My old high school buddy, Roger, and I used to play a lot of chess. We were evenly matched, which is why we probably played so much; it was always a tough game, no matter who won. We also recorded our games, in the antique chess notation of the times, so we also enjoyed setting up the board again after a particularly gnarly combat, trying to reconstruct the position to determine where the turning point was, and what caused the eventual change of fortune that led to victory for one and defeat of the other.
It was inevitable after this intense study that we were able to look into the inner game, the psychological and emotional side of the contest. Chess has very rigid and carefully defined rules. They are carefully spelled out and easily looked up to settle disputes, and we were both experts. There was no question of interpretation or opinion, there was “Federation Rules”, or a “friendly game”, but nothing in between. In the latter, you could take a move back in the event of an obvious blunder to save an interesting game from ending prematurely. In the former, every detail was spelled out, like whether you touched the King or the Rook first when castling (yes, it could make a difference under certain circumstances.)
The game also has a very deep folklore, rules of thumb, if you like, which are not actually rules, but which help students keep track of what’s going on, and help evaluate tactical questions in an informal manner. For example, a pawn is traditionally assigned a value of 1 point, a knight and a bishop are each worth 3 polnts, a rook 5 and the queen 9. These point values are not used in scoring, but they help a student determine whether an exchange has been a tactical victory or defeat.
Chess is a strategic game, whether you win or lose is determined by whether or not you can defend your king. The number of forces available to each side when checkmate comes along is irrelevant. But strategic victory is often determined by the result of many individual tactical encounters. As my grandfather (who taught me the game) used to say, “beginners trade pieces for pieces, strong players trade pieces for position, masters trade positions for positions”. And the game has evolved its strategic rules of thumb as well: strive for control of the center of the board, develop a knight before you advance a bishop, avoid moving your queen too early in the game–and many others. None of these are hard and fast, there are always exceptions dependent on the circumstances, but they have been shown to be good advice for the most part. Still, chess has no element of chance, both sides start off with the exact same forces, even though white has the advantage of the first move. And at all times, the entire board is visible to both combatants. There are no surprises.
Chess is a good model of the universe. There is an underlying set of immutable rules that underlies the game and which cannot be circumvented–the laws of physics. But there is also a set of perceptions and interpretations that help organize what we know and suggest ways to apply it, think of this as logic, language, mathematics, theory and hypothesis, scientific method if you like.
But there is another level, a human psychosocial dimension.
Chess players have a style, a philosophy, a recognizable accent which can overlay the strict grammar of the game. Students of the game often speak of “late 19th century chess”, or “the Russian style”, or of “a strategy reminiscent of Capablanca’s youth”, or a “Bobby Fischer-type combination”. The rules of the game may be strictly immutable, but someone familiar with the game can recognize a master’s style, or his tactics, his balancing of gambit, sacrifice, attack and defense, or other intangibles. The fact that these subjective factors can be identified, and that they can play an immense role in the outcome of the game reveals a great deal about how the mind interacts with reality. Chess is not just science, its an art, too.
When two players interact, their styles and psychology influence the outcome of the game. Some games are trench warfare, battles of attrition, methodical and detailed. Others are blitzkriegs, battles of maneuver, skirmishes, great decisive battles, siege operations–I use military analogies but there is more to it than that, I’m sure.
My old games with Roger illustrated this perfectly. I usually went on the offensive early, I took the initiative, made every attempt to force him to play the kind of game I wanted to play. I always strove to gain the opposition, a technical term signifying the side which dictates the course of the battle, the player with the opposition is always forcing his opponent to respond to his actions. Having the opposition does not guarantee victory (an action may have a perfectly appropriate and effective, even devastating, counter-action). But if you are always responding, you cannot put together your own offense.
On the negative side, losing the opposition can have disastrous consequences. An offensive player forced to respond to an unexpected attack or an ambush suddenly finds his entire momentum compromised, even reversed. His forces will not be properly deployed for defense, and he may find himself suddenly overwhelmed, scattered and his pieces unable to support each other effectively, even if they have a local superiority in force. He risks getting bogged down, having advance units cut off, or forced to abandon pieces prematurely committed without sufficient support.
On the other hand, the player on defense (usually, but not necessarily, black) has a chance to study his opponent’s offense, to wait till he has prematurely committed or over-extended his forces, and freed from the necessity to constantly advance, can concentrate instead on constructing an effective defense and position reserves for a counter-attack, ready to take advantage of any mistake or hesitancy on the part of the attacker.
In my games with Roger, I could win if I could maintain the momentum of my attack without losing the opposition. The longer the initial assault could proceed, the more likely my victory was assured. Roger would be pinned down, immobilized, while I hammered him with my artillery safely from a distance while I assembled the forces for the final coup de grace. On the other hand, if Roger could withstand the initial blitz, if he could fall back in an orderly and disciplined fashion, prepare an effective and interlocking defense in depth, eventually my forces would throw themselves against an impenetrable wall, take too many casualties, and my assault would eventually unravel. After that, it was a rout. His counter-attack would be devastating, and sometimes I found myself resigning even though I might be equal or even ahead in numerical advantage. An attack doesn’t fall apart because of lack of resources, it fails when they are scattered and cannot support one another.
After years of playing together, we realized not only the psychological differences in our styles, but also that we were no longer learning much from each other. Each of us was getting very good at fighting an opponent just like his friend. But when either of us played a strong player other than us, we were often crushed strategically regardless of whatever tactical advantages we were able to bring to the contest. In other words, we could not deal with the subjective or psychological component of our opponent’s game. Another hint;, both of us could consistently beat our friend Harold, and neither of us could beat our friend Chris, and yet, Harold usually prevailed over Chris. Yes, there was definitely something “subjective” going on.
And no matter how well we had memorized the rule book, it was little help at winning the game. Yes, there is a subjective aspect to reality, it does matter how you deal with it, from a strictly personal point of view. If you want to win, you have to rely on your instincts and your feelings, and you must cultivate them, be meticulously aware of them. You must understand the psychology of your opponents as well, to see their motives and empathize with their feelings. There is more to winning the game than just knowing the rules.