My Chess Psychology Bookshelf
by
Rick Kennedy
Here’s a peek at what’s currently on the
bookshelf. What’s missing?
Informal Ratings:
*- Come get it, it’s yours
**- I paid money for it, I guess I ought to keep it.
***- A good one; a keeper; I like it.
****-A classic, a must-have, even if it mostly gathers dust on the shelf.
***** -You’ll get this one when you pry it out of my cold, stiff fingers…
E - Educational
F - Fun
Thought and Choice in Chess,
Adriaan de Groot (1965) **** E
Based on research done 1938
–1943, published as a doctoral dissertation in Dutch in 1946 and (revised)
in English in 1965, this classic study by a chess master and psychology
professor includes a review of the literature (including an in-depth
discussion of Binet’s seminal 1894 paper Psychologie des Grand
Calculateurs et des Jouers d’Echecs which is not –yet – on my shelf) and
plenty of exposition on a peek inside the thinking of some chessplayers.
Grandmasters Alekhine, Euwe, Fine, Flohr, Keres and Tartakower; masters
Cortlever, Landau, Prins and van Scheltinga; 1938 Dutch women’s champion
Roodzant and 1939 Dutch women’s champion Heemskert; five players of expert
strength and five players ranging from about Class C to Class A strength,
all were given positions from actual chess games, and asked to choose a move
– reporting out loud what they were thinking about in the process. The
responses were then deeply analyzed. (Transcripts of the responses make
delightful reading.)
A relevant quote:
The master does not necessarily
calculate deeper, but the variations that he does calculate are much more
to the point; he sizes up positions more easily and, especially, more
accurately.
A random dense quote (why this book is not
for the unschooled or faint-of-heart):
In addition to calculational serendipity
“perceptual serendipity” may lead to coincidental or immediate means
abstractions that influence the order of elaborative phrases.
Predicament in 2 Dimensions,
Ariel Mengarini (1979) *** E, F
Although published in 1979, the majority
of this not-well-enough-known book was written in the years 1939 - 1941.
The author, a psychiatrist and chess master, does a creditable job on a
variety of topics, as reflected in the contents of Part II: Desirable
Character Traits; Clocks; Spectators; Between Moves; Drawing; Resigning; The
“Work of Art” Delusion; Swimming; The Artistic Method; An Interesting
Objection; Thinking Molds and Patterns; Applied Psychology; and The
Chessplayer’s Dodecalogue.
A pithy quote:
I have heard several players say that
they wished there were a book on how to use psychology in defeating the
opponent. This is indeed a fascinating subject, and it seems to fire the
popular imagination with its aura of pervading mystery. But it would be
well to realize that although its application to chess is made much of, in
the ordinary game it will not be found to influence more than one or two
ideas at the outside, perhaps only the choice of opening… winning is no
trick at all if you can intimidate the opponent with dire menaces before
the game. An even simpler way would be to shoot him and win by default. It
is clear then that there is not much scope left for psychology, if our
only weapons are to be moves.
The Chess Mind, Gerald
Abrahams (1951) *** E,F
Abrahams, chess player and
barrister-at-law, sets down the prototype of chess psychology books to come:
plenty of theorizing and lots of chess stories and advice, salted with over
250 positions which are accompanied by commentaries about what the players
were probably thinking – or should have been thinking. In addition
there are several dozen annotated games. The book covers: Vision in
Chess; Note on Chess, Mathematics and Inference; Common Sense and the
Intrusion of Ideas; Imagination: It’s Use and Abuse; General Thinking; How
Battles are Won and Lost; Varieties of Error; Empirical Chess; Memory,
Experience and Technique; and Illustrative Games.
Occasionally coming across like a stuffy,
but endearing, uncle – or perhaps because 50 years have passed since the
book was written – Abrahams’ wisdom and fascination with chess shine
through. Although some of his ideas about chess thinking seem archaic
or are at odds with current experimental insights, it is impossible not to
enjoy this book from cover to cover.
