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Winning starts with what you know
The new version 18 offers completely new possibilities for chess training and analysis: playing style analysis, search for strategic themes, access to 6 billion Lichess games, player preparation by matching Lichess games, download Chess.com games with built-in API, built-in cloud engine and much more.
Have you ever heard of the theory that we are all connected to each other by genealogy?
In a TED talk A.J. Jacobs explained very well why the 7.5 billion people who currently live on earth could well be related to each other and that Kim Kardashian might be a distant relative of you (with just 20 or so links between you and her).
The idea of this connectivity goes back to the Hungarian author Frigyes Karinthy and his six degrees of separation theory which Karinthy explained and elaborated in a couple of books. The theory basically points out that we all are only six or less social connections apart from each other. The famous American social psychologist Stanley Milgram took up this idea and tested it in his small-world experiment. On a side note, Milgram was responsible for a couple of ground-breaking experiments in his life, especially the well-known and controversial Milgram Shock Experiment.
But what does this have to do with chess?
Well, maybe you want to know how good your chances would be in a game against Magnus Carlsen. Probably you did not (yet) play against him but maybe you played (and won) against someone who played (and won) against someone who played (and won) against Carlsen. With this WinChain with three links you could claim good chances for a win against Carlsen – or other top players of your choice.
But jokes aside — is this WinChain actually an indicator of your playing strength?
Look at it from this perspective: the fewer links you need in your WinChain to defeat an opponent of your choice, the stronger you possibly are. Here's a challenge: if you use the WinChain to check your chances against Carlsen does your WinChain have four or fewer links?
Of course, you can enter the name of any player you can think of, but for the WinChain to work the name must be written correctly and the player must have games in the ChessBase database. Try entering the names of players from your local club or from all around the world.
Challenge your friends to find out who has the lowest numbered chain against some random grandmasters.
Photo: Magnus Carlsen by Lennart Ootes
Here are ten famous chess personalities you might want to challenge:
