard rules and soft forks, principals the Bitcoin world knows all too well.

As chess rose in popularity, mathematicians and theorists of the game began the slow process of introducing, advocating for,and solidifying a set of rules that all could agree on. Critically, these changes were additive optimizations rather than changes that altered the fundamentals of chess such that it became a different game entirely. This process unfolded until the 1800s, after which the rules of chess have not really changed. Now the core components of chess, the 8-by-8 board, the placement of pieces and their legal moves and the winning conditions, will likely not change. Balancing a rigid adherence to a set of rules while leaving room for optimizations and slight changes is what has given chess its longevity and its timelessness. According to Flip Abagnale, VP at BTC Media, this model of change is quite similar to Bitcoins concept of soft forks. The whole idea is backwards compatibility," said Abagnale. With soft forks were not dramatically changing bitcoin, were adding optimizations. Without soft forks, we would be at a standstill. Wed never be able to learn from advancements in math and computer science. This process is delicate, as the critical element of Bitcoin is its immutability. The decentralized networks ledger cannot be altered, only 21 million bitcoin will ever exist, etc. Like chess, Bitcoins hard rules will never change, but soft forks create the breathing room necessary for optimizations. If the success of chess is any indication, then Bitcoins balancing act of hard rules and soft forks affords it the unique ability to persist through the ages.

As news of COVID-19 began dominating the headlines last March, the world as we knew it came to a halt. With large portions of the economy effectively shut down, millions of people across the world found themselves at home, online and looking to kill time. These factors in 2020 and the early months of 2021 set the stage for massive booms in both the chess world and in bitcoin. The sale of chess boards rose by more than 1,000%, top grandmasters raked in sponsorships through streams on Twitch and YouTube and viewership of those streams shattered previous highs. Similarly, the meteoric rise in bitcoins price garnered the asset increased coverage on the national scale and millions of people heard about and invested in bitcoin for the first time. As the online communities surrounding both chess and bitcoin experienced a massive influx in first-time players and investors respectively, prominent content creators shifted to capture this entry-level viewership. I sat down with two of them to talk about chess and bitcoin.

Levy Rozman is a 25 year-old chess International Master from New York. During the onset of the pandemic, he quit teaching private chess lessons and focused full time on his YouTube Channel, GothamChess. I channeled all my energy from convincing six year olds that chess is important to convincing everyone from the age of 6 to 99 that chess was important and cool," said Rozman. The chess boom was nuts. I went from around 110,000 views every 48 hours to 1.8 million. Rozmans channel reached 300 million impressions in a month during the chess boom and his account now has over 1 million subscribers.

Ben Perrin, known on YouTube as BTC Sessions, is one of Bitcoins largest content creators. Ben struggled to find beginner level content about bitcoin in 2013 and 2014 and worked as a breakdancing instructor before deciding to work on a YouTube channel geared toward people new to the world of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. The transition from teaching complex dance movements to kids to teaching complex technology to adults was actually relatively similar, said Perrin. I started off making one video a week that would answer a common entry-level question about Bitcoin. The BTCSessions account has grown quickly over the years and now, with nearly 60,000 subscribers, YouTube is Bens full-time job.

Both Rosman and Perrin took full advantage of their respective communities spectacular growth over the past year or so. I built around the beginner audience and wanted to welcome them and make my channel their destination for all things chess, said Rozman. Similarly, Perrin told me, I had a year's worth of content before the boom, and a lot of that evergreen content helped get subs. As things took off, I shifted content to tutorials, re-did many of my basic videos on things like hardware wallets, fees, the Lightning Network, Liquid and all the new aspects of Bitcoin that are relevant now. I want new people to be able to come in and have all the information they need laid out for them in playlists.

While both communities grew independently of each other, overlaps between the world of chess and Bitcoin have grown. Rozman, who years ago bought bitcoin at $750, sold at $900, and felt like a genius at the time, saw the bitcoin price dip at the start of 2020 as an opportunity to buy at a discount. Another popular chess YouTuber, Agadmator, has been accepting donations in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies from his 1 million subscribers for years. Magnus Carlsen, the worlds best chess player told me, together with my father we have made some investments in cryptocurrencies over the last seven months, and it's fascinating to watch their development. Rozman noted, I get asked a lot to put a bitcoin address up to accept donations...Im working on it.

Both chess and bitcoin share a commitment to hard rules and soft forks. Both communities saw massive growth in demand for beginner-level content during the pandemic. But now, more than ever, the two groups are colliding. On his way to the Indy 500 to support the Bitcoin car he designed, Strike CEO Jack Mallers FaceTimed me to talk about chess and Bitcoin. Both chess and bitcoin are some of the most inherently global things, Mallers said. Youve got the best players spread out across the world. Anyone can participate, anyone can learn what they need to learn for free online. Mallers, whos rated around 2,100 ELO in chess, is excited about future intersections and possibilities between chess and Bitcoin.

FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has apparently never been that good at chess. But that didnt stop the 29-year-old billionaire from adding $100,000 in bitcoin to the prize pool of an elite chess tournament. When asked why he did it, Bankman-Fried told me, For the same reason youre writing this article. Theres a large overlap between the audiences interested in crypto and in chess, and this gave us a chance to help bring the two worlds together. The FTX Crypto cup may have been the first major crossover between chess and bitcoin, but it likely wont be the last. When asked about the future of chess tournaments with bitcoin prizes, Magnus Carlsen said, Including an additional bitcoin prize fund for this tournament is a fresh element that I hope will create added attention for the FTX Crypto Cup tournament and for the Tour. Im generally positive about innovation and testing out new opportunities in the elements surrounding chess.

While Bankman-Fried didnt promise more prize sponsorships, he noted that crypto-based prizes are easy and natural for chess.

This is a guest post by David Zell. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.

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Chess Tournaments, Tech Giants And $100,000 In Bitcoin - Bitcoin Magazine