The Chess Mind

From Stephen Davies, Themes in the Philosophy of Music:

We live in an age in which it is regarded both as offensive and as false to suggest there is not democratic equality among all kinds of music in their artistic value and among all listeners in their understandings of music. It seems also to be widely held that understanding comes simply as a result of one's giving oneself over to the music (as if there must be something wrong with a work that does not appeal at first hearing). The ideas that there are worthwhile degrees of musical understanding that might be attained only through years of hard work and that there are kinds of music that yield their richest rewards only to listeners prepared to undertake it smack of an intellectual elitism that has become unacceptable, not only in society at large but in the universities. 'Anti-democratic' ideas are rejected not just for music, of course, but across the social and political board, but the case for musical 'democracy' is especially strong, since almost everyone loves and enjoys some kind of music. Nevertheless, the arguments I have developed above suggest to me that many music lovers mistake the enjoyment they experience for the pleasure that would be afforded by deeper levels of understanding. (232)

The same goes for chess: there are ideas that anyone can appreciate, but there are those the neophyte tournament player can appreciate that the beginner can't, those accessible to the experienced club player that are lost on his less sophisticated counterparts, and so on up through master, "mere" grandmaster, (FIDE) 2700 player and so on. (An example: In ChessBase Magazine 109, Anand described what happened in the opening of one of his San Luis games as boring to most people, but the sort of thing that gets 2700 players excited.)

Note: this isn't a knock against lower-rated players (from beginner to "mere" GM) or their perceptions of beauty. It's a reminder that we shouldn't confuse what we appreciate in chess with the sum total of the beautiful, nor what we can understand with the set of all comprehensible positions. Instead, it should be encouraging: if we work at chess, we'll not only get stronger, we'll also have an increased capacity to enjoy the beauty of the game - both quantitatively and qualitatively. And that is something to look forward to!

Sometimes grandmasters say the darndest things.

Take, for example, our heroes du jour, Mssrs. Robert Huebner and Alexander Morozevich. Both are truly great players: Huebner was a Candidate many times, while Morozevich has been at least as high as number four in the world rankings. They're also both thoughtful individuals with a propensity to make interesting and provocative statements like the following:

First, GM Huebner:

Those who say they understand chess, understand nothing. (Robert Huebner, cited in Jonathan Rowson, Chess for Zebras, p. 79.)

And next, GM Morozevich:

Q: Who is the strongest player in the world right now? Perhaps it is still Kasparov, despite having recently left the stage?

A: There is no such a thing as the “stronger player”. No one understands chess as it is, there is simply a will to reach the highest possible result. Actually, Kasparov doesn’t understand anything in chess. (Morozevich, interviewed here.)

Let's call this the No one Understands Thesis or NUT for short. It sounds deep, even a bit subversive (as in the Morozevich example), right? On the one hand, it looks like a really profound claim: even Kasparov doesn't understand chess: wow! And on the other hand, one concludes upon further reflection that it's true: even Kasparov and the gang aren't always sure about what's happening and sometimes get things wrong, and the examples can be multiplied beyond measure throughout chess history.

So NUT at least seems both a remarkable and interesting on the one hand, and true on the other. Is it? To quote one of my undergraduate philosophy professors: "Well...er...um, you see...uh, um...uh...NO." The problem is that the claim is ambiguous (i.e. it can be understood in more than one way), and the process of disambiguating leaves us a choice: either the claim is true but trivial, or it's interesting but false. Truth and interestingness don't go together here. Either the NUT is true but boring, or interesting but baloney.

Interpretation 1:

Let's think about the claim that Kasparov doesn't understand anything in chess. Does he not understand that KQk is a trivial win with the Q side to move? That seems a bit harsh; even kids who have known the game for a few hours have grasped that. (Maybe Kasparov's a little slow? Re-read my ex-prof's profundity.) It seems to me there are wide swaths of the endgame Kasparov understands perfectly well. Further, there are plenty of positions of a non-technical nature he understands completely as well, that he can flawlessly carry through to the full point. In fact, there are plenty of positions where I can do that, so again, the NUT is preposterous, bordering on the insane. It would be quite interesting if NUT were true, but it's dazzlingly false.

Interpretation 2:

But perhaps H & M mean something much more subtle. Maybe they're expressing a statement about the tremendous depth of chess. Maybe NUT really means something like this:

No one is able to fully comprehend the positional complexities of the game.

I think an interpretation of this sort is what gives NUT whatever plausibility it actually has, and it has the added virtue of being true. What it also has is the property of being staggeringly obvious: other than a few cranks, perhaps, who has ever thought the game of chess was completely figured out? Certainly not Kasparov himself, nor Karpov, nor any of the world's current top players. Granted, there was a fear of the "draw death" in chess in Capablanca's time (Alekhine put an end to that nonsense), and there are some worries in our day about the effects of computers on opening theory, but even so, even on the bleakest picture, no non-crank claimed the game was in fact completely understood. (Certainly not in our day.)