It follows, then, that from the very
beginning of the game, and at all stages of Chess activity, the player is
looking at something, searching for something, seeing something. He may at
the same time also be remembering, or judging, or (very rarely)
calculating; but always his principle activity is concentration, and the
mental process that he is striving for intuitive. Always it is the seeing
of possibilities, of consequences, of process and counter-process, just as
in argument one sees, or tries to see, a point and an answer to it, and
the answer to that, and an alternative approach…
Another quote:
It is at this level of Chess that
factors other than the pure mental become relevant. Courage and caution
are involved: energy and inertia. Players of very great will-power
work hard to see further than the distance that would satisfy them if they
were less determined. Other players exercise a greater control over their
desire to win at all costs; a desire which so often causes players to join
battles of uncertain outcome.
Psychology of the Chess Player,
Reuben Fine (1967) **
Originally published in the journal
Psychoanalysis in 1956, this product of the thinking of a chess
grandmaster and psychoanalyst starts with a short review of the literature,
and quickly moves into the Freudian metaphor: the basis of the royal game is
sex and aggression, father-murder [See:
Rick's Immortal
Game], and fears of being a
chess girlyman.
Since there is not the remotest element
of chance, a victory is the product of one’s own efforts, a loss is the
result of one’s own mistakes.
This is a classic chessic
sleight-of-hand, by the way: why don’t we, instead, attribute our losses
to our opponents’ efforts, or our wins to our opponents’ own
mistakes? Bonus (prescient) quote about an(other?)
American World Champion:
Even Morphy’s withdrawal from chess is
perhaps most simply explained by saying that he knew that if he went back
the illusion of his invincibility would be destroyed.
Psychology in Chess, Nikolai
Krogius (1976) ***** E,F
This modern classic – by a grandmaster who
knows grandmasters, talks with them, quotes them (and their writings) and
tells stories about them – is based on articles that psychologist Krogius
published in the USSR in 1967–1969. Contents: The Chess Image;
Intuition in Chess; Attention; Some Deficiencies in Attention; What is Time
Trouble?; Effects and Cures of Time Trouble; Tournament Tactics; Looking at
One’s Opponent; The Study of One’s Opponent; Know Thyself; Emotions in
Chess; Mistakes; and The Link Between Age and Success.
Psychology was a tool that helped move
forward the “Soviet School of Chess,” and this very readable gem should help
anyone from club player on up.
The chess player expects that psychology
will help him by revealing the intellectual qualities needed for more
successful play, and by demonstrating how to control the formation and
development of these qualities. Psychological investigations will also
define rather more personal problems, and so, if we analyse the
peculiarities of a competitor’s play ,we can determine the most suitable
training methods for that player, we can help him to study effective
methods of calculation and we can help him to overcome problems such as
recurrent time trouble. In this way psychological research may and should
be utilized to improve the player’s performance by developing and
maintaining his sporting abilities.
Think Like a Grandmaster,
Alexander Kotov (1971) ***** E
Another applied psychology blockbuster –
covering Analysis of Variations; Positional Judgement; Planning; The Ending;
and A Player’s Knowledge – wherein GM Kotov presents his ideas on how to
effectively analyze, and where he introduces the now well-known “candidate
moves” and the “tree of analysis.”
Here is what the analysis looks like.
What we have produced reminds one of a family tree. The trunk of this
trees is the main move we are considering . The opponents’ replies form
the four main branches… These branches in their turn are divided into
smaller branches and so the process goes on. The number of branches
depends upon the special features of the position and our ability to find
candidate moves, and so reveals the level of our analytical ability.
Recent books such as Jonathan Tisdall’s
Improve Your Chess Now (1997) and John Nunn’s Secrets of Practical
Chess (1998) look at the pros and cons of such a way of thinking (the
former quotes GM Lein, “I don’t think like a tree – do you think like a
tree?”), but the value of Think Like a Grandmaster, and its impact on
a generation of chess players is indisputable. (By the way, Improve Your
Chess Now and Secrets of Practical Chess are also quite
deservedly on my bookshelf, although only a portion of each could be
referred to as chess psychology.)
