Consider…
Thinking is influenced by materialism because the idea that pieces always maintain a strict hierarchy of value is erroneous. The ‘thinking’ resulting from materialism is perhaps better described as ‘calculating’.
Blinking means missing something on the board or not noting an underlying pattern within the game. A player who assumes a knight is always equal to a bishop is more likely to blink – such a player will never know enough to notice an emerging pattern that will eventually make the knight a more powerful piece than the bishop.
Wanting leads to moves such as equal-value exchanges that appear to move a game toward a desired result (usually a draw). However, just because the pieces are identical in value does not mean the net change to the position’s value is zero. Materialism enables wanting in how it provides a clear but possibly misguided template for how to engineer a particular result through a series of exchanges.
Egoism stems from having a sense of superiority over the position. For most, a distinct material advantage is probably the first step toward this sin.
Perfectionism feels like the second cousin of materialism – trying to play a ‘perfect’ game will certainly include an ill-advised aversion to losing pieces or sacrificing material. A player who wants to attack the queenside will play differently than a perfectionist who wants to accomplish the same without losing any pieces in the process.
Looseness can stem from materialism if the player is content to retain a material edge rather than converting it into a more lasting advantage in the position or on the clock.
Some of the links to materialism are not as strong as the others. And each of these six sins have relationships with one another to some extent. They do all play their own specialized role in a defeat, reader (1).
This little exercise doesn’t automatically have a deeper meaning (especially in the context of chess). But understanding materialism does seem like the urgent message of the book. A reader who understands materialism should have a better starting point for addressing the issues attributed to the other six sins (2).
The most important lesson of materialism is the harmful nature of relying on comparisons to drive understanding. The player who equates a bishop and a knight will never understand the importance of each piece’s unique dynamism and mobility just as knowing a rook is worth than a knight does little to explain why a rook is more important than a knight. If a player understands that a rook can get to any spot on an entirely open board in just two moves while also knowing the knight is the only piece capable of attacking in a ‘circle’ of spaces around itself, then this player stands a better chance of identifying those rare moments when a knight is in fact preferred to a rook.
Footnotes / it’s hard to pair off a group of seven… / shameless plug
1. I guess this is a roundabout way to point out the unique nature of materialism…
But not all of these sins are closely linked. In fact, I think there are three pairs of opposing sins:
Thinking is the opposite of blinking… because thinking requires first acknowledging what is on the board before dismissing or explaining it away while blinking means the player never sees what is on the board.
Wanting is the opposite of egoism… because wanting leads to moves influenced by the desire for a specific result (usually a draw) while egoism has no concern for a result (because the result will be a win).
Perfectionism is the opposite of looseness… because perfectionism is another way of describing too much concentration on the game while looseness is the problem of deficient concentration.
2. I actually forgot what all the agreements were…
I think it works a lot like a thought I had about The Four Agreements. In this book of Toltec wisdom, author Miguel Ruiz describes four basic pillars for living a life free of self-limitation:
-Be Impeccable With Your Word
-Don't Take Anything Personally
-Don't Make Assumptions
-Always Do Your Best.Of the four, I thought the most important one was – don't make assumptions. Like the case was for materialism, I wrote a few months ago that the other three pillars all contained a significant undercurrent of assumption. If a person stopped making assumptions, he or she would lessen the significance of the problems addressed more directly by the other pillars.
