Vishnu Warrier: The Chess Bible

Thinkers' Publishing, paperback, Englisch, ISBN: 978-9464-201-65-9, 384 Seiten, 2022.

The Chess Bible - Most Instructive Tips, Axioms, One-Liners & Mantras

"You must study a game at least 6 or 7 times before you are truly able to understand it and commit it to your long-term memory", Coach Slava. "I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.", Confucius in 1885.

German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus did an experiment to test how humans learn and retain information. He gave his subjects a list of nonsense 3-letter words and asked them to recall the words some time later. Although some people remembered the information better than others, the general trend of forgetting more and more information as time went on remained the same for all subjects.

Of course, as time passes, we tend to forget things. In chess, as a player and as a coach, I’ve noticed the trend towards always learning new things. The mantra of many YouTube channels nowadays is: “Learn this new opening and defeat your opponent in less than 20 moves!”

While there is value in learning a new opening or deepening your knowledge of pawn structures, it is very important to not forget the fundamental principles. As beginners, we are taught to control the center, develop our minor pieces and castle. As time goes on and we progress as players, we learn more subtle guidelines such as knights tend to develop before bishops as bishops are more flexible, or we should avoid blocking our bishop inside of a pawn chain.

In his 1986 work, The ABCs of Chess, esteemed coach and author, Bruce Pandolfini, noted the 64 Commandments of Chess. This list of 64 guidelines articulated the most important chess principles in a succinct list. My coach, Al Walker, asked me to read the list of commandments before every tournament game to prime me to look for the best move and slow down when I had to make a critical decision. I can confidently attribute my rise from a 1000-rated player to 1500 to this one pre-game ritual.

During the pandemic, I decided to get back into competitive chess and started the journey of getting my national master title. I realized through my training that it was important for me to not forget things that I have already done.

Hence, I decided to expand on Pandolfini’s commandments and came up with 200 axioms, one-liners and mantras. This list of 200 is an amalgamation from various sources including previous coaches, things I’ve read, things I’ve seen in videos, conversations with other chess players and, of course, brutal losses over the board. I hope this list serves as primer for you before you go into battle, so that you remember key patterns and ideas, and also helps elevate your state of mind to that of a warrior going to war.

I wish you luck on your journey of continuous self-improvement!
Vishnu Warrier, September 2022

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