See Maurice Ashley's blog here. He's the international chess grandmaster, and his motto is, "Your passion is your window to the world."In chess, retrograde analysis is a computational method used to solve game positions for optimal play by working backward from known outcomes (e.g. checkmate), such as the construction of endgame tablebases. In game theory at large, this method is called backward induction. For most games, retrograde analysis is only feasible in late game situations of reduced complexity, such as a chess position where few pieces remain in play.Here is a list of requirements (the whole handbook, actually) for a chess grandmaster. Here is a list of the top chess players.The University of Pittsburgh published a list of seven things you need to do to solve problems."The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with but whether it is the same problem you had last year." John Foster Dulles, Former US Secretary of State.