‘Live by your passions’, Nietzsche said so many times throughout his life. But how do we do that when we play chess? When I read Kasparov’s ‘How Chess Imitates Life’, I took note of his assertation that ‘Evaluation triumps over calculation’ and believed in it. Over time my play became more impulsive and calculation began to play second-fiddle. Impulses and instincts took over eventually, which works well enough in blitz and quickplay but with regards to classical chess, I am less sure. Evaluation is based on a feel for a position rather than congnition. Consciousness, then, more or less gets the boot and feeling and passions, such as which looks good and doesn’t need much thinking about, or moves I just want to play because I like them, or somehow it feels right get the nod. I can only really say this because I don’t play classical chess anymore and I only play for pleasure and not improvement… .
M J M
McCreadyandChess 
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