Tao Te Chess

Significant improvement for adult players is rare. It doesn’t seem to be enough to read the right books or hear the right words from a gifted teacher. Something else is going on.

Talk the Talk
I love to read chess books. I have a huge library. I enjoy learning principles and guidelines for strategy, tactics, and endgames. I like to study openings and prepare a repertoire. I try to analyze my own games, identify mistakes, and strive to not make them again.

Walk the Walk
All this knowledge is fine, but effectively putting it into practice is key to improvement. Both IM Edward Dearing in his new book Play the Nimo-Indian and GM Jonathan Rowson in his new book Chess For Zebras suggest that a key measure of a chess player’s skill is their ability to work out problems over the board. Rowson goes on to suggest that you improve in that area primarily by doing it. This means playing often, and possibly going over practice positions.

Body and Mind
In my own experience, the above activities aren’t enough for significant improvement. Most of the time I feel like I’m not playing at anywhere near my full potential. Much of my post-game analysis is filled with insights such as “I knew better than that” or “I was tired and just missed that.” Physical exhaustion is easy enough to handle somewhat by physical conditioning.

I’ve also discovered that most of my mistakes have more to do with strange ways my mind works rather than lack of knowledge (or wrong knowledge). For example, my mind latches onto an idea and I move on as if I’ve fully explored an area, missing other vital aspects. Here are a couple of examples from my tournament games:

Bafrali - Kilgore, 2004

In this position my opponent just played 31.Nc7!?, and I saw the obvious threat of 31…Qxc7 32.Rh8+ Kf7 33.Rh7+ and that I could counter it with 33…Bg7. So I chose to ignore his “threat” and I played 31…Qxc7??. My mind latched onto the “reason” for his move, I saw how to deal with the threat, and I moved on. I didn’t look for additional threats, and sure enough there was one. My opponent then played 32.Rh8+ Kf7 as expected, but then unleashed 33.Rxf8+! and I resigned as I’m losing my queen. In general I know to examine forcing moves, even when they seem to sacrifice material, such as White’s 31.Nc7. But in this case I was distracted by my own idea.

Kilgore - Eoff, 2004

In this position my opponent just played 19…g6 and I thought “He wants to be able to retreat his bishop to g7.” In this case that may have been all my opponent really intended. But having latched onto an idea, I didn’t think about the move any further, and went on to consider my own plans and moves. In general I know to not only look at what a moved piece can now do, but also what it can no longer do. But in this case I was distracted by my own idea. If I had noticed that 19…g6?? removes a defender from f6, I should have seen 20.Ncd5! exd5 21.Nxd5 Qb8 22.Bxf6 Rc8 (22…Nxf6 23.Nxf6+) 23.Qg4 and White is winning.

I noticed the common thread of these two examples, and my solution is to try and always ask “What else?” In practice, I found that I would do this at times, but there were always moments (and sometimes these were key moments) when I’d fail to do this.

As adults I believe our minds and bodies are heavily conditioned to work a certain way, and these patterns and tendencies are our crutch to significant chess improvement. This goes way beyond chess. Adjusting the way our body-mind works is not a trivial undertaking. It’s also not something many of us are going to do just to improve our chess. It’s an entire way of life when you get down to it.

The Way
Tao means “way” as in a way of life. It’s traditionally associated with Taoism. Our popular culture has come up with “The Tao of X” to entertain and educate a wide variety of subjects. The Tao of Pooh is one of my favorites. Peter Kurzdorfer even wrote a book called The Tao of Chess, of which this site is in no way associated, but by all means check his book out if it interests you. This site is simply about my adventures in chess, including my ramblings about improving my own game. And I’ve personally come to the conclusion that my entire way of life has to change for my chess to improve substantially. Fortunately for me, this is something I want to do anyway, independent of chess.

Exploring this Tao of Chess fully is an ongoing process, but I can point to a few features as I now see them:

• Beginner’s Mind
  As talked about in Zen literature, “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities. In the expert’s mind there are few.” This is about being able to approach the moment with a clear mind, free of preconceived limiting ideas and perceptions, to see what’s actually there. No more, no less. Just what’s there. Be here now. This is surprisingly harder than it sounds.
• Tai Chi
  The Yin-Yang symbol is the archetype of fundamental duality. Hard and soft. Darkness and light. Attack and defense. Open and closed. Tai Chi Chuan, perhaps the most advanced martial art in existence, uses this principle at its core. When pushed, pull. When pulled, push. You never meet force with force. That only works if you’re stronger. Instead, flow with their force and redirect it back onto themselves. Work in harmony with your opponent.
• Self-Transcendence
  Strong chess players and big egos are practically synonyms, so this one may seem like an impossible challenge. I want to view chess as (among other things) an art, where two artists mutually sculpt the work. Unlike Fischer and Kasparov (and many others), I don’t want to crush my opponent’s will and destroy their ego. I want to participate in a mutual creation, dissolving the barriers of separation. Yes, I know that sounds incredibly idealistic and lofty, but so be it. Can you imagine sitting across from someone in a tournament hall and viewing the game as a mutual creative expression?

This is just a hint at what The Tao of Chess is for me. I’ll let you know how it turns out.