The game of queens and kings
Chess has been in the news lately, and not just because Moringa School and Tunapanda Institute recently had our first tournament together — thanks for hosting, Moringa team!
In Quartz recently:
Disney’s Queen of Katwe is an inspiration to Ugandan teens. Students who watched the biopic about a girl from the slums of Kampala turned world chess champion performed better on national exams.
This finding implies that just watching a film about someone you relate to being successful can inspire you to better performance. Confidence matters.
It’s also come out recently that top Wall Street executives hire a former Soviet grandmaster, Lev Alburt, to teach them strategy, and it doesn’t stop there:
Wall Street has a fairly well-trodden history with games: During off-hours and downtime, games of chance and risk mitigation such as backgammon and bridge offer the opportunity for high-level betting, and chess, with its corollaries with game theory, occupies a prime position.
Auburt now coaches chess for a minimum of $150/hr.
One thing that I’m very interested in is: why aren’t private trainers/coaches more wide-spread, even in low-income areas? It just takes a bit of time to help someone else learn, and either slightly higher skills or the simple willingness to be there and help motivate someone. The single change in the economy — empowering people of all walks of life to coach those who aren’t as good in a specific skill — could create a wealth of value and improve people’s lives dramatically.
If watching “The Queen of Katwe” about a girl playing chess can help boost confidence in school, what about sitting next to someone who has worked hard at developing a skill and wants to help you do the same?
The world could use a lot more of that.
Thanks to Mick Larson for analyzing the opening of this article.
