Chess for Zebras: Thinking Differently about Black and White

by Jonathan Rowson

Jonathan Rowson, author of the highly acclaimed Seven Deadly Chess Sins , investigates three questions important to all
1) Why is it so difficult, especially for adult players, to improve?
2) What kinds of mental attitudes are needed to find good moves in different phases of the game?
3) Is White’s alleged first-move advantage a myth, and does it make a difference whether you are playing Black or White?
In a strikingly original work, Rowson makes use of his academic background in philosophy and psychology to answer these questions in an entertaining and instructive way. This book assists all players in their efforts to improve, and provides fresh insights into the opening and early middlegame.

Rowson presents many new ideas on how Black should best combat White’s early initiative, and make use of the extra information that he gains as a result of moving second. For instance, he shows that in some cases a situation he calls ‘Zugzwang Lite’ can arise, where White finds himself lacking any constructive moves. He also takes a close look at the theories of two players who, in differing styles, have specialized in championing Black’s Mihai Suba and Andras Adorjan. Readers are also equipped with a ‘mental toolkit’ that will enable them to handle many typical over-the-board situations with greater success, and avoid a variety of psychological pitfalls.

Chess for Zebras offers fresh insights into human idiosyncrasies in all phases of the game. The depth and breadth of this book will therefore help players to appreciate chess at a more profound level, and make steps towards sustained and significant improvement

Genres: Chess, Psychology

256 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2003

About the author

Jonathan Rowson is a Scottish chess player and philosopher. He is a three-time British chess champion and was awarded the title of Grandmaster by FIDE in 1999. As Director of the Social Brain Centre at the United Kingdom's Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), he authored numerous research reports on behavior change, climate change, and spirituality. He was awarded an Open Society Fellowship in 2018 by the Open Society Foundations. He now works as an intellectual entrepreneur and civil society leader as co-founder and Chief Executive of Perspectiva.

Reviews

[globulon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full disclosure: I'm quite a weak player at the time of reading this. I don't expect reading this book will make much difference to my strength either. Rowson mentions in an endnote that he basically agrees with the dictum that at my level studying tactics is about all that matters for improvement. Like another reviewer much of the annotations for the games was over my head.

On the other hand it was an entertaining read. It's not meant to be any kind of doctrine. The style was engaging. It really feels like hanging out with an interesting, educated, thoughtful grandmaster and just listening to him talk about how he thinks about the game. He comes across as enthusiastic and modest in pleasant way.

I can see though that it might take a certain kind of person to enjoy this book. I think you have to be able to enjoy some spitballing that doesn't really translate to direct variations or concrete how to's. I think that's why as a weak player it might be easy for me to enjoy it because I don't have deeply held mental attitudes about chess, so it's fun for me to just kind of listening to him rap about stuff. I certainly don't think though that he's expecting anyone to read this and come away going "Yes, Rowson has it all figured out.". It's just not that kind of book. I think rather they are interesting ideas that hopefully can enrich how I think about the game as I (hopefully) grow and get stronger.

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent! It helps to think differently!

[Jack Hart · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know how chess pieces move, but haven't played the game since I was a kid and couldn't follow the annotated games that comprise about half the pages of this book.

I nonetheless loved Chess for Zebras because of the way its author, a Grandmaster who has also worked and thought as a chess tutor, conceives the game. "Chess," he writes, "...is about using ideas to solve problems." So the problem of the book becomes: How does one go from knowing-that to knowing-how, that is, knowing about an idea to being able to use it to solve a more-or-less unique problem under some version of real time? It's a question applicable to all games of mental skill.

The book takes a wandering tour through skill acquisition, and may itself be vulnerable to the charge that it's a knowing-that book as opposed to a knowing-how book. Its ideas concern the obstacles (especially for adults with their settled mentalities) to chess improvement. There are specific recommendations for training rather than studying, but I'd be surprised if the book's chess playing readers found the advice of much use or interest.

Rowson is well versed in the literature of decision-making, however, and fully invested in life as a chess player. His prose is relaxed, quite, and illuminating.

Here are three of the books many ideas that I found thought provoking.

1) The title comes from a Sufi saying: "If you hear hoofbeats, think of a zebra." The automatic association to hoof beats is of course a horse, so the saying captures something about the way in which competitive mental games reward the one who can resist the common association. In most games there is a basic strategy the knowledge of which defines a serious player. But in order to outwit the opponent, while resisting what Rowson calls "the genius complex" which causes you to want to make unconventional moves to bolster your chess ego, you have to be able to see a little further into the position at hand, which often means holding off your first assumption and waiting a little longer for your mind to explore the position...thus the title: Chess for Zebras.

2) "Improvement happens at the edge of your comfort zone." This is a pretty standard maxim of skill acquisition, but Rowson brings it a lot of life and clarity. There's a pleasure in rehearsing stuff we're good at to retain it and get better at it--and certainly repetition is a part of retaining skills built to fine tolerances. But to get better you have to find the edge of your skill, the place where your ability goes to pieces, and stay with it there to figure out what happens and how it might not happen and what else could happen...and there's an inbuilt reluctance on our part to go to our edge--to see ourselves as the fallible, forked creatures that we are.

