How Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Moves, from the Board to the Boardroom

Evaluating a position goes well beyond looking for the best move. The move is only the result, the product of an equation that must first be imagined and developed. So, determine the relevant factors, measure them, and, most critically, determine the optimal balance among them. Before you can begin your search for the keys to a position, you have t

In life there is no such obligation to move. If you can’t find a useful plan, you can watch television, stick with business as usual, and believe that no news is good news. Human beings are brilliantly creative at finding ways to pass time in unconstructive ways. At these times, a true strategist shines by finding the means to make progress, to str

Every time you make a move, you must consider your opponent’s response, your answer to that response, and so on. A tactic ignites an explosive chain reaction,

So before I played Petrosian again, less than a year after the defeats described above, I spoke with Spassky, who was playing in the same tournament in Yugoslavia. He counseled me that the key was to apply pressure, but just a little, steadily. “Squeeze his balls,” he told me in an unforgettable turn of phrase. “But just squeeze one, not both!”

And yet they never believed the airplane would amount to much beyond novelty and sport. The American scientific community shared that view, and soon the USA fell way behind in the aircraft business. The Wright brothers failed to envision the potential of their creation, and it was left to others to exploit the power of flight for commercial and mil

There was an almost mystical correlation between work and achievement, with no direct tie between them. Perhaps I was benefiting from the chess equivalent of the placebo effect. Going into battle with what I believed were lethal weapons gave me confidence even though they went largely unused and wouldn’t in some cases have been effective.

In 2000 I met a former pupil of mine, Vladimir Kramnik, in a sixteen-game match for the world chess championship, my sixth title defense. I had won the title back in 1985, and headed into this match, I had been playing some of the best chess of my life. In other words, I was ripe for defeat. Years of success had made it difficult for me to imagine

The position doesn’t have to be an exact replica to produce this benefit. If you play the Najdorf Defense your entire career, you develop a feel for what moves to make and when in response to certain ideas and plans. We automatically find parallels and apply our knowledge of analogous positions. A Grandmaster will retain tens of thousands of fragme

What makes chess such an ideal laboratory for the decision-making process? To play chess on a truly high level requires a constant stream of exact, informed decisions, made in real time and under pressure from your opponent.