An Observation and Question or Two about How We Think

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In the political world the Israelis seem to think the Palestinians should NOT go to the U.N. to get recognition for a political state and they should instead follow the path the Jews took to create Israel. That would be sad because the Israeli state was created by a terrible means (WWII). The wars that followed to establish its permanence were even worse. But, the way a person knows their own history must always shape the way they think other people could proceed. Don't all wars involve killing and a state's loss? What of the "War against Terror"? What state would lose if al Qaeda were destroyed forever? Changes in paradigm are tough to understand.

Around the world supporters of Democracy may be wondering what the Egyptians are doing. First they have a revolution, then an election and then another revolution. What pattern is that? I think they're fighting for a working Democracy where there is power sharing. Maybe they're following the Iraqi event with an eye to what has happened in Iran or Israel to see what they should do. I think they are, in the end, creating their own path and that's confusing to everyone else who thinks there is only ONE path -- the one each of those people knows about. But, history does not govern the present or future, it only informs us.

In the chess world we use ideas about strategy or psychological chess to narrow our search for moves we feel are more likely to work (to produce victory). But, by the very act of shaping the box and sizing the box we limit ourselves to only finding moves from within the box. What if the answer lies outside the box? For example, I for many years played naturally and with only a few learned ideas about how to play bits of the game. I studied some books on the opening and ending and learned a bit from my own games. I didn't have a teacher. I proceeded, based on that alone, to strong expert strength. Then I was frustrated and gave up the game. Later I came back to it, after college, and began a more 'scientific-like' process of study. I studied the values as I saw them and got a bit stronger. I earned the master title and eventually drew a couple of grandmasters.  That still didn't make me strong enough to beat titled players very often. What I had done was to learn the Values which improved my skill at keeping a safe position. It limited what I could do offensively, but I held out better against all opponents and still won a fair number of games. What was the golden mean where all-out offense and cautious safe play meet? Alekhin called it 'imagination' (for offense) and 'prudence' to stay safe.

Today I have another idea about playing offense and I'm working on using that while retaining the 'safety' side of my game. Hopefully this will help me regain the master title and to do better against FIDE titled players (FM, IM, GM).

Another interesting thing I've read is a quote by GM David Norwood (not terribly active these days) where he said being a grandmaster is the art of 'playing chess well, but without calculating a lot'. Several sources have said that and others have emphasized that calculation skill is very dubious and not often to be trusted. Apparently grandmasters consider it very difficult and uncertain. This means they must be playing to achieve patterns which make their positions 'easy to play', safe, viable and with chances to win. Yet, when you see the Kasparov books he includes tremendous calculation variations. Walter Browne's game notes & book is like that too. I think grandmasters, like everyone, have varying skills. Some core skills must be required, perhaps how to assess many kinds of positions and how to apply chess logic and select moves well.

What should a learning player do? Who should he follow? Well, what do these players who write books tell us? They say what they know from their own experience. Their paradigms are about developing to a high level with hard work, though not necessarily a lot more than lesser players. For example, Michael Adams said he developed to about FIDE 2600 without having read a chess book. Who can follow that course?

There are so many different ways to approach chess play it's hard for me to even list one or two. Some people are more imaginative and intuitive while others are logical and calculating. There seems to be no one fundamental skill set or method common to all great players. Surely Kasparov and Karpov were a bit different? Botvinnik and Tal! Leaving aside style there are simply different ways of thinking. Kasparov can write books about a game or two while Anand once wrote, "I played this move because it was my birthday." Who can suss out from that what their common skills might be? Intuition and calculation (or logic) seem most obvious, but brute force move-calculation has to be considered too. We use intuition when our right brain sees a pattern and a 'next step'. We can use logic when intuition fails us. There are books on both for learning players to study.

If it's true the moves come first and ideas later, then maybe it's the filtering of candidate moves by these strategic and logical ideas (our mental boxes) with the aid of calculation which is the better method.