10 vital things chess teaches. Opinion of grandmaster Maria Fominykh

Once upon a time, at the age of 7, following my older brother, I began to learn chess. At first I was hooked by the atmosphere itself: new friends, tournaments, trips. When the first successes came, I felt the taste of victories and wanted to take it seriously.

In sports, the child quickly realizes that without regular training, work on himself, including his character, there will be no progress. Although chess is a seemingly ordinary board game, there is very little luck in it. Therefore, every professional has come a long way, spending thousands of hours on game learning and practice.

Gradually, I began to appreciate not the surroundings around chess, but the game itself, each time discovering new depths and incredible harmony. Of course, a grandmaster is just a player, chess knowledge is very specific and I would not overestimate its usefulness in everyday life.

And yet it is not for nothing that chess is called a model of life. Now I teach more than I play, and students often say that my chess advice helps them in other areas.

1. Decisions

Chess teaches you to take responsibility for your actions, not to be afraid of mistakes and defeats.

After a lost game, you always want to find an external reason: you didn’t get enough sleep, your head hurt, someone ruined your mood. But deep down everyone knows that the result depended on him.

Each of the 30, 60, 100 moves that the game lasts, we consider ourselves. Agree: chess is a good simulator for practicing decision making!

Often, novice players are afraid to make a move, dream of a hint, or even just approving nod. But, fortunately, chess is forced to play without the opportunity to get advice.

Trample a kilometer trail of your mistakes - that's the only way to grow in any field.

2. Analyze mistakes and work on yourself all the time

Are you not afraid to make decisions and make a lot of mistakes? Great, then it is important to learn from them so that each time you make new mistakes, and not the same ones.

Professionals analyze every (!) tournament game. This important habit is established from childhood. In the old days, immediately after the end of the game, the opponents went to a special room for analysis, where they exchanged their thoughts during the game - an invaluable experience!

Sometimes a whole council of other participants, coaches, spectators gathered around a couple of players, the position could be “twisted” for hours! And this is absolutely correct. Impossible without error analysis move on.

3. Spend time wisely

Beginners are always either in a hurry (these are affectionately called "machine gunners"), or they think too long. We usually slow down from uncertainty, poor concentration and a banal lack of knowledge.

In addition, inexperienced chess players play in the same rhythm - and this is a huge mistake. Making moves without having time to think about the consequences is stupid. At the same time, if you think “only” for 5 minutes over each move, then in an hour, for example, you will have time to make 12 moves. Sometimes you can win a game very quickly, most often against a weak opponent. For example, Magnus Carlsen beat Bill Gates in a few seconds and only nine moves. But it is better to tune in for a long fight.

Ideally, there should be a supply of ready moves at the beginning of the game (pros spend an infinite amount of time memorizing openings). This will allow you to make the first moves quickly.

When knowledge runs out, it is important to take your time to switch to independent thinking mode. Every time an episode of the game ends, you need to stop and reboot.

A chess game is not a solid red carpet, but rather a patchwork quilt. At the "junctions" the main events take place. It is important not to miss them, and it is at such critical moments that strong players spare no time.

The same thing in life: if you want to act quickly at an important moment, prepare for it. When something changes, take a break to reassess and adjust. plans.

4. Ask yourself the right questions

It seems to be obvious: to play strong, you need to think. Only about what? For amateurs, the sight of players thinking for 10 minutes over a move is bewildering.

Perhaps one could say that the quality of our thoughts depends on the quality of the questions we ask ourselves. There are two global questions in chess that need to be answered at every moment of the game:

1. What does the opponent want?
2. What do I want?

In this order, and not in the usual way, because by nature we are all first think about ourselves.

It is necessary to work on the quality of thinking. To do this, you need to accustom yourself after each move to think first of all - why did the opponent play like that?

And if you learn to see a potential threat in the bud, then this is generally aerobatics! In chess, this is called prevention.

In life, the number of problems is also greatly reduced if you try provide for them and think beyond your own interests.

5. Set realistic goals and be able to wait

So what do I want anyway? This is a separate big topic when choosing a move. I ask the students during the analysis of the game in a difficult position the question: “What do we want here?”

Do you know how everyone usually responds? Of course, "Checkmate!".

Does this thought bring us closer to finding a good move? Not an inch! To checkmate without knowing how exactly is not a plan, but a dream. Even if there is an attack in the position, then the correct answer would be something like this: connect the queen, open the h-file, exchange the main defender. And if the attack does not smell - what kind of checkmate at all?

A chess game is not a marathon of desires. Therefore, we need specific ideas that come from the requirements of the position.

And mate… It may not even come to that: games much more often end with the opponent surrenders.

Relying on an assessment of the position, and not on your mood - this takes a long time to learn. In some positions, playing for a checkmate is the same as shaking an apple tree in March because you want apples. Everyone dreams of making a beautiful combination, but for this the position must also “ripen”.

Ideas during the game should not be emotional, but rational - these are the ones that guide us. And questions help too. For example, "Which figure is badly worth?" encourages her to improve her position. “Where is it profitable for me to open the line?” - we immediately think about which pawn to move in order to do this. "How to connect the queen to the attack?" We are looking for maneuver.

