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Chessville
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Chess Psychology Approaching the Psychological Battle both On and Off the Board Reviewed by Rick Kennedy
Mention “chess psychology” to a group of chess players, and you will get an endless variety of responses.
When players talk about chess psychology, they usually mean either a) using knowledge about mental processes to improve (or add) good habits, and get rid of bad habits; or b) using different ploys, ruses or strategies to unsettle or in some way get an advantage over an opponent. Thus, we have seen books from Thought and Choice in Chess to How to Cheat at Chess, with a whole lot of titles in between. Inevitably, someone will mention Bobby Fischer’s quote, now laden with rusted irony: "I don’t believe in psychology. I believe in good moves." As someone who “believes in psychology” (it’s kind of like my “day job”) and who is a chess psych junkie with a stack of books on the subject, I grabbed Dunnington’s Chess Psychology as soon as I could. Dunnington is an International Master with over a dozen books to his name. He has written on the openings: The Chigorin Queen's Gambit (1996), Winning with the Catalan (1997), Easy Guide to the Reti Opening (1998), The Ultimate King's Indian Attack (1999), Winning Unorthodox Openings (2000), Attacking with 1 d4 (2001), Nimzo-Indian Rubinstein (2003), and Gambit Play (2003). He has looked at aspects of middlegame play: - 101 Winning Chess Strategies (1999), Mastering the Middlegame (2001), Can You Be A Positional Chess Genius? (2002), and Understanding the Sacrifice (2002). Recently he has released Blunders and How to Avoid Them (2004), which is another chess thinking/psychology book. In Chess Psychology, we get a maturing Dunnington. In his late teens and early 20s he had referred to himself as an HYP -Hungry Young Professional- chessplayer. He passed unevenly through the mid-to-late-1990s “when habit led me to continue playing, with no desire, no ambition, no fun…” Married these days, with a toddler daughter, Dunnington has “bills to pay, things to see and do, interests that have absolutely nothing to do with chess…There is little time for playing, and, quite frankly, I don’t care any more.” Readers should take that last comment with a large grain of salt. Dunnington clearly still loves the game of chess, just not the serious, international, take-no-prisoners kind of competitions (and the extensive preparations they require). He writes about chess (more than a book a year) and serves as a chess coach. Chess Psychology is clearly the effort of an IM who has played competitive chess half of his life, and who has had the time to reflect upon his own play, as well as the play of those who are either more or less skilled than he is. He has wisdom to impart. Dunnington meanders through the book, which is divided into three main chapters: Psychological Factors, Practical Examples and Illustrative Games. His presentation is more like a charming guest who has come to dinner (and brought his chess set and set of chess stories) rather than a psychology professor giving a tightly-outlined lecture. By way of example, here is a map to Chapter One: Inner Peace; Noisy Chess; One Lump or Two?; Gamesmanship; Blitzing; The Clock as a Positional Tool; Physical Chess; Sleep; Lack of Sleep; What's My Motivation?; Memory; Memories...in the Corner of my Mind; Chunks; Practice Makes Perfect; Super Storage; Food and Drink; and Thinking. What has the man to say? Here are some comments from the Introduction:
Dunnington then goes on to address Psychological Factors, anecdotally and with good humor. He touches upon topics we’ve heard about before, but in a way that makes the reader re-think (or re-discover) them. My favorite comment in this chapter is about the foremost psychology issue, one that all pawnpushers will understand: "Chess can be difficult enough without life getting in the way of a complicated - or simple - variation." (Has anyone every produced a t-shirt with the message “Chess is Life, Everything Else is Just Details” ?) In Chapter Two, Dunnington presents dozens of Practical Examples of chess game situations, starting off with an all-too-familiar one:
This is illustrated with a close look at Vallejo Pons – Sokolov, Mondariz 2001, where grabbing a pawn was chessically an error, even if psychologically understandable. In the following example, from Platonov – Zaitsev, USSR Championship, Riga 1970, we see (and learn) another practical lesson.
Dunnington writes:
By the way, what does someone who’s written a fistful of openings books say about openings?
In Chapter Three, Dunnington first annotates three games with an eye on the psychological, on the issues of Too Much Space, Passive Play, and Change of Pace. He then adds to a grandmaster’s self-annotated game his own observations (on the game, on the annotation). There follow two Fischerandom games with notes; a look at the game Bronstein – Ljubojevic, Petropolis Interzonal 1973, where the first player was clearly “in the zone”; and a final game by the chess program Fritz. (“Let us hope in the future, dear reader, there is a way to use your psychology to overcome computers. If not, you can always switch the power off.”) Chess Psychology is a good book and an enjoyable read. It will require focused reading – I raced through it the first time, and missed half of what Dunnington was saying. My second, slower, read-through, was twice as rewarding. Whither the domesticated Dunnington?
Have no fear, one of these days, he’ll be baaaaaaaaaaack!
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