[Ed. Read also USCF Senior Master Jude Acers
reviews of Think Like A Grandmaster.]
Play Like a Grandmaster,
Alexander Kotov (1978) *** E
Kotov wrote:
Friends and reviewers of the author’s book
Think Like a Grandmaster took him to task for restricting his account
to just one side of chess mastery – the calculation of variations. They felt
that he had not touched upon much that was important and essential for a
player who was aspiring to reach the top in chess. Thus there
originated the idea of this book Play Like a Grandmaster which the
author has been working on for some years. It is a continuation volume
to Think Like a Grandmaster, and deals with the most important aspect
of chess wisdom, those laws and rules which have been developed by
theoreticians of this ancient game of skill which includes elements of
science, art and competitive sport. The book also contains the author’s
personal observations and the results of his study of the achievements of
his fellow grandmasters.
Kotov’s sequel (not quite up to Think
standards, but valuable nonetheless) covers Positional Judgment; Planning;
Combinational Vision and Calculation; and Practical Play.
Will the reader of this book play like a
grandmaster after he has worked through it carefully? It is hard to say;
naturally this will depend partly on his natural gifts and his persistence
in trying to achieve his objectives, as well as upon his personal
qualities as a competitor. I any event the reader will certainly take a
big step forward in his assimilation of chess theory, and will come to
understand many fine points involved in thinking about his moves and in
chess problem-solving. These are the things which in the final analysis
bring success in competitive play.
Catalog of Chess Mistakes,
Andrew Soltis (1979) *** E,F
With Krogius pointing out that improvement
in chess can come from rooting out our errors in thinking, it was only a
matter of time before someone presented a whole catalog delineating those
kinds of mistakes. Soltis’ book is the chess equivalent of those old,
gory, Driver’s Education films.
Chess is a game of bad moves… Yet we
refuse to recognize this. We like to think the game is a battle
between good moves and better moves. When we win, we tell ourselves – and
anyone who will listen – that the critical difference was our fine
maneuvering, our positional cunning, or our tactical ingenuity. When we
lose, well, it was a stupid mistake – as if errors were an aberration, an
extraordinary accident… The masters know better. They know that a
well-played game is not an error-free game... Victory belongs to the
player who struggles best – not just against his opponent, but against
himself.
Readers can rubber-neck their way past
such tragedies as The Game of Mistakes; Tactical Errors; Mistakes with
Pieces; Calculation and Miscalculation; Positional Errors; Your Attitude Is
Your Error; Practical Mistakes; and Errors with Material. Soltis (a
master when he wrote the book, now a grandmaster) is a journalist, not a
psychologist. He does not offer a systematic way of thinking to avoid
such wrecks, but his writing style is engaging, and his warnings can be
easily read – and hopefully heeded.
Secrets of A Grandpatzer,
Kenneth Colby (1979) *** E,F
Psychiatry and computer prof Colby (USCF
Class A) writes a Kotov for chessplayers who would like to move from patzer
status (0-1700 USCF) into Grandpatzer (1700-2200 USCF) range. Study
132 essential patterns, pretty much ignore the masters (except to study the
openings they play and memorize as much as you can), think like a computer,
and keep a close eye on GP Colby!
Thus, this book is intended to help
patzers towards the artistic goal of becoming grandpatzers. Much master
and grandmaster advice is of little use to them. Sometimes it is banal
(“watch out for checks”), misleading (“learn the Knight and Bishop mate”)
or even fatuous (“don’t select too few candidate moves and don’t select
too many”). Masters may understand chess but they do not necessarily
understand chess players.
