Chess, Soups and Life

What do chess and cooking have in common? Admittedly, not much. However, at the height of a hard-fought game of chess, one good move can often tip the balance. Such moves have an effect over the whole of the chessboard and enable all the player’s pieces to function in perfect harmony, whereas the opponent’s pieces are, all of a sudden, in disarray. In cooking it is also often one ingredient that brings harmony to all the flavors. It is the power of the single move, the single ingredient and the single right choice bringing harmony to the whole, which chess, cooking and life have in common.

When cooking a soup, a lack of salt may not only result in a weak salt flavor. It may also mean a weak flavor of the other spices. Adding salt to the soup, then, not only enhances the salty taste of the soup, it brings to the fore the flavors of all the other spices. In this way, a certain harmony is brought to the soup.

In the same way, sometimes, all that is needed is one good move to make a particular scheme work in chess. Irrespective of what course of action a player opts for, his most important task may be to find that one good move which justifies his course of action. This one good move may come at the beginning, the middle or the end of the player’s scheme, but its power is such that it will justify all the following, preceding, or following and preceding, moves.

Sometimes, neither cooking nor chess is this simple. Perhaps it may be necessary to increase the quantity of several spices to get that right taste of the soup. In the same way, it may be necessary to manoeuvre several pieces to new locations before harmony between the pieces is reached.

Nevertheless, the principle of the one good move and the one right ingredient is something which I keep in mind when I play chess and cook soups. I find it helpful to see if this simple solution is enough, before I ponder the more complicated possibilities.

Likewise, in life itself, sometimes a complicated situation can be solved by a single right choice which brings harmony into the picture. A single act of kindness can remedy a tense situation, an act of humility can resolve an argument. Like in chess and cooking, sometimes a single good act or a single right choice is not enough to restore harmony in our lives. Sometimes the situation requires many right choices and many acts of goodness. Then, the patience of the perfectionist cook and the methodological chessplayer needs to be applied to life.

Suren is a student of Sri Chinmoy living in Iceland. He works as a waiter/soup chef at the café Ecstasy’s Heart-Garden in Reykjavík. He is a member of the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team and participates in various races. He is also a keen chess player and writes about techniques for improving performance. In his spare time he coaches juniors in chess.

Chess Clocks – Types and Usage

Chess clock is a device used to measure time remaining for each player to complete his or her moves. Although originally created for chess, such a clock can be used in every two-player turn-based game.

The premise is simple: after a player makes a move, he presses the button located on his side of the clock. Pressing this button stops his clock and starts the clock of his opponent. Then the opponent makes his move and presses his button, which stops his clock and starts the first player’s clock again. The process is repeated until the game is finished or one of the players runs out of time.

There are two main types of chess clocks: analog and digital.

An analog clock consists of two clock faces and two buttons (one for each player). Each clock face contains a small plastic “flag” near the number 12. This flag rises as the hand approaches 12 and then falls to indicate that the player ran out of time. Because of this, chessplayers often use a verb “to flag”, which means the same as “to lose on time”.

A digital clock has electronic displays instead of clock faces. It is programmable, allowing for easy set up of different time controls. Digital chess clocks offer more accuracy than the analog ones, and display exact time remaining to the player.

Games are played with different “time controls”, from extremely fast to very slow. Some examples:

The “classical” one, currently used for World Championship matches and many top-level tournaments is as follows: “120 minutes for the first 40 moves, 60 minutes for the next 20 moves and then 15 minutes for the rest of the game plus an additional 30 seconds per move starting from move 61”.

The “FIDE” time control, used for many events organized by FIDE (Fédération Internationale des Échecs) and in many tournaments is “90 minutes for the first 40 moves followed by 30 minutes for the rest of the game with an addition of 30 seconds per move starting from move one”.

Time control for “rapid” World Championship is “25 minutes for the game plus 10 seconds per move”.

Time control for “blitz” World Championship is “3 minutes for the game plus 2 seconds per move”.

Time controls containing “increment”, which is an amount of time added to the player’s total time before every move, are only possible with digital clocks. Analog clocks have no such option.

Both types of clocks support “time odds”, which means that players start the game with a different amount of time. This is sometimes used to offset the strength difference between the players.

