March 29, 2004
Chess by oneself
I think I first came to really appreciate chess reading the novels of Raymond Chandler. I went on a Chandler kick sophomore year in college and read everything I could get my hands on.
Philip Marlowe (I think it was in The Big Sleep) comes home one evening to play chess against a famous opponent. But the opponent was drawn from a recorded game in a book.
At that moment I realized that I could play and practice by myself. It was quite a revelation. I simply had to get some books and a chess board.
For years, I had avoided playing chess. I had been traumatized at a young age (like 6 or 7) playing with my cousins. They taught me the rudiments and then proceeded to thrash me unmercifully whenever they needed an ego boost. Almost ruined me forever (chess-wise). I stayed very far away from the game until I reached university. Instead, I pre-occupied myself with war games (board-level simulations of historical battles).
I went out that weekend and made the first acquisitions in what is now a fairly sizeable chess book collection. Some of the best acquistions were Eugene Znosko-Borovsky's series, How to Play the Chess Openings, The Middle Game in Chess, and How to Play Chess Endings. I include in this group Dr. Lasker's Common Sense in Chess, and Capablanca's Last Lectures (a very rare book). These are all considered classical texts for the beginning to intermediate player and introduce concepts that even as an expert you will use frequently.
Jose Raul Capablanca was a Cuban grandmaster in the early part of the last century and quite probably the best chess player in the modern era of chess. (Amongst chess aficianados that statment is "flame bait".) But there aren't too many who would argue that he is one of the top three of the modern era (defined as chess after about 1850). I love reading about his games--they were revolutionary and still take your breath way with their audacity.
But you don't have to play with just yourself and a book. Nowadays, chess programs have gotten very, very good indeed. The one that comes with Mac OS X is quite decent though on first examination it doesn't appear possible to either examine its opening book (the lines that it will play in response to certain openings) or to set up a position and have it follow a particular line (a script of a game) or even to have it set up a position and play from a set point. I'm looking for a good Mac chess game that will do this.
I found Chessmaster Turbo 4000 on the PC years ago and it's really more than strong enough to beat me. I think we're up to 9000 now (Lord knows what the number means, it seems to be just the edition). You can pick lesser editions up from remaindered software houses for a song.
For the Mac (OS X) the best product I've seen so far is Sigma Chess (which has a free version). This particular program will allow you to set up chess problems and help evaluate the strength of your game.
If you want to play against human opponents, check out the Internet Chess Club. They have a ton of clients for PCs and several for the Mac. When I was first a member in the mid-90s one only had a terminal interface. Now one can put a graphical front end on the games and its much nicer. One super-cool feature is the ability to observe other games - including master and grandmaster play (when I checked a moment ago there were 14 grandmasters and 37 international masters online). A six-month subscription is something like $4.75/month (this allows you to have a permanent rating rather than playing as a guest all the time).
For me, the old-fashioned board with double-weighted Staunton pieces is more than good enough to pass quite a few hours of time. Given enough time over a board, one can almost sense the "gestalt" of the game and more abstract concepts like lines of attack and balance in the game become a reality.
I'm not advocated that you spend hundreds of hours over a chess board but familiarizing yourself with a couple of the openings (and indeed, really learning one) can allow you to give even a decent player quite a run for his money.
Chess is, as with most things in life, a negotiation. Players will tacitly agree on an opening during the beginning moves (this in itself is a fascinating negotiation) and if you want to play in only a semi-competitive fashion one can play speed chess (the whole game in less than 10 minutes, timed by a chess clock) and explore dozens of openings in an afternoon. I would frequently get together and play just one or two lines with friends for a whole afternoon.
By the way, my favorite opening (for Black) is the Nimzo-Indian (1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4).
Posted by artandscience at March 29, 2004 02:49 PM