Freedom's Gambit
Nurturing Executive Functions
Through Chess
“Establishing a foundation of executive functions permits the subsequent development of social and emotional learning skills. These include self-awareness, self-management, responsible decision-making, relationship skills, and social awareness.”
A. Diamond 2013, 2015
Executive functions are important cognitive skills that support our ability to navigate academic, social, and familial worlds. These skills broadly include working memory, inhibitor control, and cognitive flexibility.
We believe chess is an excellent tool to help deepen and broaden the quality of executive functions. Chess can build working memory and has the potential to nurture inhibitor control. Success in chess requires cognitive flexibility, so exposure to the game also cultivates that skill.
Why are these three skills important?
These three skills are invaluable to accomplishment in diverse fields. In fact, they are better predictors of success than either IQ or level of education (Alloway & Alloway, 2010). We leverage executive functions in all types of daily activities—from getting dressed in the morning, to completing complex academic tasks, to remembering multistep instructions. While these skills are important at all ages, developing executive functioning skills when young is crucial to social and intellectual development.
Working Memory:
Working memory refers to holding a small amount of information in mind and refining it as needed. Think of it as our brain’s “copy and paste” function. When given a set of directions, for example, one ideally should internalize the information and create a template for the successful execution of the task, making small adjustments as necessary (choosing the optimal order of steps for effective completion, for example). With our working memory, we can select and organize a specific set of relevant information needed to complete a task.
Chess offers many opportunities to build working memory. Players often study opening theory by memorizing several moves and an opponent’s plausible responses. Depending on how your opponent reacts to your moves, you must select among multiple possible variations, so maintaining a mental database of openings along with variations on those openings is critical.
The following chess positions can be used as a teaching resource to demonstrate working memory and nurture executive function:
In the Kings Indian, you’re typically not supposed to take the pawn on e5 and instead are supposed to keep the tension in the center or gain space with d5. In this theoretical position that has shown up many times, one of the variations is actually to take on e5 and bring your knight to d5, taking advantage of the queen on e7. This is a perfect example of working memory where you need to draw on a variation that isn’t the main line, reflecting the importance of remembering multiple variations.
Inhibitor Control:
We all require an executive functioning skill that allows us to “look before we leap,” enabling us to consider the consequences of our actions before carrying them out. Inhibition control is a particularly critical talent to nurture in vulnerable populations. Youth and adults alike who struggle with inhibitory control tend to be involved in more social conflicts and are more prone to risky behavior.
Chess offers many opportunities to develop inhibitor control. Sacrificing a piece can be intimidating, yet sometimes when deployed can open up a tactical advantage. A chess player considering the risk-reward of a sacrifice demonstrates the development and strengthening of inhibitor control. By observing the winning potential of a move that appears dangerous at first glance, or a lost position that results from an immediately appealing move, students of the game of chess are trained to think things through more carefully and avoid impulsive decisions that can have negative consequences.
The following chess positions can be used as a teaching resource to demonstrate inhibitor control and nurture executive function:
This example is extremely painful for me to add, but instructive. If I had won this game, which I played at a tournament in Stockholm in December 2023, I would have secured my final GM norm (I already had two of the three required norms to achieve the elusive grandmaster title) and received a generous cash prize. With the white pieces, I was in the driver's seat the whole game. I missed some cleaner wins but arrived at this completely winning position where black’s rook is threatening to take my pawn on e4. Many people’s first intuition would be to push the pawn to b7, threatening to play Rh8 next and then b8 queen. Unfortunately, I missed that black has a beautiful resource for drawing the game. Do you see it? The move is rxb7!! And now if I take back with my rook, it is a stalemate and the game is a draw. While b7 was the most intuitive and immediately appealing move, it lost the game for white. This position demonstrates the importance of not making quick moves and always considering ALL the options available, a critical component of success.
Well if I am going to do it once, why not do it again?!? Here, at a tournament in NYC, again with the white pieces, I played a very impulsive move while I had over an hour on the clock. My grandmaster opponent had only 30 seconds!! As you might be able to understand, I got very excited that I could just recapture the knight on h3 with my knight on f2. However, I overlooked that black has the beautiful tactic Rxe4! After Qxe4, Nxf3 followed by Nxd2 leaves black a pawn up. Again the lesson is clear: thinking before acting is critical to success in chess and life.
