The Chess Mind

For those of you with a "warm fuzzies" feeling towards game-playing, avert your eyes:

Games are easy for me. All of them. Any of them. Not in the sense that I easily learn to play them - anyone can do that. When I say "I learn to play them", I mean successfully, to play with clear superiority, with a real win. The overwhelming majority of people think playing a game is only about taking part and following the rules. But this way you can only win by accident. Those people are fools. Real players, when they learn a new game, take apart its nuts and bolts in the very first games, get to know its entire internal workings, and when they start playing properly, they can extract the maximum from any situation that occurs in the game. (Anatoly Karpov, cited in Genna Sosonko, "The Lady is a Champ", New in Chess 2006/2, p. 72.)

In the competitive sphere, there's a line between doing one's best and being a predator, and my view is that one should avoid the latter side of the line. I'd love to have Karpov's skill, but not if it comes at the cost of a contempt for most of humanity.

That point aside, I think Karpov's comment about taking apart a game's nuts and bolts is a wise one. Don't just grope around, and don't look for tricks and techniques. Learn the fundamentals: how pawn structures work, the elements of the game (time, space, force, etc.), basic endgames and tactics, what pieces work best together and how, and so on. In short, put a framework on your learning - in whatever realm - and you'll speed up your learning dramatically.

But do so without becoming feral, please.

From Chess is My Life (Zurich: Edition Olms, 2004), p. 54:

Some time early in 1963 I began thinking about the advantages and drawbacks of my defensive style. Not from the practical point of view: I was more concerned about the philosophical, psychological aspects. By deliberately defending, a player hands the initiative to the opponent and has to adapt to him, and is forced to reply to every aggressive idea of the opponent. The style of a chess player should correspond to his character and reflect its traits. It was clear to me that in life I was not at all the same as I was in chess. I am active, I do not conceal my intentions, I am aggressive! Apparently I was taught incorrectly how to play, and it was time for me to relearn! Fight for the initiative in the game, and not only neutralise it! Over a length of time this should certainly have brought practical successes.

This quotation raises some huge questions. For example:

1. Is there a neat mapping between one's personality and one's optimal style?

2. Is one's chess style more or less irrevocably formed early in one's career?

3. Is the (relatively) irrevocably formed style primarily the product of one's early teachers or chess heroes rather than one's own feeling for the game?

4. Given that a player has certain stylistic strengths and corresponding weaknesses, should he spend most of his energy in chess training on (a) maximizing his actual strengths, (b) maximizing what he believes those ought to be (i.e. strengths reflecting one's personality), or (c) eliminating weaknesses?

I think that well-supported answers to these questions would be of great value to trainers - but who will do the research? (Grant money, anyone?) I have a moderate degree of confidence about my opinions on the last two questions, but far less assurance about the first two.

Readers' thoughtful comments are welcomed.