Rowson is a Scottish grandmaster who is widely regarded as both a student and a teacher of chess. In this fascinating look into the game, Rowson determines the seven most common reasons top players lose matches and examines each with the attention and insight he has honed over a lifetime of hard work at the board.
In addition to being a great chess resource, The Seven Deadly Chess Sins is also a deeply engrossing analysis of the ways decision-making can go awry (1). The following ‘chess sin’ framework guides the reader through this analysis:
Thinking – unnecessary / erroneousThis was a very dense read – I believe I started reading it in January 2017. Unsurprisingly, a book with so much packed into it produced a lot of my own thinking, reflecting, and writing. Over the next few weeks, I’ll post a few of these thoughts. These will include the standard reading review, some extensions of this book’s lessons to broader applications, and the usual dash of utter nonsense (1).
Blinking –missing opportunities / lack of resolution
Wanting – too much concern with the result of the game
Materialism – lack of attention to non-material factors
Egoism – insufficient awareness of the opponent and his ideas
Perfectionism – running short of time / trying too hard
Looseness – losing the plot / drifting / poor concentration
Of course, I don’t want to leave you completely empty-handed today, reader, so I’ll share a couple of thoughts. First, I liked one of Rowson’s comments about organizing systems. He points out that self-organizing systems fail because their reliance on the order of arrival to determine storage method does not align with how others might seek out the stored contents later. A Google search, for example, would be of very little use if the results were returned in order of the link’s creation. To put the thought another way, the best storage systems must optimize for how others will interact with the system later instead of optimizing for the process of storing.
Another thought I liked dismissed the debate about subjectivity and objectivity. His basic point is that discarding subjectivity in order to be objective… is subjective! This was an interesting thought. I’ve noticed many struggle to finalize a decision simply because they believe they should be able to explain a decision before finalizing it. What nonsense is that? There is no doubt about the value of a good explanation, of course, but sometimes a decision is a gut call.
Finally, I thought Rowson had a great insight into playing from losing positions. For him, the key is to remain comfortable being worse-off for a few moves (2). The players who struggle in these positions are often guilty of trying to relieve the pressure with just one or two moves. It often helps to determine what is good about the position in these situations and try to take advantage of these strengths in ensuing moves.
Footnotes / FREE BOOK GIVEAWAY!
1. Or, you could just go play chess..
One thing I will not do is get into the details of chess. Those interested in the venerated game should simply read this book! Unusually, I have a copy of this book myself so if you have a hard time getting your hands on this one, reader, just get in touch and I’ll let you have mine.
2. We care…AND…we don’t care…
This thought reminded me of Al Davis’s advice to Bill Parcells when the latter was complaining about the various injuries, circumstances, and bad luck that had recently impacted his team. To paraphrase, it was along the lines of:
“Bill – no one cares, coach your team.”