Contents: Your Basic Background; How to
Study; How to Miscellaneous (Young Guys, Old Guys, Women, Masters, The
Mysterious Rook Pawn Move, Curiosa); The Greatest Grandpatzer of Them All
The Psychology of Chess,
W.R. Hartson and P.C. Wason (1983) *** E,F
Adopting a serious style somewhere between
those of de Groot and Kotov, Hartson and Wason write:
This is a book about all you have ever
wanted to know about chess players and never been afraid to ask. The
answers certainly do not fall into a neat package, but we shall try to
impose a little order on them…
With a good knowledge of chess psychology
research and chess literature in general, they meander through such topics
as The Nature of Chess; Motivation and Talent; Winning and Losing; The
Essential Patterns; Artificial Stupidity?; Subjectivity; Irrationality;
Therapeutic Value?; and The Origins of Skill. If you’ve ever had a bright
and challenging high school teacher, or an accessible and fascinating
college professor – that’s IM Hartson and Dr. Wason.
The question is simple: Is Chess Good
For You? The claims on both sides are extravagant: chess may drive sane
men mad, according to one view, yet has proved of undoubted usefulness in
therapy for mental disorders… In the absence of further empirical
data we suggest that people play chess, not just to “see the other
fellow’s ego crack” or even to engage in fantasies of father-murder, but
because they get an enduring satisfaction from formulating and solving
difficult problems.
The Psychology of Chess Skill,
Dennis Holding (1985) **** E
I
reviewed this book elsewhere when it came out.
The Pself-Psych Self-Hypnosis Chess
Programs (1985) **** F
Irresistible!
I reviewed these tapes elsewhere when they
first came out.
Practical Chess Analysis,
Mark Buckley (1987) *** E
Do you know how to analyze? Can you
train your brain to “see” the board, and to think in the right sequences?
USCF Master Buckley wrote this book to help readers learn how to “see ahead,
how to judge a position, how to study.” It is not for patzers,
however.
Time to recap the process of finding an
attacking scheme… Decide on a point to attack. Find what
pieces and pawns are required to break through that point and which
defenders must be removed. Determine the path of each attack piece – don’t
include any defensive moves but be flexible, the scheme should be
malleable. Solve the weak point problem by coming up with a sequence
of moves. Calculate lines of play that include defenses to the
scheme. Try to find efficient refutations of your attack. Modify the
attack to cope with the new defenses. Try various move orders; add to or
change the composition of the attack force. Re-assess the position,
restarting the schematic process at whichever step required. Impose your
will on the opponent. Choose a new target if necessary and go
through the process again.
Chess The Mechanics of the Mind,
Helmut Pfleger and Gerd Treppner (1987) *** E,F
The grandmaster and international master
write an enjoyable book filled with good story-telling, helpful lessons
extracted from chess games and writings, and useful analysis of critical
positions.
Perhaps you too, when playing a
promising yet tricky position have longed for the skills of a Kasparov! You have probably then gone on to mess up the game, resigning yourself to
the fact that a chess master’s thinking is on a totally different plane
from yours. To a certain extent you are right, but, on the other hand, a
master is not from birth an intellectual giant whose thought processes
are beyond the grasp of a lowly amateur. The plain fact is that he
has tuned his thinking to an ultra-fine degree, with daily practice and
training doing the rest.
Contents: Preface; The Mechanics of Chess
Thinking; When the Brain goes on Strike; The Right Way to Learn an Opening;
Signposts in the Middlegame; Who’s Afraid of Endings?; and The Character and
Style of Kasparov and Karpov.
We have aimed this volume at the average
chess enthusiast who welcomes instruction without undue didacticism. We
would like to pinpoint the reasons for those mistakes which do not spring
from lack of chess understanding but rather from basic flaws in our
thought processes – flaws to which chess masters are equally prone.
