Chess, mahjong or Go show that brain power is more than a game

The 2001 Ron Howard hit, A Beautiful Mind, had Russell Crowe playing real-life troubled master mathematician John Nash in which he introduces his "game theory" to great effect, and to the particular interest of the intelligence agencies.

Game theory is a branch of math that analyzes situations in which parties make interdependent decisions. When he's not being debriefed and/or interrogated by the suits in Langley, which is a huge chunk of his adult life, he did find the time to put his powers of persuasion to "good use" in singles bars, where he demonstrates to some highly motivated peers how the theory could better ensure one didn't go home alone.

However, I have a more controversial bar-stool stumper of a proposal, or debate question if you will. Which of these "thing"-based games — the things being either pieces, tiles or stones — are the most challenging and, by analogy, the greatest generator for growing gray matter? I should pause here to dispel a popular myth that some "brain games" — like crossword puzzles or Sudoku — can stretch out our cerebrums. However, we're pretty much stuck with a finite number of neurons between our ears from birth, and we can only whack a few million here and there with bad habits or long NFL careers. Mind you, there's no quota on brain cell counts from life's starting line, but learning new languages or taking up woodworking can enhance the connections, or synapses, between cells, rendering them more elastic over time. So getting back to my contentious debate question, "let's go to the videotape", as Warner Wolf likes to say.

The historical origin of chess remains a matter of heated debate, and yes fanatics of the game tend to jealously guard the integrity of their "sport".

Reminds me of the time a "chess "friend of mine recalled encountering a rousing "Catch My King" tourney on Christmas Day beside the check-in counter of a Four Seasons Hotel, with participants all lauding the virtues of their favorite pastime. He said the experience left him incensed, as he said: "Nothing I hate more than bumping into a bunch of 'chess nuts boasting in an open foyer'."

Indisputable proof that chess existed in a manner approximating its modern manifestation before the 6th century simply doesn't exist. The game unfortunately doesn't have an Abner Doubleday as does baseball. Ancient game pieces unearthed in Russia, China, India and Central Asia sometimes even involved dice, and sometimes had playing boards of 100 or more squares — making historical origins even dicier.

One possible progenitor from the 7th century was the war game chaturanga — Sanskrit for a military formation mentioned in the Indian epic Mahabharata. The Risk-esque game, with a tinge of You Sank My Battleship, is often deemed the earliest ancestor of modern chess' different pieces with varying powers — unlike checkers and Go — and ultimate success was based on claiming one piece, the king.

The game spread to the east, north, and west, taking on sharply different characteristics. In the East, carried by Buddhist pilgrims, Silk Road traders and others, it was transformed into a game with inscribed disks that were often placed on the intersection of the lines of the board rather than within the squares.

About 750, chess reached China, and by the 11th century it had come to Japan and Korea. Chinese chess, the most popular version of the Eastern game, has nine files and 10 ranks as well as a boundary — the river, between the 5th and 6th ranks — that limits access to the enemy camp and makes the game slower than its Western cousin.

Given the variety of pieces and their permissible movements, one could argue that chess trumps the game of Go due to the diverse cast of characters alone. After all, Go involves only a seemingly bottomless bag full of either black or white stones, actually discs roughly the size of a US dime. But any Go-er worth their weight in jade stone would argue that woe to him who poo-poos Go for its seeming simplicity. Because the moment a participant takes his eye off the big picture, the person sitting across the table from him is ready to pounce on any mental oversights, and claim instant victory.

And finally, we come to mahjong — a tile-based four-player game born in 19th century China. Similar to the Western card game rummy, mahjong is a game of skill, strategy and sometimes just dumb luck, played with a set of 144 tiles using Chinese characters and symbols. In turn, players draw and discard tiles until they complete a legal hand using the 14th drawn tile to form four melds (or sets) and a pair (eye).The game's name originates from the Chinese word for sparrow — as the clacking of tiles during shuffling resembles the chattering of the small birds.

Since you've dutifully read this far, I'm going to award you, honorable reader, with an answer to the question "Which game is best for boosting brain power?" The most honest answer, just as one asking "Who invented chess?" is one still up for debate.