3) "...it's not so much that we concentrate in order to play chess, but that we play chess in order to concentrate." People pour a lot of energy into sports and games, and I've always found that a bit mysterious. I, for example, spend a lot time handicapping basketball games. I know I could make more money doing something else, but using ideas to solve problems in this realm fascinates me. But why? What do I get out of it? Rowson's explanation of the internal good produced by playing chess against an opponent of one's own caliber resonated with me. I found my own motivational world illuminated.

[Harry Harman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gerard had the patience and perspicacity

my FIDE rating is 2536

Hindsight explains the injury that foresight would have prevented.

pugnacious mood

The old 'rule', 'don't play on the side of the board where you are weaker'

He enjoys the advantage of the two bishops and controls the important d4-square, whilst his opponent's pawn-structure contains marked weaknesses on the queenside.

tendency to 'analyse by result' and assume that all of White's moves were deep and brilliant when in fact Luke was probably making it up as he went along.

I took this example from Glenn Flear's book Mastering the Endgame

a pawn in the centre which controls the important e4-square and finally his rooks will become very active along the many open files.

isolated queen pawn (IQP), called an isolani. An isolated queen pawn is one on the queen's file (d-file).

White's king has been weakened, he no longer has the two bishops and Black's excellent control of d4 and pressure on the e-file give Black the more comfortable game

Keres won that game not so much because he knew that the position out of the opening was OK for him (knowledge), but because he knew how to handle it (skill).

reading a chapter in a philosophy book called The Concept of Mind by Gilbert Ryle. The second chapter of this book is called "Knowing How and Knowing That".

"An ordinary chess-player can partly follow the tactics and strategy of a champion; perhaps after much study he will completely understand the methods used by the champion in certain particular matches. But he can never wholly anticipate how the champion will fight his next contest and he is never as quick or sure in his interpretations of the champion's moves as the champion is in making, or perhaps, in explain ing them ... It makes sense to ask at what moment someone became apprised of a truth, but not to ask at what moment someone acquired a skill.

Junior players are keen to learn, but they tend to be even more eager to play. When they play through a game, analyse their games with a stronger player or look at a few rook endings, they seem to be able to absorb what they have learned and apply it in their games in a way that adults rarely manage. Paradoxically, the problem seems to be while junior players tend to put what they learn into practice without any real conscious intent, and thereby improve steadily, adult players strain in an effort to understand what they are learning, and this leads to all sorts of problems because rather than gaining in tac tile skill, this skill is adulterated by our attempts to formalize it into knowledge.

I am fully persuaded of this view of the mind and now feel much more comfortable about, for instance, playing a move that feels right even when I don't fully understand why it is right.

Consider that at any given moment, our five senses are taking in more than 1 1,000,000 pieces of information. Scientists have deter mined this number by counting the receptor cells each sense organ has and the nerves that go from these cells to the brain. We take in 1 1,000,000 pieces of information a second, but can process only 40 of them consciously. What happens to the other 10,999,960?"

Loek van Wely put it to me that you only know you are improving when your opponents seem to be playing badly more often than before!

I hope this example illustrates what it means to say that our conscious thoughts are a mere fraction of what we are actually thinking during a game

I also highlighted that we need to place emphasis on foresight rather than hindsight and skill rather than knowledge.

My informed guess, however, is that chess skill emerges from chess playing combined with chess training, where 'training' means working things out by yourself. The main skill a chess-player needs is skill in making decision

You can work on this by playing and then analysing your games honestly, by solving complex chess problems, or by trying to win won positions against strong analysis engines. I even think you can develop skill with an intelligent use of blitz games - whereby you don't analyse the positions in depth, but compare your fIrst impressions of positions with the way they actually developed.

While pattern-recognition is as old as the hills, this emphasis on meaning-making is relatively new.

It may not be the best bishop of all time, but it already has decent scope on the f l -a6 diagonal and the chances of the position opening with ...c6 or ... f5 are quite high, in which case it will have even more scope.

he had a problem disassociating 'atoms' (moves) and 'molecules' (a collection of moves or an idea)

Edward de Bono's idea of 'logic bubbles' whereby to understand another person's perspective you have to try to get in side their logic bubble for a while, and forget about your own

Grandmaster Luke McShane was stuck around 2550 for two years but then gained over 100 rat ing points and catapulted himself into the world top fifty in one year. He told me that he started making this significant headway when he realized that there aren't really 'solutions' in chess.

Mistake on page 33. 13...c5! should be 13 O-O-O c5!

♛g3 is better, but Black still has the initiative.

