I've often wondered whether there are "chess savants".
I think they may have problems when games lose symmetry, or become unbalanced, and they may strive for absolute equality instead of superiority.
As per normal, I'm probably totally wrong about this.
Chess is more like an artistic game(war), for which you have to use your intellectual skills to play and get mastery (as far as i know).....
It cannot be learned or mastered by a mentally diseased person as far as i know...
You can't teach talent.
It seems implausible that massive amounts of memorization leads to a good chess player, since computers have memory far beyond a human and they've yet to build a good chess engine based on playing book lines...
12000 books?! 
?????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That's crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I think you are all forgetting that savants have very particular skills in which they are vastly superior in in exchange for far below average skills in most other areas.
Therefore, it is quite plausible to have a savant who can be one of the best chess players of all times, even though he/she cannot use the restroom by themselves.
In short, it depends of the savant I would suppose.
Kim Peek actually died just a few days ago, 19 december, not more than 5 days ago, by a heart attack.
Kim Peek actually died just a few days ago, 19 december, not more than 5 days ago, by a heart attack.
Aw, RIP, Rain Man.
12000 books?! ?????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That's crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hi....
Even more than that he was able to recall all the american zip codes anytime, and can read 8 pages in less than a minute(58 secs approximately) with recall memory of 95%, while normal human takes more than 25 mins to read and would recall them with 45% accuracy...
KIM PEEK - Rain Man
Can he be taught to play chess, if he is alive...????
they say he knew more than 12000 books memorized in his brain...How will it be if he memorized a lot of chess moves equal to that...Will he be able to challenge a comp with his knowledge?
thanks for all your comments and posts