The Seven Deadly Sins in Chess — Jonathan Rowson on Thinking Failures

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The Seven Deadly Sins in Chess — Jonathan Rowson on Thinking Failures

Thinking in chess

People are wrong to assume that thinking in the game of chess is a purely objective and rational endeavor. Of course, much of the game involves deep planning, pattern-recognition, and extensive calculation. But how we search for ideas and develop our plans depend an awful lot on the habituations and psychology that make us whole. Failure to recognize and refine this aspect of play will leave us subservient to our hidden faculties.

Reflecting on his own journey and that of others in his book, The Seven Deadly Sins in Chess, chess grandmaster Jonathan Rowson says that there are seven “psychological failings” or “chess sins” that tend to produce and accumulate errors (Table 1). They go by the names of thinking, blinking, wanting, materialism, egoism, perfectionism, and looseness. Each sin reflects an aspect of our emotional mind that is not always conducive to decision-making and creativity.

But while they are powerful, interlocking behaviors, they are not impossible to unlearn. They do, however, require a lot of attention, introspection, and hardwork. Fortunately for us, Rowson, like a good doctor, proffers antidotes for each of these chess sins. Many of which, I think, should find a place in your training regime and professional development.

Table 1. The seven deadly sins in chess

Chess sinExample symptomsAntidote
1. ThinkingPoor visionAssimilation
2. BlinkingMissing critical positionsSensitivity
3. WantingHyperintention and inflexibilityGumption
4. MaterialismMisevaluation and oversightPluralism
5. EgoismHalf-sighted and fearfulProphylaxis
6. PerfectionismParalysis and time-troubleConfidence
7. LoosenessDriftingConcentration
Source: Adapted from Rowson, Jonathan. (2001). The Seven Deadly Chess Sins.

Thinking about thinking

For starters, I hinted at the failure of thinking in the first paragraph. It is the simple reminder that our thought processes are more murky than we typically assume. Unlike a computer, human functions are laced with emotional content and invisible rules. So when we make an error, it is not enough to say that we misjudged the position. What exactly makes us see that way? Why do we focus on some lines and not others? Why do our brains push us to such configurations?

Indeed, thinking about thinking can teach us a lot about ourselves. What we’ll find, Rowson notes, are an abundance of preconceived value judgements. Many of these invisible guardrails are useful, of course. They help us to cut down the immense search space that confronts us at every turn. Good principles, for instance, help us to focus our analysis, prioritize strategies, and avoid common disasters. The flip side, however, are the dangers of mindless application and “poisoned patterns”. It is easy to misapply what we think we know to complex positions we have never seen before.

“If only we could pull out our brains, and use only our eyes.”

Pablo Picasso 

Assimilation of patterns

What we need to do in preparation, Rowson suggests, is to “try to assimilate as many new patterns as possible” in the mind’s eye. The reason is simple. The “brain [uses] what it has to make sense of what it is given.” So “if [we] have hundreds of thousands of patterns, a new [unexpected] pattern will be easy to place and to interpret. [But] if you have only a few patterns, the brain will struggle to absorb new ones because there will be no suitable way of ‘hooking it up’.” The best grandmasters, he adds, do not reach the top by outcalculating everyone else. “That [which] distinguishes a strong player from a weak one is ‘vision’ or ‘visualization’”.  

“It is often thought that the stronger your play, the clearer your thinking, but personally I see no justification for that view. Closer to the truth seems to be ‘the stronger your play, the fuller your thinking’ , whereby fullness might be a measure of diversity, appropriateness, depth and accuracy.”

Jonathan Rowson. (2001). The Seven Deadly Chess Sins.

(As an aside, I should note that the original “antidote” for “thinking” in Rowson’s book was “intuition”. But I chose the word “assimilation” instead because I did not want people to mistake intuition for ‘gut feeling’. We resolve the sin of ‘thinking’ not simply by trusting our instincts, but by deepening and broadening our chess-reflexes through extensive learning, practice, and experiment. That distinction is crucial.)

Habituation and surprise

If we can see the habits and heuristics that live inside us, then we are on our way to better thinking. It doesn’t hurt as well, Rowson notes, to break out every now and again from our habituation. The goal is to keep our minds as flexible, creative, and adaptive as can be. On the chessboard, Rowson himself likes to talk to his pieces to see where they want to go. This may sound strange, but it a strategy to escape the confines of one’s mind. It is a trick that many fiction writers employ as well. Indeed, if we’re trying to surprise our opponent, or to discover a new novelty, perhaps we ought to surprise ourselves first. It helps, Rowson adds, to look for the asymmetry, humor, absurdity, amusement, and paradoxes in whatever we do.

