Chess And Deduction

Okay so, this blog is meant to be the place where i put a lot of my more fluid ideas, things like rants about a specific concept or theory in deduction, or posting some deduction that i made. I tend to use @amateur-deductions for more article-like posts explanations so here’s a bit of a rant for you about what deductions can look and feel like.

So recently i’ve been answering questions about how to squeeze information out of the things you observe, how to break down what you see into information that can constitute as actual deductions. And while i was in that mindset to make one of my last posts, my Youtube feed blessed me with videos of Levy Rozman, (Gothamchess on youtube for those of you who don’t know), and i’ve started to draw some parallels between chess and deduction.

https://www.tumblr.com/oracle-sisters/637888572108718081/wolfgang-amadeus-mozart-mozart-sonata-in-f-dur

Now, i’m by no means an amazing chess player, i’ve been more into it recently since i have time, but it’s not really something i dedicate a lot of practice to. That being said, Levy said something in one of the videos i watched that caught my attention: As he was explaining very basic chess concepts, he mentioned how once you start pushing your pieces forward and entering the middle-game, the moves you make in the opening start tying together.

Essentially what he pointed out is that, once the opening is done, your pieces start to naturally intertwine with each other, they protect each other and take control of a plethora of squares, so many that sometimes you don’t realize it until the game starts to develop more. You start to notice that the knights you moved in the opening can attack a certain way because the rooks that you also moved in the opening are conveniently in a position where they can cover the attacking pieces. Or you notice that as the opponent pushes pieces to attack you there’s no reason to panic because a piece you’d moved during the opening is conveniently guarding the area the opponent is pushing into.

Now, you may be wondering what the hell does this have to do with deduction. Well in the same way that you don’t always have to think about every single little implication about your moves during a chess opening, and even if you don’t, you still can start formulating a plan in the middle-game with what you built during said opening, in deduction you’re not necessarily always looking to make a “plan” from the beginning, or to set up your observations a specific way to get to a specific conclusion.

https://www.tumblr.com/rozzeguerrero/185972193334

The way that deduction works a lot of the time is, you just start observing, maybe drawing small conclusions like someone’s handedness or their extraversion level, and then as you start piling onto these conclusions you start to realise that a lot of them conveniently tie together, you start to notice that you can make forward progress because a new conclusion that you might consider happens to be supported by an observation or conclusion you made in the “opening”. In the same way that, in chess, as you start to get into the middle-game you realize you can attack with certain pieces because other pieces are now set up in a way that can defend them. You’re looking to realize that you can push forward in your conclusions because previous observations and simple deductions have been set up to defend these conclusions.

So taking a deduction from Sherlock for example. As you look at someone’s phone and start to realize that it’s expensive, and that it has an engraving and scratches, you start to draw small conclusions, like “huh, this is a gift because this person is clearly not in an economical position to buy this”, or “huh, this has had a previous owner”. This could be considered the “opening”, you’re sort of just going through each piece, developing it, getting control of the center of the board, and just scanning around for your next moves.

https://www.tumblr.com/all-things-andrew-scott/190547961074/ocean-eyes-in-the-style-of-sheriarty

Once you have a solid footing, once you have a solid opening position, you start pushing forward, and start realizing that the pieces that you’ve set up can start moving and tying together, so you make a move that looks optimal with the piece set up (the information) that you have, something like “well if the phone was given to him by a previous owner, and that previous owner is a close family member, why not move in with them? hm, maybe they don’t get along”. And as the deduction goes on you try to keep making these optimal moves, moves that are supported with what you’ve already uncovered.

And like a chess game, yes, sometimes you blunder pieces, sometimes you reach a conclusion that isn’t supported by any evidence, and it leads to you loosing the game. Sometimes you make a counting error and you realize that your pieces are not as protected as you though. Translating this from the example, sometimes you think every conclusion you’re drawing makes sense and is fully supported, only to be corrected and realize that you didn’t account for something, or that there was another, simpler explanation for what you’ve found, and this leads to loosing the game.

And when this happens the next move is to plug the chess game into an engine and see what you did wrong and what you did right, did you blunder anything? did you make a move that was horrible but the opponent didn’t notice? did you miss a mate in one? or in 3? or in 5? In other words, did you reach the right conclusion with the wrong reasoning? or did you miss a clue that would have led you to a massive deduction? or did you just jump to a conclusion without a good base for it? As always the goal is to analyze this and make sure these are not mistakes you make in your next game

Here’s where i’ll leave this rant, i do hope it was informative (hopefully it wasn’t confusing). If you have any questions feel free to send them over in my asks.

Happy Observing!

-DV