The clock is typically placed on the left side on the board (so white player has it on his left side, and black player on his right side). During the game, the clock must be handled with the same hand which is used for executing the moves. Moving the pieces with one hand while keeping the other one on the clock is not allowed. Also not allowed is pressing the button with excessive force.

When one of the players runs out of time, he loses the game. The only exception is running out of time when the opponent has no means to win on the board, in which case the game is declared drawn. For example, if white has king and queen and runs out of time, while black has only a lone king, the game is drawn.

Intuition And Decision-Making In Chess

Great chessplayers are usually depicted as masters of calculations: men who can see far into the future of the chessboard. However, those who strive for mastery at chess know that calculation is merely one component of good chess. Just as in life, it is sometimes more important to feel what the right course of action is, and this feeling is called intuition.

As a young man, the Argentinian chess grandmaster, Miguel Najdorf, witnessed a game between the world champion Alekhine and Finnish Master Böök. In this famous game, Alekhine sacrificed a piece for no apparent compensation at move thirteen. Twelve moves later, however, Böök was forced to resign.

After the game, Najdorf marvelled at Alekhine’s genius, who, it seemed, had seen 12 moves into the future. Later, Najdorf had the chance to ask Alekhine about this game. Had the world champion really seen 12 moves into the future? “Not at all”, replied Alekhine. “Then, how is it possible for you to play such a game?” to which Alekhine replied: “I have a big nose.”

In the same way, I am often asked how many moves I can see ahead in time when I play chess. The general assumption seems to be that it takes a lot of calculation to play good chess. However, calculation is merely one component of good chess. Positional understanding, tactical vision, memory and other abilities that come about due to innate capacity, experience or training, are also important components of good chess.

Furthermore, calculation cannot exist in isolation. It has to be based on something. If chessplayers only calculated , they would have to take every legal move into account. Even if they only considered three candidate moves at each turn, the task would be nearly insurmountable. Seeing three moves into the future would then take a calculation of a total of 27 positions. Seeing twelve moves into the future would take a calculation of 531.441 positions. This had all been pointed out early in the last century by the Czech grandmaster Richard Réti, who replied to the question of how many moves he could calculate with: “I see only one move. But it is a very good move.”

Therefore, chessplayers frequently turn to the other components of good chess to help them in their decision-making. More often than not, their experience assures them that they have made the right decision. Perhaps they have played or witnessed a similar position before. Sometimes, however, players find themselves in uncharted territory and sometimes the position is too complex to be categorized. It is precisely at this moment that the truly good players rely on their intuition.

Great players like Alekhine have intuition in abundance. That is why Alekhine referred to himself as having a “big nose”. He had a feeling for the position, a feeling for what was the right move, and this feeling rarely let him down.

It is interesting that Alekhine chose to call his intuition a big nose, rather than big eyes or big ears or any other of the five senses. I myself have often felt a sensation in my nose during a game of chess when I have an intuitive vision of how to proceed in the game. This sensation also makes an appearance when I am faced with decision-making in other areas of my life, and I have come to regard it as the harbinger of intuition.

In life, as in chess, we are constantly faced with the need to make decisions. It is tempting to try to calculate the results of each of the possibilities, but this is usually impossible. At the chessboard, the possibilities are limited and yet they are too many for extensive calculations. In life the possibilities are unlimited, which makes extensive calculations impossible. Therefore, the best method is to rely on our intuition.

The only problem is that our intuition does not seem to be switched on at every moment. In life and in chess, most of my decisions are based on experience or some kind of knowledge, simply because my intuition was not working at that moment. However, this does not necessarily have to be so, for intuition can be cultivated.

The reason why Alekhine had such a great intuition in chess was because he had such love for the game. I feel that anyone can increase their intuition in chess, simply by cultivating their love for the game. In the same way, I feel that by cultivating our love of life, we increase our access to intuition in life.

As my spiritual teacher Sri Chinmoy has explained: “Intuition is an inner faculty which all human beings have. But everyone has not developed this faculty or brought it to the fore so that he can use it, so some people are not yet convinced that they have it.” (Aspiration-Plants by Sri Chinmoy. New York, 1974). In my case, intuition is something I have felt and something I would like to feel a lot more of in all areas of my life.

Suren is a student of Sri Chinmoy living in Iceland. He is a member of the Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team and participates in various running races. He is also a keen chess player and writes about techniques for improving performance.