GM Rowson’s first published book was The 7 Deadly Chess Sins. It gained attention at all levels and sold well. I have added points he italicized through the book, there is food for thought here.
…all thought has some emotional content…
…when you realize that thinking means so many different things, your ability to understand your own thoughts is significantly enhanced…
….indeed, it seems that what chess want is not just to improve their intuition but to become more intuitive…
…’The master doesn’t calculate more than the expert. Rather, he sees more, especially the important things.’ Adrian De Groot…
…the stronger the player, the more abstract the visual image…
…your thoughts always have emotional content…
…all chess thinking is evaluation…
…there is definitely some sort of pre-intellectual awareness in your chess thoughts…
…rules are a wonderful servant but a terrible master…
…in chess the golden rule is there are no golden rules…
…confusion is caused by the non-existence of a concrete answer to the questions of a position…
…if a move strikes you as correct, it needn’t require an explanation…
…it is very difficult, if not impossible, to give any clear definition of what a key moment, or critical position, actually is…
…the main thing is to have a way to gauge the changing nature of a chess game, how it ebbs and flows…
…so another way to become more sensitive towards key moments is to be aware of the centrality of transformation in chess…
…what matters is not space but capacity…
…we need calculation to help us make the necessary transformations but more important is our judgement about which transformations are necessary…
…there maybe some positions where one side is better and worse, depending on whether you look at the position at hand or the direction of the game…
…you need to assess not only the position as it stands but the position as it has changed and how it is likely to continue to change…
…with improved ‘trend sensitivity’ and ‘position sensitivity’ you are much more likely to spot ‘gateway positions’, which are the turning points between one trend and the next…
…the best way to get a big advantage is to play for a small advantage…
…you often only see what you want to see…
…it’s a mistake to ever think you are winning…
…it is extremely difficult for most players to separate the general from the specific…
…there are more exceptions than rules when it comes to the value of the pieces…
MJM
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