I think that watching the human eye analyze a chess game is so amazing. You can tell if a player is advanced or not based on how often his or her eyes dialate. I find that lower rated players just scan the pieces with very little thought or idea behind each move. While watching someone that is 1800 or higher for example the persons eyes will go crazy constantly analyzing the game. Am I the only one who feels this way or are there others? During otb play do you ever watch your opponents eyes trying to see what their plan might be?
Originally posted by kmac27http://people.brunel.ac.uk/~hsstffg/frg-research/chess_expertise/#Empirical%20research
I think that watching the human eye analyze a chess game is so amazing. You can tell if a player is advanced or not based on how often his or her eyes dialate. I find that lower rated players just scan the pieces with very little thought or idea behind each move. While watching someone that is 1800 or higher for example the persons eyes will go crazy constant ...[text shortened]... s? During otb play do you ever watch your opponents eyes trying to see what their plan might be?
I don't know about eye dialations, but the above link seems to say that there is a difference in eye movements. But even if you could see where your opponent was looking, I'm not sure how much of an advantage that would really be. Probably a minimal advantage at best.
My guess is that you'd be just as well off thinking about the board position instead of worrying about where your opponent was looking. Although I have to admit that sometimes when I've been staring at one point on the board for too long, I'll start looking at other areas of the board as a diversionary tactic (and also as a sanity/blunder check). But I'm probably just being paranoid when I do it for diversionary reasons.
And no, I don't really try to see where my opponent is looking. However, I do think it's sometimes helpful to observe his body language to get a sense of his mental state.
Also, if you try to see where your opponent is looking, you introduce the possibility of that awkward moment where he looks up at you looking at him, and you just know he's thinking, "Why are you looking at me instead of the board? Are you some kind of pervert, or something?" 😀
If it's my opponent's turn and I have already analyzed the position as much as I wanted, I will always look at him (or her) instead of the board. It will give me clues on how he feels about the game and what he's thinking at the moment. I believe that has won me quite a few games.
I've lost count of how many games I won just by refusing a draw and playing on in an equal or even slightly inferior position, just because I had a visual clue that my opponent was not comfortable in that situation. More rarely, I've also won games by launching an unclear (or even dubious) attack against someone who demonstrated fear of being attacked, instead of following a correct, but less "threatening" plan.
I think that's an important skill in OTB chess. It won't pull any miracle wins against players that are far better than you, but it can help you edge out someone who is just as good as you, or even slightly better.
at around 1:20 Topolov does the rapid eye movement thing. For some reason I found this fascinating as well.
This was also the tournament people were accusing him of getting help from his manager. Perhaps the video proves he was actually calculating on his own? (the game ended in a draw, btw)