And emotional ideas, as in life, do not give direction and do not depend on the situation. I want to win the tournament, checkmate, win the game, eat all the opponent's pieces - you can come up with something like that without looking at the position at all.

6. Always look for the best option

Mathematically, the choice of moves in chess is huge. After three moves, there are already more than 9 million possible positions. But chess players don't go overboard, they concentrate on finding reasonable moves.

Aimless moves are the worst thing you can do during a game.

If there is a choice in the position (it also happens that there is only one move), then it is recommended to outline three promising moves, and then, having studied them in detail, choose the best one.

Calculating all the moves in a row is crazy, but more often than not, novice players find one move and stop there. But it's like walking into a Michelin star restaurant and order dumplings every time.

And the pros are real chess gourmets, and therefore they know: I found a cool idea, rejoice and... come up with two more!

It's the same in life: before making a decision, it is useful to choose. An unopposed choice is rarely a great one.

7. Assess the situation all the time

In chess, there is such a thing as an overloaded piece. For example, if the queen simultaneously protects the king from a checkmate, her own knight and watches with one eye someone else's passed pawn, then if she is distracted, the position collapses.

Chess players learn to distribute the load for their pieces: it is desirable that every comrade on the board be employed. It is also important to define priorities: the main value is the king. If there is a checkmate on the board, everything else does not matter.

But each figure also has its price. Moreover, it is always the same for beginners (conditionally, a knight is equal to three pawns), and for experienced players it is always different, depending on the position.

What distinguishes a grandmaster from an amateur is the ability and habit of evaluating a position.

The player constantly decides: what is important to keep, and what can be sacrificed? Give up a pawn or get a checkmate that is not at all Hamletian? But usually the questions are much more complicated.

In general, here, too, everything is like in life: without the ability to determine priorities in each specific situation - nowhere.

8. Play blind

Is it true that chess players calculate the situation in their mind several moves ahead? Yes, and this skill is best developed from childhood! Calculating variations in your head is probably the best thing chess teaches you.

When we think about a position, we are forced to imagine how the pieces on the board move to other places or leave the board altogether.

To do this, you do not need to see the figures on the ceiling, as in the series "Queen move». The ability to play without a board gradually comes by itself, but some purposefully learn to solve problems and play blindly.

People who are far from chess are usually amazed at how a grandmaster can play a game (and even several games at the same time) without looking at the board. But in fact, chess players are just lucky - we can show the result of an action in our mind.

Probably, in this chess is close to music. I know that dancers can dance in their minds, but alas, we can't see it yet. Travelers imagine their route in advance, the director visualizes the future film or performance. And this is very important to get the desired, high-quality result.

9. Don't yawn. At least don't do it very often.

A yawn is a blunder that sometimes ruins the most excellent strategy. It's like buying a ticket to the Maldives and... leaving the iron on at home. And then - how lucky: everything can end well (the neighbor turned it off) or very badly ...

In the game, the opponent can also forgive you, and the fight will continue as if nothing had happened. But less generous outcomes are also possible.

They say that in chess the one who makes the penultimate mistake wins.

Losing a game with a yawn is terribly insulting. After such parties, people do not sleep all night or lament something like in a movie about Ivan Vasilyevich: “Everything that has been acquired by overwork, everything is gone! Three extra pawns, two bishops…”

Weak players yawn from ignorance of typical combinations, but champions? Probably from a loss of concentration due to excitement and fatigue.

Not to to yawn, you need to keep your brains (and the body preferably too) in good shape all the time. Constantly solve problems for your level. Easy tasks do not bring much benefit: the brain copes with them automatically and is currently in sleep mode. Ideally, two types of tasks are needed: to calculate options (the same action in the mind) and fantasy.

Only with a regular, but not excessive load, the brains work more or less stably. And still, even the world champions sometimes fail. So don't push yourself too hard.

10. Simulate the situation

The brain works best in familiar conditions, but the profession of any athlete involves constant travel, climate change, nutrition, places of work and rest.

Grandmasters often have their favorite cities and tournaments, which, as they say, are rushing. For example, Kramnik is the triumphant of Dortmund, Morozevich is Biel, and Svidler is the champion of Russia.

In super tournaments, all players are very experienced and strong, so the result often consists of little things. The strongest chess player in the world, Magnus Carlsen, has won almost everything that is possible.

Probably one of the secrets of success is that in all competitions he manages to create a familiar environment.

For example, for a match with the current champion Vishy Anand, which was held in Chennai, the Norwegian brought his cook, food and even water. Not everyone, even from the top 10, can afford such a luxury: after all, the fees of chess players are far from football.

An outstanding maestro, taking into account every detail, was world champion Mikhail Botvinnik. Here is just one example. Until 1976, smoking was allowed at tournaments, which annoyed and distracted Botvinnik.

Botvinnik could not forbid his rivals to smoke, and then he decided to adapt himself. He began to play special training games, forcing his sparring partners to smoke so that the smoke in the room was a rocker. Not the most humane training in relation to one's own lungs, but during the game, a slight smoke no longer interfered with thinking.

Chess players are not afraid to appear strange or infantile for the sake of creating comfort and familiar environment. And all in order to achieve victory. And this should be learned from grandmasters. To begin with, ask yourself the question: “What can I do to be calm at some important moment?” Do not hesitate to implement the found answer, and then, I believe, you will succeed.