Psychic Pokemon and Chess: A Study
Many psychic pokemon have been reported to have vast intelligence compared to most other types of pokemon; some even consider certain speceis to be more intelligent than humans. However, much of a pokemon's cognitive abilities are misattributed to intelligence when they could be instead credited to psychic powers.
In order to ascertain the true cognitive abilities of various psychic type pokemon, and because our researchers didn't have anything better to do at the time, we have attempted to teach each pokemon how to play chess, and measure their playstyles.
Methodology: In phase one, we have the pokemon observe human players across multiple games of chess. Complex or niche moves like castling and en passants were avoided in these games to keep from confusing the pokemon while in the learning phase. In phase two, we set a pokemon against a human player for several matches, providing positive feedback whenever the pokemon makes good moves - or legal moves, when it proves difficult to teach the rules. Finally in phase three we pit pokemon against each other to see how they fare.
Below are our observations:
Phase one: Mr. Mime took great interest in the games we played, and mimicked our motions on a nearby chess board. One of our Mr. Mimes seemed particularly attached to the knight piece, perhaps because it has a face on it.
Phase two: Mr. Mime's playstyle was always to mimic its opponent's last move, creating a perfectly symmetrical game board - though in some games it chose to opt for rotational symmetry and sometimes it chose reflection symmetry. Whenever a human opponent would make a move that could not be replicated - such as capturing the piece Mr. Mime needed to move next - Mr. Mime would grow agitated and refuse to continue playing.
Phase three: When playing together, Mr. Mimes ignore the objective of chess entirely in favor of working together to create geometric shapes with their pieces. They still follow all the rules of chess movement, but aside from that appear to be playing a game of their own which is cooperative in nature instead of competitive.
Extra notes: Days after this experiment some of the other Mr. Mimes and Mime Juniors at our research station began to participate in mock chess games with the ones we taught - it seems they taught the game to the others.
Phase one: Alakazam did not appear to be paying attention to our chess games, except during times when one of our players would spend a long time calculating the best move.
Phase two: While our research team is mostly composed of 1900 elo players at best, not a single player was able to win a game against an Alakazam - in fact, phase two of this experiment was prolonged by the requests of many players for rematches against a challenging opponent.
Phase three: When two Alakazams were pit against each other, neither seemed particularly keen to play. We speculated that perhaps the game was occurring entirely in their minds, but eventually one of them moved a piece - illegally. That Alakazam then looked at one of the researchers, and moved the same piece again one square over, glancing at the researcher as if for reassurance. Research is inconclusive but it seems that the Alakazams never actually learned the rules, instead making all of their decisions in the games they played against us by reading our minds and determining which move we thought would be best for them.
Extra notes: We pit an Alakazam against a Mr. Mime and discovered that Alakazam adapted its play style to whatever game Mr. Mime was playing.
Phase one: Gothitelle appeared to try to demonstrate its understanding of the game by recreating on another chessboard a game researchers would end up playing one round later. After doing so it was evidently bored by the games researchers played.
Phase two: Nothing remarkable happened during this phase except that Gothitelle would occasionally make illegal moves. After some observation, it was determined that Gothitelle was actually trying to move a piece twice in one turn. Correcting this behavior proved difficult.
Phase three: All games were over after the first move. One Gothitelle would move a pawn, then the two would stare at each other for a moment, and one of them would tip over their king, indicating a forfeit. We think perhaps they shared a vision of the future in which one of them won, and ended the game under the assumption it would otherwise happen as they envisioned it.
Phase one: Once it was clear that Gardevoir understood the objective of the game, each one was observed rooting for the success of their favorite researcher. This made it easier to determine how well they understood the rules. Towards the end of phase one, one Gardevoir used its psychic power to physically stop one player's hand from moving a piece erroneously, suggesting that it had a grasped higher level analysis of the game.
Phase two: Despite the promising indications of phase one, Gardevoirs were unable to win a single game. Often the games would be close and then a Gardevoir would make a mistake that put them at a disadvantage they would not be able to make up. When human players made a mistake, Gardevoir would rarely capitalize on this mistake. They never seemed upset that they lost, instead celebrating the human's victory.
Phase three: When playing against one-another, Gardevoirs rarely made mistakes, making games heated. This leads us to believe that they were throwing the games against humans on purpose to make us feel good.
Medicham shows no interest in chess.