Blunders & Brilliancies, Ian
Mullen and Moe Moss (1990) ***** E,F
If Soltis’ Catalog is the Driver’s
Education film of chess, then Blunders is a slide show taken from the
smoldering wreckage. With wit and charm, quotes galore and
introductions which all seem to start like It was a dark and story night,
Mullen and Moss present over 300 positions from games, most set up like a
mystery with questions like What had the Danish grandmaster seen?,
Can you see the immediate and compelling finish he had overlooked?, and
What, in his haste to draw, had he overlooked?. (Of course, answers
to the questions are provided at the end of the book.)
Our objectives were threefold:
o To supply test
positions of great human interest and thus provide the reader with
motivation which otherwise might be lacking…
o To emphasize the
importance of learning from one’s mistakes…
o To entertain. Chess,
despite rumors to the contrary, is first and foremost a game…
Contents: Introduction; Combinations;
Missed Opportunities; Never Say Die!; Coincidence in Chess; Opportunities.
Winning with Chess Psychology,
Pal Benko and Burt Hochberg (1991) *** E,F
Grandmaster Benko has played chess with
the big boys, and has been an established and enjoyable chess writer for a
very long time. Here he grabs a topic, tells tales, teaches and
explains all – kind of like having him in your living room for a very
pleasant after-dinner chat. You will enjoy the visit.
Psychology has become a standard weapon
in the armory of modern chess. It is not unfair or unsporting
or unethical or illegal or against the rules. It is simply the
application of the principle, first enunciated by Lasker, that the best
move is the one that disturbs the opponent the most.
The contents: Chess As a Fight; Chess As
Art; Chess As Sport; Chess As Life; Chess As War; Putting Psychology to Work
for You; Psychology in the Opening; Developing a Style; Psychology in the
Endgame; The Psychology of the Draw; The Last Round and Other Crises; The
Trouble With Women (and Computers); Attack, Defense, and Counterattack; To
Err Is Human, to Forgive, Foolhardy; Time Pressure Terrors; Your Opponent
and Other Distractions; Commonsense Principles of Chess Psychology.
The lapwing (or pewit), a member of the
plover family, is a brightly colored bird known for its erratic flight and
irritating cry. The German word for this obnoxious fellow is Kiebitz,
a word which the Germans use appropriately to describe a similarly
obnoxious person; that is, a busybody. The verb form, kiebitzen,
means “to look over the shoulder of a card player” – that is, to kibitz.
In Yiddish, a form of German, the verb
kibitz and the noun kibitzer, which have both been absorbed
into the English language, refer not to a variety of bird but to, among
other things, a variety of nuisance. The variety of nuisance that hangs
around people when they’re playing chess or card games.
Kibitzers don’t play; they kibitz. They
always know what you should have played, and they will tell you without
being asked. They will tell you if they are asked not to. Sometimes
they will even tell you what you should play before you play it…
The Inner Game of Chess,
Andrew Soltis (1994) ***** E,F
GM Soltis’ book is sub-titles How To
Calculate and Win, which about says it all.
Ask a master what he actually does
during a game and, if truthful, he’ll answer: “I calculate variations.”
He looks a few moves ahead and makes a judgment about the various
possibilities at his disposal… Calculation may well be the most
important skill a chess player can master…
And so begins a very readable,
understandable, and helpful book on how the average player can learn or
improve chess calculation. Soltis is strident in his belief that the
effort will pay off.
It is widely believed, for example, that
you are born either with or without calculating ability, that it cannot be
taught. Almost everyone agrees, furthermore, that computers
calculate much better than humans. And it is stated with the utmost
authority that there is one and only one correct method of counting out
variations, which all masters follow.
None of these statements is true.
Calculation is a skill that can be studied, learned, and sharpened.
A player can calculate much more efficiently than any machine. And
masters select moves and visualize and evaluate their consequences using a
wide variety of methods.
Abraham, in The Chess Mind (1951),
suggested that the smallest building block in chess was not a formation, or
a piece, or even a move – it was an idea. Soltis goes even
further:
Before a player can begin his
calculations he needs something to calculate. It will probably come
from a tactical or strategic pattern, perhaps from a particularly
fortunate configuration of his pieces or weak spot in his opponent’s
position. In short, an idea. Ideas inspire calculation.
