♟ Magnus, Messi, and pattern recognition

This week, I had a thread go viral on Twitter. This is not the first time that I’ve had this happen and likely won’t be the last.

What stood out to me this time though was how certain I was that it would pop off. Usually there is a certain amount of doubt whenever you post something. No matter how insightful or ingenious you think you content is, you never know just how people will react.

But this time around, I had very few doubts which I attribute to pattern recognition.

Combining an event with lots of famous people in a thread format that I’ve already seen perform well, with solid execution is a recipe for success.

But I only was able to assemble the recipe because I recognized the ingredients. And the only way I recognized the ingredients is because I’ve spent a lot of time in the in the Twitter supermarket. I didn’t do anything particularly remarkable, but just followed what the patterns told me.

Recognizing patterns is the very bias of what makes us human. It’s also a skill that can make you better at your job, help you achieve your goals, and generally get the most out of life.

Separating men from the beasts

Scientists are particularly interested in figuring out why humans are so much better at pattern recognition than animals. After all, our ability to recognize speech, remember faces, and retain knowledge is the very basis for civilization as we know it.

One study title “Superior pattern processing is the essence of the evolved human brain” compares our brains to a variety of animals.

While viewing faces, MRI imaging of both a human brain and a macaques (a small monkey) showed that both species had activity in the temporal cortex. Yet, only humans showed strong activity in another region of the brain that is comparatively underdeveloped in the monkey, the fusiform gyrus.

This suggests, unsurprisingly, that the human brain has evolved to become better at recognizing faces in order to help build better social relationships. The monkey is definitely aware that someone is familiar, but it does’t have the intellectual horsepower to put 2 + 2 together as quickly or as reliably as humans.

Researches also found that our outsized performance in recognizing patterns extends beyond vision, and includes the ability to recognize patterns in sound, language, and social behavior.

Again, these are the building blocks of civilization as we know it and very helpful for early homo sapiens in their quest to survive and socialize.

But we’re not just trying to survive anymore

One of the most surreal experiences in the world is watching the greatest living chess player, Magnus Carlsen identify games he has played based on the positions of pieces on the board.

I can’t stress enough how impressive this is to watch. Magnus remembers games from when he was a junior player almost as soon as the host begins placing the pieces.

He’s likely played somewhere in the range of 20,000 chess games, but he can remember random positions from games that took place before he hit puberty.

Yet, to Magnus, this probably doesn’t even feel all that impressive. While you and I can’t remember what we had for breakfast yesterday, Magnus is able to access these memories without even trying. Why is this? Do he and other grand masters just have way better memories than you and I?

Not exactly.

In one 1996 study, researchers found that expert chess players were better at recognizing and remembering the positions of chess pieces on a legal chessboard than novice players. Duh, right?

However, when the positions of the pieces were randomly arranged (i.e. placed in illegal positions), there was no difference between expert and novice players in their ability to recognize and remember the positions.

The authors suggest that this finding may be due to the fact that expert players rely on their knowledge of legal chess patterns in order to recognize and remember the positions of the pieces. When the positions are randomly arranged, this knowledge is no longer useful, and expert players lose their edge.

Apply this to your life

I absolutely love that study because it shows that chess grandmasters aren’t superhuman after all. They are just superhuman pattern recognizers.

Once you start analyzing the top performers in any field, this fact becomes increasingly obvious.

Watch Lionel Messi play soccer.

He famously walks for the the first five minutes of the game and pretty much does nothing but look around. He’s not lazy though, he’s simplay analyzing the opponent and probing their weaknesses. He walks more than any other player on the field, but he also sees more than any other player.

He is the best in the world at recognizing the patterns of the the game which is why he’s the best player of all time.

Yes, there are other great players out there that see the game differently than their peers, but Messi’s doing it more deliberately and at a higher level. He knows that he has an edge in decoding the patterns of the game so he leans into it.

So should you.

I’ve learned that I am uniquely good at combining moments from multiple different areas of culture then distilling them on social media. So I conciously look for these opportunities.

It’s why I was able to take a thread style that I originally encountered on a sports account, combine that with the Met Gala, then loop in the Marvel Cinematic universe all in one post. That’s a pattern that only I can see, just as Magnus and Messi see things others can’t.

But you have to look. Passively going through life means you will miss those moments. Figure out what your zone of genius is and remain aware at all times. You’ll be surprised at how quickly you begin to pick up on the patterns that surround you.

Final thoughts

It would be irresponsible to write a piece on pattern recognition without talking about execution. Maybe there are other social media managers who had a similar idea to me. Maybe there are other soccer players who see what Messi sees. But the devil lies in the execution of what you see.

It’s not enough to recognize the patterns. You have to go full Michael Burry and take out a massive short position against the housing market. You have to act.

Stay aware of the the patterns—it’s what our brains were built for after all—but don’t let that process paralyze you. Recognize, then act.

Good luck, Players.