For those about to chess (I salute you)
I’m utterly delighted that The Queen’s Gambit has inspired so many people to learn how to play chess. However, I know from experience that chess can be discouraging and even intimidating and it shouldn’t be that way. For those just starting out, I thought I’d share some thoughts on chess for new players. I’ve also found myself playing chess more over lockdown than I have in a long time so I’ve been musing on this stuff anyway. I claim no expertise except that I’ve been playing chess for about…22 years which…wow, that makes me sound old. I started playing when I was pretty young, I swear! There will also be people who disagree with my views, but you can make your own mind up I’m sure.
1. Chess is not about ego.
Beth Harmon so beautifully punctures male egos, especially at the start of her career, because chess is not about who you are or how big your ego is, it’s about the moves you play. That cuts both ways. One of the reasons new players get discouraged is that they tend to lose a lot, which makes sense, being new to it and all. But I’ve been playing a long time and I still lose a lot. I’m ok with that because my ego isn’t riding on it. The sooner you can separate your ego from winning or losing, the sooner you’ll start having more fun.
But if chess isn’t about your ego, what is it about? Isn’t all competition about ego in some sense? Well…
Why does Beth obsessively spend time reading over old Master’s games from years ago? Why does she dislike chess puzzles? Because old games from players who are long dead still contain truths, whereas chess puzzles are often artificial and contain only an illusion of truth.
What do I mean by truth? I mean that in the controlled environment of the chessboard, if a move or a tactic or a strategy is good then it will be successful. If it is not, then it will fail.
Just like in life, a lot of people will tell you things. You’ll hear stuff like “always move your knights out before your bishops” and “you must try to control the center of the board”. Whereas in life it can be difficult to disprove false advice, can be hard to puncture bluffs and delusions, in chess you can test them and see what the truth really is. The final result will provide your proof.
The beauty of chess is that it is like an ongoing testing ground, an experiment you can run and re-run over and over. Rules like those I just quoted are often given to new players as sage advice, and yet as you go on you find that they hold true only some of the time. Because chess has so many potential variations, you have to think critically in every moment to test whether your beliefs still hold true.
As Emanuel Lasker (the longest ever reigning world champion, from 1894-1921) puts it in his Manual of Chess:
“On the chessboard lies and hypocrisy do not survive long. The creative combination lays bare the presumption of a lie; the merciless fact, culminating in a checkmate, contradicts the hypocrite. Our little Chess is one of the sanctuaries, where this principle of justice has occasionally had to hide to gain sustenance and a respite, after the army of mediocrity has driven it from the market-place.”
When you lose, it’s an opportunity to learn. It isn’t about your ego – no one tells a scientist they are a bad scientist and should shut up shop just because one experiment failed to produce the expected result. Instead, they go back to the drawing board, try to identify what went wrong, and then try to produce a better experiment second time around.
Chess is not just on-the-spot brain power, not is it just books: I started playing chess at about 7 or 8, but when I was 13 my family got our first computer with a slow dial-up internet connection. Being a nerd, even at that age, I soon found a website where people played something called “email chess”. I signed up and quickly discovered that everyone else seemed to know things I didn’t. It turned out my Usborne My First Chess Book had lied to me. Or at least omitted important information. Learning to play chess, at least to any serious level, is more than just learning the basic moves of the pieces.
It turned out that over the years players had built up a “book” of opening moves that had been tried and tested and their value judged. The Queen’s Gambit is one of these openings!
Not knowing these moves, I found myself at a disadvantage from the get go. So I invested in a book. For me, it was the even-then-outdated Manual of Chess by Emanuel Lasker which, in archaic language, takes the reader from the basic rules to, theoretically, chess mastery (I’ve yet to get there but I also have never actually finished reading it so who knows). I’m sure there’s lots of other great books with more updated info and glossier pictures that would do the same thing.
3. It is fine to play just for fun
Anyway, my point is this: if you have just got into chess and you just want to play a bit for fun then that’s great! In that case, honestly you can ignore the books and just go have fun. That’s a perfectly legitimate way to enjoy the game and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
4. Research can be fun and will make you great
If, on the other hand, you want to get good at chess beyond a sort of beginner-level good, then my friend, you need a book. You do not need to memorize set moves. Some people will tell you do. YOU DO NOT. In fact, one of the things Lasker is quite clear about is that people who memorize rules or set moves eventually run into trouble because, to him (and let’s remember he was the longest ever reigning world champion), chess is about critical thinking. He advises his students to play through the different openings, learning the principles underlying them - why one position is strong or another weak – and as you play you will start to recognize the patterns, but if you try to memorize a pet opening then you’ll come unstuck as soon as your opponent plays something they weren’t supposed to. And if you don’t want to read a book, there are some great online programmes out there. Chess.com have some really fantastic video lessons from beginner level right up to Master level.
And if you don’t have anyone to play with, somewhere like Chess.com is great because you’ll get a rating – once it’s levelled off after a few games, the rating means you’ll be paired against players of a similar strength so you’ll hopefully not lose all the time!
BONUS IMAGE: My old and battered copy of Lasker’s Manual
