Book: Winning chess with psychology

 

Winning chess with psychology

 

 

 

SUMMARY OF THE BOOK

Who is this book for? For anyone interested in the psychology of struggle. For any chess player who wants to improve his results in competitions and thereby raise his ELO ranking. The little material we find in Spanish about chess psychology is curious. The book visits champions who attached great importance to psychology; Lasker, Alekhine, Botwinnik, Fischer, Kasparov. Then indicate how we can apply this psychology in our games, addressing issues such as; choice of openings, development of your style, the end, the tables, the last round, errors, time troubles, etc. A delicious book, which we recommend to every chess lover!

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The book is structured in 17 chapters written in a very personal and direct tone, and where Pal tells us not only interesting data, games, reflections and anecdotes, but some of them are authentic jewels for any chess student worth his salt. My favorite is probably the fourth, "Chess as life", in which Benko analyzes his 2 victories against Fischer and everything he thought before and after the games. Pal was a close friend of Fischer, probably much more than most GMs of his time ...


I also liked the second "chess as art", in which he talks about the match between Capablanca and Alekhine, and how the Russian-French prepared to defeat the Cuban, and what he discovered throughout that preparation.

We can learn a lot from the tenth chapter about the psychology of the tables, or the 11th, about the last round and the critical moments, the 15th about the time troubles, the 8th about the development of a style ...

If you have looked at "chess and psychology" by Reuben Fine, you will have found that little of what is written in that book is of practical use to the player. And precisely here lies the importance of this book: we are talking about a PRACTICAL treatise on psychology for the chess player.

In an era in which many authors are still trying to sell us manuals about openings, something like this chest full of practical wisdom is missing, and although it is true that the original book is from 1991, you can be very calm : Very few chess players have read it, more concerned about the latest developments in Berlin, the Sveshnikov, and the latest Komodo game module (and that when they are not involved with Facebook!).