Increase Your Brain Capacity with Games of Skill

I. Training the Brain

A young man, a university student, recently asked me how to make brain stronger, how to increase intelligence. If it is at all possible.

It certainly is. It is the same as for every other organ. Its capacity can be improved.

At the bottom you have your genetic constitution. It is inherited. Essentially, it cannot be affected by anything you do. But you can affect how efficiently you develop and use your inherited potential. Several factors are involved. The major ones are the same as for almost everything: proper nutrition and proper training. However, one should not forget the importance of other factors, such as sleep and respiration (breathing).

As for nutrition, sleep and breathing, what's good or bad for the brain doesn't essentially differ from what's good or bad for the body as a whole.

Neither is it different when it comes to general physical exercise. The brain is even more dependent on oxygenation and circulation than other organs.

What's special, however, is the targeted training of distinctly mental abilities.

Chess, Checkers, Mancala, Sudoku and many other games - essentially all games of skill or where there is an element of skill - are training the brain, one way or another. That also includes seemingly physical games, such as football or tennis. The point is to stretch one's ability and actually improve it.

Don't be afraid if your child plays games on computer or mobile phone. Those games, too, are training the brain to some extent and on some level. Of course every activity can become a destructive obsession. It should not come at the cost of everything else.

Learning things trains the brain. Some subjects more than others, but they all train something. And I have said it before, “learning to play a motorically demanding musical instrument provides what might be the most qualified and versatile training of the brain imaginable”.

II. Games for the Benefit of the Brain

Everything needs training and exercise to become strong and efficient, or to keep strength and efficiency once they have been achieved. What's not used atrophies. Most people know as much about the physical aspects of the body, but it is not less important for various brain functions.

Games of skill provide good exercise for intellectual ability, logical strength and strategic thinking. Especially intellectually demanding strategy games where no chance is involved. Primarily, I am thinking of chess, but it holds for many other games as well. There are also mixed games, games of skill but with an element of chance. An example of that is backgammon, where the dice represent chance. These games are also valuable as exercise for the brain. Perhaps they more reflect real life, because in real life there are always unknown and unexpected factors involved. Strategic ability is one thing, but it is also important to be able to adjust a strategy rapidly when circumstances change in an unexpected way.

In 1779, Benjamin Franklin wrote about chess:

“The Game of Chess is not merely an idle amusement; several very valuable qualities of the mind, useful in the course of human life, are to be acquired and strengthened by it, so as to become habits ready on all occasions; for life is a kind of Chess, in which we have often points to gain, and competitors or adversaries to contend with, and in which there is a vast variety of good and ill events, that are, in some degree, the effect of prudence, or the want of it.”

But games of this kind don't only teach us abilities useful in life, they also keep the brain alert and active and prevent many forms of senility. That is, they contribute to the prevention of brain degeneration. So do various forms of logical puzzles, which, while not games in the sense of “combat” between two or more participants, to a high degree serve as exercise for the brain.

Here is a brief survey over a few games for the benefit of the brain. This is for your inspiration only; I'm not going into details on how the games are played. There are many books and websites for those who are interested in further exploring these and other games.

The last game I describe is Tangram, a Chinese puzzle. Only moderately difficult, in China it's considered a children's toy, it still develops certain spatial abilities and can be used for simple mathematical examples of convexity.

Dominoes

The origin of dominoes, in the modern sense, is China, although the inspiration might have come from Indian dice. Indian or not, dice quite undoubtedly inspired the tiles with which several different games are played. The game of dominoes appeared in the 14th century, and a later Chinese development of dominoes became the game known as Mah Jong.

The oldest known dominoes set (tiles) is from the 12th century, but tile games are most certainly older than that.

Dominoes came to Europe in the 17th century, possibly via France.

Mancala

Mancala (meaning "to move things about" in Arabic), also called Kalah or Kalaha, is a game that has been played in the Middle East, Asia and North Africa since before 1500 B.C. It's origin is often assumed to be Egypt, since boards have been found carved in the roofs of temples there, but there is other evidence suggesting an even older Sumerian origin. However it is with that, it is a two-person strategy game. "Seeds" are "sown" and captured according to certain rules. The winner is the one who "captures" the majority of the "seeds".

This is the game of skill of which we have the oldest proved existence.