Blinking when it matters

All your thinking and creativity, however, is for nought if you happen to ‘blink’ during the critical moments of the game. The sin of ‘blinking’ reflects an insensitivity to trends, positions, and change. The antidote, of course, is straightforward. We have to train our “sensitivity” or awareness to turning points, transformations, and opportunities to wrest control. This requires flexibility and an ability to rewrite the structural narratives that build up in our minds during the game.

While it is impossible to reduce key moments into simple formulas, Rowson says there are several signals to look for. One such example is when you have an “abundance of choice” or a dearth of choice. Both cases, in their extremes, are actually rather similar. They leave you with no obvious way to proceed. Another signal is “pending counterplay” (when you see your opponent’s strategy unfolding), or when your opponent plays something surprising. Blinking in these moments can be a death knell. 

Materialism and subtleties

One of the first things that every chess beginner learns is the material value of pieces. We are told early on, for example, that pawns are worth one point each while the queen is worth nine. But because the heuristic is so easy to see and apply, it is frequently subject to overemphasis and abuse. Materialistic players are more likely to neglect tactics like piece sacrifices, and other angles of chess strategy like structure, quality, and time.

If you look closely, many heuristics like material value have “a mild form of incommensurability.” Does the scoring system above imply that one queen is worth nine pawns? It’s hard to say because chess is such a context-dependent game. We have to remember, Rowson writes, that “the value of every piece is related to the position as a whole.” Piece exchanges are not isolated transactions.

More important is to understand the subtleties behind the pieces and positions. Sure, the queen is usually the powerhouse. But such strength is also a source of vulnerability as the opponent plots against her. Pawns, by contrast, are diminutive things. They may not command the opponent’s attention if a skirmish rages elsewhere. But every step they take may raise its potential—especially when prospects of promotion nears.

All of this is another reminder that chess is not a one-dimensional system. While the ultimate goal is forever fixed, success demands a pluralistic approach and careful balance of competing priorities and potentialities.

“A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.”

Lord Darlington in Oscar Wilde. (1893). Lady Windermere’s Fan.

The specter of wanting

Relatedly is the sin of ‘wanting’. It refers to “the specter of the result and how it affects our play.” Our fear-of-defeat or desire-to-win can be harmful if it is overly emotional. Hyper-intention clogs the mind.

Many elite athletes, for example, talk about being in ‘flow’ or in ‘the zone’—those rare moments in which they forget about the results, the crowds, and other external noise. They focus their entire mind instead on the present and elevate their play to an extraordinary level.

Ideally, we would like to activate such a state as and when we please. But “the problem with flow is that it seems to be something that just happens and is all-or-nothing”, Rowson reflects. It is better then, he says, to focus less on flow and more on conscious “gumption”. That is to “bring [ourselves] directly to the experience without imposing any stale opinion about it.”

The goal then is to prevent your feelings about winning or losing from interrupting your chess thinking. Rowson notes, for example, that many grandmasters do not speak of ‘winning positions’ but of ‘winning chances’. The distinction is subtle but important. It leaves room for flexibility in our assessments and expectations. The greatest players do not relax after a series of brilliant moves. Nor are they quick to fold after a blunder if winning chances persist.

It can help, Rowson says, to reframe your problems and goals. For example, if your winning chances are dire, you can refocus your efforts on drawing chances instead. This is known also as “the goalkeeper’s glory”. Perhaps you can find some delight in making the position complex or troublesome for your opponent. If they’re going to win, make them earn it.

Egoism and prophylaxis

The cousin of materialism is egoism. In chess, this is manifested in a self-centered style of play. It reflects our tendency “to see the position exclusively from [our] own point of view.” Ego is particularly outrageous and self-destructive when it combines with wanting and the specter of results. Egoists do not play but perform. They prefer to impress the audience than to win on solid footing. They dread losing to lower-rated players, and may exhibit undue deference to higher-rated players. In either case, they perform more poorly because of it.

