Moscow 2026 International Chess Forum (Category #Chess)

Today I attended the final day of this chess festival at Ernesto Inarkiev's invitation. I once took his Effective Thinking program, and we also recorded a podcast about the brain while discussing the book Your Brain at Work.

Yesterday and today, Ernesto played an exhibition match against Sergey Karjakin: rapid yesterday and blitz today.

I was able to watch today's games live. They were sharp and dynamic, but I was even more interested in yesterday's match, which I missed. Ernesto described an unusual format: four rapid games start simultaneously, with one hour on the clock and a 30-second increment per move. It struck me as more similar to business than a single long game: many activities compete at once, and you have to distribute your attention and energy across several tasks.

The festival itself was excellent. Around a thousand people were playing chess at the same time. It reminded me of childhood weekends spent at the youth sports school, playing in chess tournaments.

P.S.

Ernesto and I have an idea for a stream about The Programmer's Brain: What Every Programmer Needs to Know About Cognition, a book I have covered before. Ernesto is an expert on thinking, so it would be interesting to compare how human cognition works with the way we now design agents. If you like the idea, leave a 👌 under the post.

#Chess #Sport #Brain #Management #Thinking