Why The Best Player Alive Barely Runs
David Epstein, author of the recent Inside the Box (a book about the value of constraints), did a fascinating video on “anticipatory skill” and “chunking” and how players like Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo (who can accurately head the ball even in the dark) use them to slow down a fast, complex game.
And this is the skill that Messi, Ronaldo, and Pujols all share. They’re chunking positions of people and angles of legs and spins of balls in order to understand immediately what’s going on and what might happen next. The more patterns you absorb in any domain, the less effort it takes to read what’s happening and to predict what’s coming next.
So when Messi walks, he’s not resting. He’s chunking the entire field. Every position, every shift, every gap in the backline is feeding a pattern library that he’s been building since he was 5 years old. By the time he decides to move, the map is already drawn. And when Ronaldo heads a ball into the net in total darkness, it’s because he’s seen that angle of another player’s leg and that ball’s trajectory a hundred times over and knows the pattern it follows.
I love this kind of thing and even though I am not a world-class boxer or football player, I can see it in action as I’ve gotten better over the years downhill mountain biking (where I’m able to go faster on the bike while still being able to react to terrain in what feels like the same amount of time), playing Fortnite (which I’m still not great at, but the game seems to move at a much slower pace, allowing me to keep up), or doing the crossword puzzle (you get an instinctive feel for answers just by how questions are posed). I’m sure this shows up in my work too — I read so damn much online that sometimes it takes me only 2-3 seconds to figure out if something is worth my while — but it’s easier to observe in sports or gaming.
BTW, Epstein just started his YouTube channel a few months ago, but it’s already filled with great stuff like Why The Fastest Way To Improve Is To Subtract, Why The Smartest People I Know Set Constraints, Not Goals, and Why The Best Kids Are Rarely The Best Adults. I’ve got some catching up to do.
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The idea of the "Generation Effect" is super interesting to me. I suspect this is one of the problems with using ChatGPT or some other LLM to write a first draft. It's the act of generating the ideas that creates the ability to chunk, right?
I'll go even further: the act of reading the model's best guess at the right answer focuses me in on that answer. Immediately, all of the other answers I might have come up with are eliminated. Instead, I'm thinking about what the model thinks. I've delegated the creative process, failed to form the connections between the synapses in my brain, and missed out on the opportunity to develop my own thoughts and opinions. No matter how well the AI is imitating my writing style.
For a bit, I went all in on the "chat as thought partner" process. I used it to summarize big documents. I used it to discuss ideas in my life, both personal and business. I used it to start memorandums and strategy documents. A few months in, my business partner mentioned in passing, though kindly, that my writing had gotten significantly worse since I started talking to ChatGPT all the time. Ouch.
This was the overwhelming impression I took from Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait too… that the guy didn’t seem to run much, and spent most of his time observing or jogging/strolling into positions. Wherever he went, the ball would inevitably arrive seconds later, like it was chasing him rather than the other way around. He was only really active in bursts, and even then these always seemed to be planned in advance.
Maybe even more so for Erling Haaland? Or maybe it’s more noticeable because he’s so large. He seems to be always standing around or barely jogging and then — boom—he’s right in front of the goal! 🤯
Here is a perfect example of Haaland doing this! https://youtube.com/shorts/m71hAmMTCVM?si=gHW4uDcwaG5W7c6s
I found this article about Norway's approach to children's sport fascinating. Apparently, Haaland was involved in handball, athletics and cross-country skiing as well as football as a child. He chose football ahead of handball at the age of 14.
So the one thing holding me back from becoming a pro soccer player was that I did too much running around? I kid; the game intelligence of elite players like Messi is so very humbling for someone like me who has played and watched all my life.
If anyone watched the Spain v Portugal game, that shit was chess right there. Not exactly exciting to watch, but two teams working a strategy of the finest margins.
This absolutely applies to chess. As you practice and play you learn patterns and you stop seeing individual pieces. The best players then work to disrupt patterns to force opponents to slow down and not be able to rely on that innate pattern recognition.
The video actually goes into chunking in chess—apparently key evidence for chunking theory was observing that grandmasters can almost instantly memorize a “real” mid-game chessboard but can’t memorize a randomized chess board.
Pattern recognition and innate understanding are foundational for becoming good at so many things. Within programming/development, understanding the web of connections between classes, libraries, queues, etc allows one to see problems before they happen but also see gaps and ways to increase efficiency. Same thing with mountain biking or gravel cycling, you have patterns built into your motor pathways that literally have nuance and correction built into them.
I feel like this might happen with storytelling and speaking as well? As a lifelong reader and English major, I've noticed I often know what someone will say or what will happen in a TV show, movie, etc. I've chalked it up to cliche or poorly written show, etc., which of course would make the pattern recognition easier, but I didn't ID any of it as a pattern I've learned over the years and be ready with how, at least in English, the next sentence or scene would likely unfold. Even if I'm wrong on this aspect, it's all so fascinating.
David Epstein is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors. He also wrote Range which I highly recommend.
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