The antidotes to egoism is similar to that for wanting. Gumption is important. We must play in the present and avoid conforming to some preconceived label of ourselves, says Rowson. Great players will also incorporate prophylaxis into their chess thinking. To play prophylactically is to think about your opponent’s goals, perspectives, and possibilities—and to deny them of their strategies by making even better moves. Because it takes two to create a position in chess, we must think about our plans, our opponent’s plans, and how they interact together.

Perfectionism and paralysis

But chess differs from other sports in one noteworthy way. In a game of basketball, for instance, the game will unfold on a possession-by-possession basis. One bad move is not enough to unravel the entire result if the team plays well enough for most of the game. The same, however, is not always true of a chess match where results are an accumulation of inaccuracies. One blunder or oversight after a series of near-perfect moves can spoil one’s winning chances.

So it is easy, of course, to slide into the quagmire of perfectionism. High-stake matches, intimidating opponents, ultra-complex positions, low self-confidence, distaste for uncertainty, and the simple fear of making mistakes can compel us to check, double-check and triple-check everything we do. But after we’ve gone through all the microlines to find a move, we realize that we’re low on time and unable to justify the practical costs of our decision-making.

The obvious first step, of course, is to remember that mistakes are unavoidable. Procrastination or delayed decision-making when you’re unsure is unlikely to help. But greater preparation and experimentation in the leadup to game day can make the difference. “The biggest mistake is [being] afraid of making a mistake.”

Here, Rowson points to ‘the magician from Riga’, chess grandmaster Mikhail Tal, as an example. In stark contrast to other players, Tal “places much more emphasis on the fact that the position is complicated than whether one side is better or worse.” Indeed, post-game analysis often suggests that “Tal’s precarious sacrifices were not always objectively sound.” Yet, in the stress of the moment, his opponents would fail to overcome the “outlandish” structures he conjured. As Tal notes in his memoir, “I began to succeed in decisive games, perhaps because I realized a very simple truth: not only was I worried, but also my opponent.” 

Looseness and carrying inaccuracies

This brings us to ‘looseness’, the final sin in Rowson’s book. Looseness, in some ways, is the opposite of perfectionism. It refers to the player’s tendency to have their concentration drift and wane—ceding windows of opportunity to their opponents that would not otherwise exist under greater vigilance and care. I’d add, however, that looseness applies not only to individual games but to the arc of our careers and adulthood too.

In Deep Thinking, Garry Kasparov describes, for example, how “the gravity of past success” can dull our senses, motivation, and adaptability. “Each one of [his] successes” as world chess champion, Kasparov laments, “was like being dipped in bronze over and over, each success, each layer, making [him] more rigid and unable to change, and, more importantly, unable to see the need for change.”

Grandmaster Emanuel Lasker felt similarly. In his Manual of Chess, he writes: “he who has a slight disadvantage plays more attentively, inventively and more boldly than his antagonist, who either takes it easy or aspires after too much. Thus a slight disadvantage is very frequently seen to convert into a good, solid advantage.”

So the obvious antidote here is concentration.  Each player has to cultivate his or her own habits to concentrate well. It can help, Rowson adds, to introduce some variety into your thinking patterns and training routine to break monotony. Of course, our brains are finite machines. They do not have endless reserves. You need to pick your moments for deep concentration. (It also goes without saying that sleep, diet, and exercise are all part of the basic gameplan.)

Finally, it may help to reframe our aspirations and motivations as we develop. Current world-chess champion Magnus Carlsen, for example, is aiming to reach a 2900 chess rating to motivate his learning and performance at the chess frontier. Apparently, beating everyone else just isn’t enough for him.

Consistency and computers

All things considered, humans are a murky and inconsistent lot. We either think too much or think too little. Sometimes we see patterns where none exist. Other times we fail to see what is unfolding in front of us. As we’ve said, chess demands a ‘holistic’ approach—a careful balancing of possibilities and alternatives.

Perhaps this explains why computers are so good at the sport. Not only can they crunch through millions of variations at immense speeds, they are free of the blinking, wanting, egoism, materialism, and looseness that occupy our minds. 

To me, it is sometimes startling that we can plan as effectively as we do in chess and life. But if we can resolve these psychological failings, we may get a little closer to realizing our own potential. But thinking, anyhow, whether in chess or science or life, should have a measure of fun. So as Rowson writes, “try to see the funny side and enjoy yourself.”

Sources and further reading

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