Chess

The oldest evidence of the existence of chess is from 6th century India, but it is likely to be much older than that. The word chess is derived from shah, which indicates that its origin would be Persia. In Persian, however, chess is called shatranj, which is derived from Sanskrit chaturanga - चतुरङ्ग - which indicates that its origin is India.

In Europe, chess first turned up in 8th century Spain, coming with the Moors. In the Middle ages it was well spread throughout the continent, and chess literature is preserved from 16th century Spain and Italy.

Checkers or Draughts

A strategic boardgame. Some variants exist, especially about the size of the board. It can be 10x10, or 8x8 squares - sometimes even 12x12.

Chinese checkers is a completely different game. It was invented in the United States, and has nothing to do with China.

Go

Go is the Japanese name of an ancient East Asian boardgame. Originally it comes from China, where it is called Wei Ch'i, (Weiqi). As all good strategic games, it is simple of rule. Its age is impossible to determine, but it is mentioned in a 5th century BC text.

Backgammon & other Tables Games

Backgammon is a so-called tables game, a type of games that existed both in old Egypt and in Sumer, and later in almost every major culture in Eurasia. In Europe it can be traced to the Middle Ages.

Tangram

One day, a long time ago, a man named Tan dropped a tile. It broke into seven pieces, and he tried to put it together again. Then he discovered that he got a number of shapes: birds, humans, cats,... a lot of things. Thus Tangram came into being.

Sam Loyd, a well known puzzlist, told us another story. In his book The Eighth Book Of Tan, he claimed that Tangram was over 4000 years old. It would have been invented by an author who was worshipped as a god, and who wrote a book on the development of earth. He illustrated it with pictures created by the Tangram pieces.

None of these stories are true, although Tangram's alleged age of 4000 years is often repeated in reputable literature and encyclopedias.

The oldest known Chinese book on Tangram was published in 1813, but it mentions another book, which would be one year older. Although nothing older than that is known, it is likely that there were books on Tangram before 1812 and 1813, and that the puzzle existed before books were written about it.

Actually, the earliest European book on this Chinese puzzle came in 1805. It was the German Neues Chinesisches Rätselspiel für Kinder, in 24 bildlichen und alphabetischen Darstellungen. This indicates the existence of a Chinese source from before 1805.

Early European books on Tangram were almost all based on the Chinese: Ch'i Ch'iao t'u ho-pi (1813) and Ch'i Ch'iao ch'u pien ho-pi (1820), but modern literature about it is extensive.

The true age of Tangram is unknown.

The origin of the name, Tangram, is also unknown. In China it is called Ch'i Ch'ae pan. It was probably in Europe or America that it was named Tangram. There are several theories on how this name came to be, and why it looks as it does, but none is really any more probable than the others. We have to accept that it's just not known.

Links:

The games above and many others can be learned and played online. A good search engine will give you innumerable hits to explore. Here I will just give four links:

Well described rules of Go: http://gobase.org/studying/rules/?id=0&ln=uk

This site lists all imaginable variants of Backgammon and related games, contemporary and historical: http://www.bkgm.com/variants/index.html

Tangram puzzles online: http://www.gieson.com/Library/projects/games/matter/

A university in Germany has an interesting site on Tangram: http://www.math.uni-bielefeld.de/~ringel/puzzle/puzzle02/tangram.htm

"You sit at the board and suddenly your heart leaps. Your hand trembles to pick up the piece and move it. But what Chess teaches you is that you must sit there calmly and think about whether it's really a good idea and whether there are other better ideas."

(Stanley Kubrick, 1928-1999, American filmmaker.)

"Truth derives its strength not so much from itself as from the brilliant contrast it makes with what is only apparently true. This applies especially to Chess, where it is often found that the profoundest moves do not much startle the imagination."

(Emanuel Lasker, 1868-1941, World Champion in Chess 1894-1921.)

"It is important that you don’t let your opponent impose his style of play on you. A part of that begins mentally. At the chessboard if you start blinking every time he challenges you then in a certain sense you are withdrawing. That is very important to avoid."

(Viswanathan Anand, born 1969, World Chess Champion five times.)

"How come the little things bother you when you are in a bad position? They don't bother you in good positions."

(Yasser Seirawan, born 1960, Chess Grand Master.)

(This article is based on material previously published in Meriondho Leo and in my e-booklet, The Birth of Chance, 2019.)

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