Without them we’d have to think like computers, searching through dozens
of moves and evaluating hundreds of irrelevant positions. The
absence of an idea is the most common cause of oversights.
When we miss a two move combination it’s
usually because we simply weren’t aware of the primary tactical idea in
the position. And usually this is because it didn’t occur to us that
there was one.
It’s more than just a keeper – it will
help the developing player.
How to Think in Chess, Jan
Przewoznik and Mark Soszynski (2001) ** E
Przewoznik and Soszynski are strongly
influenced by de Groot's methods in his Thought and Choice in Chess
(1894). In fact, early on in their book they give the reader four
chess positions, each to be analyzed – with the analysis spoken out loud and
tape recorded, to be then compared with a correct analysis protocol (as in
de Groot's experiments). Later, there are 75 exercises to solve.
Later still, there are an additional 120 exercises with multiple choice
answers (very interesting format!).
A simple mention of chapters is
insufficient. So, in more depth:
I. Introduction
II. Solo Analysis
1.Positions for solo analysis
2.Analysis of training positions - solutions
3.How to analyze the protocols of thinking aloud
4.Examples of protocol analyses
5.Exercises
6.Solutions to the exercises
III. Solving Methods
1.Analysis of critical positions
2.Grouping forcing and non-forcing possibilities
3.Combining moves, grouping possibilities
4.Forming the possibilities into three groups
5.Plan formation
6.A preference for some move or plan
7.The basic variation
8.Anticipation
9.Progressive deepening
10.Checking
11.Securing
12.Conflict analysis
13.Trying out
14.Clarification
15.Strengthening
16.Confirmation
17.Non-execution of moves
18.Calculating only one's moves
19.Methodical doubt
20.Aiming for partial liquidation or elimination
21.Methodical return to more general problems
IV. Test Your Chess Fantasy
1.Test construction
2.How to solve the problems and assess performance
3.Problems
4.Answers
5.Full Solutions
6.Problem classification and scoring
7.Favorable conditions for creative solving
8.Are you a creative thinker?
V. Psychological Training
1.Setting goals
2.Positive thinking
3.Stress management
4.Character development
5.Positive self-image.
Whew! A quote from the Foreword by
Jon Levitt:
"Psychology" is, of course, another term
that can encompass a very wide range of issues. At one moment in Jan
Przewoznik and Marek Soszynski's book you might be reading what seems like a
self-help text, learning to overcome mental blocks or reading advice on how
to deal with competitive stress. At another moment you might be examining
the thinking "protocols" of strong players as they analyse a critical
position
in depth... You should be warned however that this is not an entirely
normal chess book and certain parts of it have more the feel of academic
esoterica. Some of the protocol analysis, for example, is very
detailed and may not seem at all helpful to the improving player (it might
of course be of interest to a psychologist or a computer programmer). The
section on sports psychology is of more practical value and may help players
freshen up their approach or introduce a touch more creativity into their
play.
Readers who follow the arduous and
occasionally mind-numbing footsteps that the authors lay out may very well
improve. I've read the book twice - taking in as much as I was able -
and I have concluded that if this is the path I need to follow to think and
improve, I'm doomed to life as a thoughtless patzer.
Practical Chess Psychology,
Amatzia Avni (2002) Reviewed here at Chessville.
Chess Psychology, Angus
Dunnington (2003) *** E,F. Reviewed here at Chessville.
The Grandmaster’s Mind,
Amatzia Avni (2004) Reviewed here at Chessville.
Chess: The Art of Logical Thinking,
Neil McDonald (2004) Reviewed here at Chessville.
The Seven Deadly Chess Sins, Jonathan Rowson
(2001) Reviewed here at Chessville.
How to Be Lucky in Chess,
David LeMoir (2001) Reviewed here at Chessville.
Index of all
reviews
|
