Chess: A possible edge for the basketball court
Devon Dotson, Ethan Happ, Anthony Lamb and Ömer Yurtseven are four basketball players whose experience with knights and bishops in chess have helped with traps and vision in basketball.
Basketball players - like any professional athlete - are always looking for an edge over their opponents. Some leading stars in the European game actually have found that advantage in an uncommon activity - chess.
The world of kings and queens, and bishops and pawns has helped Devon Dotson, Ethan Happ, Anthony Lamb and Ömer Yurtseven - all playing in a high-level pan-European competition - to see the game of basketball in another way. And given their success, other basketball players might be well-advised to take up the game that has been played for more than 1,500 years.
Chess is believed to have originated in India, with a predecessor called chaturanga before the 600s AD. From there, it moved to Persia and then spread from the Muslim world to Europe through Spain and Italy. The game eventually evolved into the game as we know it today about 1500 CE.
Modern chess has captured the analytical minds of hundreds of millions over years and some of its highlights since the 1970s have been a Cold War showdown between US mastermind Bobby Fisher and the best of the Soviet Union - most memorable of them being Anatoly Karpov; an IBM computer named Deep Blue facing then world chess champion Garry Kasparov; the emergence of Norwegian great Magnus Carlsen in 2013; and the explosion of online chess action.
Chess experienced a massive boost in popularity in 2020 when the Netflix mini-series The Queen’s Gambit took by storm a society stuck at home due to the Covid pandemic.
And it shouldn’t be shocking to hear that some basketball players love the game of chess and the mental challenge it brings with it.
Speaking of Carlsen, who earned his grandmaster title at the age of 13 years and 148 days and became the youngest world No. 1 ever, won five straight world championships from 2013 to 2021 and has reigned as No. 1 in the world since July 2011, one of his big fans was Ömer Yurtseven, the Turkish international currently playing for Panathinaikos Athens.
In an interview back in 2017, Yurtseven said: "I think my favorite chess player is Magnus Carlsen. Probably because of all he did even though he was so young."
The 26-year-old center continued: "I never studied chess matches but I watched a lot of sacrifice tricks. It is where the opponent thinks they've got your piece but don't see the bigger game you are playing because they are so worried about getting your piece. Sometimes getting that piece costs them a checkmate and it has always fascinated me.”
Yurtseven admitted he thought chess helped him improve his game mentally. He played tennis and volleyball growing up as well as swimming. But chess was also a major topic of talks in his house.
"I played chess a lot and I still do. No one in my family played a sport professionally. The chess games that we would play at home were pretty serious though," Yurtseven said.
While Yurtseven is one of the solid big men in the EuroLeague - averaging 8.2 points and 3.8 rebounds for the third-place team from Greece - one of the top scorers in the BKT EuroCup is also a chess fan.
Anthony Lamb ranked second on Dolomiti Energia Trento and 16th in the EuroCup in scoring with 13.7 points per game. The American said he used to play chess quite a bit.
“I play it on and off. I used to play it a lot more. I ended up playing Shogi a lot. Shogi is like the Japanese version of chess. So I got into that a bunch. But I still go back to play chess now and then,” said the 27-year-old Lamb, who is playing his first season in Europe with the Italian club.
“But if you don't play it very often, you forget all the strategies and skills that go into it pretty quickly. So if you played me right now, I'm probably not that great. But if you gave me a couple weeks to prepare, I think I could hold my own against a lot of people.”
When asked how playing chess helps him on the basketball court, Lamb said: “I'd say all games have strategy and tactics built into them. So you can have a plan going into the game, but just like in chess you have to adjust to what the opponent does. And I think that teaches you a lot of the similar concepts on the court when a team makes an adjustment the team that can adjust again and make sure that their adjustments stick are the teams that end up winning. So I think you see that a lot in chess and a lot in basketball as well.”
Lamb said he and his Trento teammate Jordan Ford played some chess, but they have moved more into the board game Catan. Lamb and Ford actually used to do battle on the chess board during the G-League bubble in 2020-21.
Another player against whom Lamb played in the G-League bubble was his Canton Charge teammate and fellow EuroCup scoring ace Devin Dotson of Joventut Badalona.
“That's my game when we travel. As basketball players, we have long travel days so I get on my phone and play against AI, or play against people from around the world on my app,” Dotson, who ranked 15th in the EuroCup in scoring with 13.7 points per game, told Taking The Charge.
“I got into it in high school. We would have a couple buddies of mine play during lunch or intermission time. We would set up a test game and play. So it's just something that I enjoy. A challenge of mine.”
Dotson remembered his games against Lamb in the bubble.
“That's the only thing we kind of could do is get on chess. He's actually really, really good. He actually beat me a lot.”
Another well-known player in Europe who enjoys moving around some knights and rooks is Ethan Happ, who has been battling foot issues this season and has yet to play for Valencia Basket - the top seed going into the EuroCup playoffs.
"I enjoy chess because it's an easy way to do something competitive,” Happ said in an interview with Taking The Charge’s David Hein and written up for EuroCup in 2024.
The American is an avid reader and said chess helps him keep opponents on the hardwood guessing what is coming next.
“Every chess game is different, no matter how many you play. And similarly to basketball, you have to predict what your opponent is thinking as well as misleading them with what you may be thinking,” he said.
When Happ was playing with Breogan Lugo in 2022-23, the Spanish club found out he liked playing chess and set up a matchup with the then 17-year-old Pablo Lopez, one of the top youth players in the world in speed chess who lived in northwestern Spain in the state of Galicia.
“Pablo beat me in both games that were filmed as well as the three that weren’t,” Happ revealed. “It was really incredible to watch him re-do a game move for move from memory that we had just played to show where my error occurred. After playing him I ramped up my time on Chess.com, but still won't come close to Pablo's level.”
Happ admitted later that he even sought out the local chess club in Lugo after getting beaten by Lopez.
Happ, Yurtseven, Lamb and Dotson are all strong figures on the basketball landscape in Europe. And it’s not a stretch to say that chess at least played a minor role. After all: keeping an opponent in check on the basketball court is one thing. Check-mating them on the chessboard is another.
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As an aficionado chess player I love this post!