Friday, February 10, 2017

Staying Connected on the Soccer Field and the Chess Board

Team sports are at their most beautiful when choreography among individuals creates a sum greater than its parts. In basketball, the best examples are the 1986 Boston Celtics, while the best model for football has been the Tom Brady-led offenses of the New England Patriots.

This seemingly effortless choreography doesn't happen without underlying connections, though. Or more specifically, connections in space and connections in movements. Take, for example, this analytic video of FC Barcelona:



The connections in space and in movement among Barca's players represent the geometry that exists below the surface of Barcelona's choreography.

Likewise, this screenshot from the sixth game of the 1972 world chess championship between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky demonstrates how connectivity plays a similar role on the chess board:


As the red arrows indicate, fifteen of white's (Fischer) sixteen pieces are connected to at least one other piece within the first seven moves (only the pawn boxed in yellow on b2 is unprotected), and Fischer maintains connectivity when he continues his attack over the remaining thirty moves.

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