Interpretation 3?:

Is there another way to understand the NUT? Kasparov has (in)famously divided the chess world into those he considers "real" players and those who aren't, while Karpov said - pre-San Luis - that Topalov would not win the title because he "did not understand chess", implying that someone else in the field did.

Maybe there's some common thread between Huebner and Morozevich's NUT on the one hand, and the Kasparov/Karpov SUT (the someone understands [chess] thesis) on the other. But until and unless one of the first pair offers some further clarification, it seems to me NUT should provoke either scorn (on the first interpretation) or boredom (on the second).

A very interesting interview with Viktor Korchnoi has been published on the e3e5 website. Among the eyebrow raisers are comments like these:

Q: What about Karjakin and his future?

A: I will pass this in silence. I do not think that highly about Karjakin’s talent.

...

Q: Did you meet people, who gave up chess because of their keenness on other things and became famous in that kind of activity, though they could become outstanding players?

A: Kamsky is the only person I can mention, I do not consider him to be a very talented chessplayer though.

There's plenty of other provocative and noteworthy material about Topalov, Carlsen, Tal, Nakamura and others, but the last quote I will reproduce makes for an interesting comparison with my previous post:

Q: ...Do you think that children should be taught chess in the modern world? If you think that they should be taught, at what age it’s better to start?

A: From personal experience I feel thatfirst children should get a general education. I was a talented child, I used to read a lot… As soon as I started studying chess seriously I gave up reading and I haven’t read books for adults, Dostoyevsky, for example: I had neither time nor strength for this. For this reason education should be provided first, and then one can be taught chess. It’s quite another matter, that chess lessons instill assiduity, develop mental abilities for comprehending other knowledge, it means that chess is useful. There are not many proofs, though. [Emphasis added.]

Educators, parents and thoughtful individuals: comments?

In the introduction to his Symbolic Logic, Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) tells us that if we give his book a fair trial,

I promise you, most confidently, that you will find Symbolic Logic to be one of the most, if not the most, fascinating of mental recreations!

Skeptical? He goes on to say that

Mental recreation is a thing that we all of us need for our mental health; and you may get much healthy enjoyment, no doubt, from Games, such as Backgammon, Chess, and the new Game "Halma". But, after all, when you have made yourself a first-rate player at any one of these Games, you have nothing real to show for it, as a result! You enjoyed the Game, and the victory, no doubt, at the time: but you have no result that you can treasure up and get real good out of. And all the while, you have been leaving unexplored a perfect mine of wealth. Once master the machinery of Symbolic Logic, and you have a mental occupation always at hand, of absorbing interest, and one that will be of real use to you in any subject you may take up. It will give you clearness of thought - the ability to see your way through a puzzle - the habit of arranging your ideas in an orderly and get-at-able form - and more valuable than all, the power to detect fallacies, and to tear to pieces the flimsy illogical arguments, which you will so continually encounter in books, in newspapers, in speeches, and even in sermons, and which so easily delude those who have never taken the trouble to master this fascinating Art. Try it. That is all I ask of you! (Lewis Carroll, Symbolic Logic, cited in The Complete Works of Lewis Carroll (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1994), pp. 1118-1119.)

Maybe it's time to found SLITS: Symbolic Logic in the Schools!

Reflecting on recent news (H.T. to one of my readers) - news not meriting further discussion at this point, in my opinion - it seemed to me that this would be an auspicious time to more or less repeat advice from an earlier post.

In the U.S., and perhaps in other countries as well, it's coming to the time of the year when state (regional) and national scholastic championships take place, and my guess is that inappropriate sexual contact between adults (e.g. chess coaches) and children is most likely to occur at or around the time of these events. Here, then, is a word or two of advice:

First of all, if you're a chess teacher, REFUSE to be the sole chaperone of ANY kids you didn't bring into the world. I have turned down several opportunities to earn some extra income by driving kid x to a tournament; I simply won't do it. (I'm referring to driving a male child. All this gets raised exponentially if we're talking about a female student.) If the child is a minor, then even he's big enough to physically damage me, I'm still not going anywhere with him in the absence of another adult, preferably one of his parents. Everyone stays out of trouble that way, and if you're a good teacher, you'll make plenty of money anyway.

Second, for parents: follow this same rule. If you can't bring your kid to a tournament, then he doesn't go. Or if he or she does go, this only happens when there are multiple adult chaperones, who do not stay in kids' rooms. In fact, I'd say that unless there's a medical emergency, no adult should ever be by him- or herself in a kids' room. Further, unless these chaperones have been investigated by the school district, forget about it. A freelance guy like me should NEVER be the chaperone, even if I'm with my wife, another chessplayer or instructor, whatever, if it involves situations where I could be out of the public eye with a child. (Part of a group, sure, as long as the group has some sort of worthy accreditation and, again, no one is ever alone with the kids.)

All this seems like common sense to me, just as (male) pastors should never counsel women behind closed doors, teachers should never be in an office with students of the opposite sex behind closed doors, etc. Instructors (or parents, if they take off work to take their kids) might lose a little money, and kids might miss out on opportunities to play every now and then, but that's life. Chess teachers won't have to worry about false rumors, and parents will have a lot less to worry about with their kids.