Cognitive Flexibility:
Cognitive flexibility is a higher-order cognitive function that develops as children mature, leading the individual to adapt and combine knowledge and experience in new ways to deal with unfamiliar situations. This skill also correlates with critical thinking as a means of developing the ability to think comprehensively from multiple perspectives, to be less rigid, and to embrace a multiplicity of viewpoints.
Chess affords many opportunities to enhance cognitive flexibility. For example, it is not uncommon to encounter positions in a game in which the best move requires a player to go against the conventional wisdom about how best to place pieces. One of the first things I ever learned as a chess player was “Knights on the rim are grim!” However, my coach Giorgi Kacheishvilli, whom I adore, was quick to point out that while chess has some unwritten rules, they sometimes need to be broken. Learning how to make a move that goes against what you’ve been ‘taught,’ when done after careful consideration, reduces mental rigidity and allows for more optimal choices.
The following chess positions can be used as a teaching resource to demonstrate cognitive flexibility and nurture executive function:
Though we know that the knight typically does not belong on the edge of the board, in these Kings Indian positions where white plays f3 instead of the typical Nf3, white’s knight then needs to move to h3, stopping on the edge of the board before being “tucked” in on f2 to provide stability to the e4 pawn after some f5 breaks from black. Making the best move in this sort of structure requires us to go against a common chess truth and helps demonstrate the importance of developing cognitive flexibility. The mental openness that helps maintain a strong position over the board can also support good life choices.
Executive Functions and Youth
Executive functions are essential skills at all ages. However, ample research shows that the tremendous cognitive development that occurs during adolescence presents an excellent opportunity to leverage changes in the brain to develop and solidify executive function skills. Alloway & Alloway (2010) Jade Oldfield (2024)
By using chess positions designed to reinforce pathways thinking, working memory, inhibitor control, and cognitive flexibility, we can strengthen these skills at a critical time in the development of the brain. We intend to continue adding to the chess positions included above, eventually developing a database of positions that can serve as a powerful chess teaching tool for Freedom’s Gambit and any organization that works with vulnerable populations.
Resources
Alloway, T. P., & Alloway, R. G. (2010). "Investigating the Predictive Roles of Working Memory and IQ in Academic Attainment.” Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 106(1): 20–29. Https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2009.11.003
Balvin, N. and P. Banati. “The Adolescent Brain: A Second Window of Opportunity—A Compendium,” Miscellanea (Florence, UNICEF Office of Research-Innocenti, 2017)
Barkley, Russell, A. (2020). Executive Functions: What They Are, How They Work, and Why They Evolved. Guilford Publications. USA.
Blair, C. (2016). “Developmental Science and Executive Function.” Current Directions in Psychological Science, 25(1), 3–7. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721415622634
Blanch, A. (2022). “Chess Instruction Improves Cognitive Abilities and Academic Performance: Real Effects or Wishful Thinking?” Educational Psychology Review, 34(3), 1371–1398. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-022-09670-9
Cherry, K. (2022, February 18). “How Neuroplasticity Works: Your Experiences Can Change How Your Brain Functions.” Retrieved May 12, 2024 https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-brain-plasticity-2794886
Diamond, A. (2013) “Executive Functions.” Annual Review of Psychology, 64(1), 135-168.
Diamond, A. (2015) “Effects of Physical Exercise on Executive Functions: Going beyond Simply Moving to Moving with Thought.” Annals of Sports Medicine and Research 2(2), 1011-1015.
Grigg, L., J. Oldfield, K. Olson (2023). “Connection Before Correction: Chess for Life and Restorative Justice for At-risk Youth.” Chess for Freedom. FIDE Chess in Education Commission. Chicago, USA.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M6m1Q18uHk (Relevant session starts at 8:38:19).
Sala, G., & Gobet, F. (2016). "Do the Benefits of Chess Instruction Transfer to Academic and Cognitive Skills? A Meta-Analysis." Educational Research Review, 18, 46–57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2016.02.002
Vollstädt-Klein. Sabine. (2022). "Chess as an add-on intervention in substance use disorders.” Conference: Bio-Psycho-Social Applications of the Game of Chess. Mannheim, Germany.
https://isac-appliedchess.com/media/attachments/2023/02/03/8-sabine-vollstdt-klein-.pdf
Vollstädt-Klein. Sabine. (2015). “Chess as an Intervention against Addictive Disorders? Potential Neurobiological Underpinnings.” London Chess Conference. London, UK.