Professional chess analysis reveals faster decisions correlate with higher quality moves

In chess, faster decisions are on average of higher quality. This is the conclusion of a study that has just been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The team of researchers, which, in addition to Professor Uwe Sunde from LMU, includes scientists from Erasmus University Rotterdam and UniDistance Suisse, analyzed data from professional games of chess. Their aim was to investigate how the time taken to make a complex strategic decision is related to the quality of this decision. Sunde and his colleagues believe the outcome of their research indicates that the decision time reflects the subjectively perceived difficulty of the problem, which can vary depending on the situation.