Initiative in a chess position belongs to the player who can make threats that cannot be ignored, thus putting the opponent in the position of having to spend turns responding to threats rather than creating new threats.

he white pawns on dark squares restrict Black's unopposed bishop

knights like to be sitting comfortably, ideally in the opponent's territory, where they can cause trouble without worrying about being hassled by pawns. To make that happen, White needs to create some secure squares for them, and to make se cure squares White needs to provoke pawn moves.

If a man will begin in certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties. FRANCIS BACON

I think Gulko was the first 2600+ I had played, and I was delighted to draw against him and also pleased when he offered to look at the game together. In the post-mortem I remember asking him about one position: "Is this winning for White?" and he replied: "I don't know, but some chances." I found this rather vexing. You don't know? At first I thought that Gulko was unusual, but over the years I have come to appreciate that this kind of attitude is prevalent among strong GMs.

the finding was that the better you are at chess, the more likely you are to approach a position 'scientifically', i.e. you are more likely to look at a position in an effort to falsify or disprove your theory about it.

stronger players tend to seek to falsify their hypotheses; e.g., (from the first example in this chapter) "I think if I play 10 a4 the position is OK for White but it might be too slow given that White is underdeveloped; it depends if Black can open the position quickly... )

Those with an interest in the philosophy of science will recognize that this is in line with Karl Popper's criterion for what makes a method of enquiry 'scientific' - that it is capable of be ing falsified.

'Flick-Knife Attack' (or Taimanov Attack)

the importance of generating counterplay before it is too late.

we do not always absorb chess ideas in a way that allows us to transfer them from one position to another, or even from one side of the board to the other

It is not normal for world-class players to play unorthodox openings. It is not normal to exchange a rook for a bishop or knight in return for purely positional compen sation, etc. The reason we need to be aware of folk psychology is that it defines what is nor mal, and this sense of normality leads us to make certain assumptions that are often un helpfully limiting. Indeed, as a wise Indian lady once told me, when you 'assume', you make an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me'.

If you do find yourself 'behaving Sicilian Sveshnikov' and then suddenly your opponent does something that does not seem 'normal' (like re treating the knight from d5 for no obvious reason), you have to start explaining things to yourself, and when that happens you are liable to do it in a narrative way, i.e. to start telling stories. Sometimes these will be good stories, sometimes bad, but it's well worth being aware of them

Conclusions:
1) Chess-players, being human, are 'mean ing-makers', and this explains why our approach to chess is more accurately described as 'psycho-logical' than logical.
2) Beware of the tendency to look for 'solutions' in chess. Unless your opponent is very cooperative, you will normally have to solve several problems during the game, rather than one big one that will make all subsequent deci sions easy.
3) It is better to try to falsify your ideas than to verify them, i.e. with an ''I'm not sure, let's see" attitude rather than "It's like this, I'll prove it".
4) Try not to become too attached to any particular idea of who you are as a chess-player, i.e. what your style is, what your openings are, etc. - this will usually get in the way of finding good moves.
5) Be mindful of chess folk psychology and the role it plays in the assumptions you make about the game.

Zwischenzug also called intermezzo ( lit. 'intermediate move') or in-between move.

be extra suspicious of any plan that takes more than three moves to implement.

When I was about 15, and rated around 2300

gives Black complete dark-square control and an excellent position.

'trapped in the narrative'

My king has no safe abode, my queen is offside and I have no dark-square control.

Conclusions:
1) One of the ways we try to make sense of what is happening during play is to tell stories about the position, and how it will develop. This is because it is a natural human trait to organize experience into a narrative form.
2) Narratives that help you to play well will normally have a fair amount of detail, but also some uncertainty, because you need to leave some space for the position to tell you its story too!
3) Self-deception is very common in chess, and one of the forms it takes is 'fabulation' in which we spin a narrative web around a few selected facts in order to feel good about some thing, even if the truth of the matter is rather different!

"Which myth are you living by?"
In the story of your life, what kind of character do you play?
What are the 'motivating powers' of this character?
What are the hidden potentials you hope to unleash?

For several years now, I have noticed a kind of 'glory hunting' in my students, as if they were trying to experience the heroic through their actions on the chessboard.

we pay too much attention to our opponent's bad moves that would allow us to actualize our myth, and far too little to their good moves that bring us back down to earth.

the most instructive chess one-liners I've ever heard: ''You know, one idea is not enough; good moves usually have at least two ideas."

My pieces are not on good squares.

Grishchuk was in sensational form during the Faeroes Chess Festival, and was already be ginning to move (fast) from 2600 to 2700. It was abundantly clear to me that he was a different class of player. I could perhaps compete with him in a single game, but not in the long haul.

Blaise Pascal wrote that all of man's miseries stem from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone.

We avoid sitting quietly alone because without distractions we are confronted with the reality of our own minds, and that reality is not pleas ant and orderly, but random and chaotic. When we surrender ourselves to our thoughts we find that we have monkey minds jumping all over the place. Yet, although out of focus, our minds are not out of control. We can shield ourselves from the chaos by watching television, check ing our e-mail or putting the kettle on. We look outwards to keep the chaos inside at bay. So as chess-players, it's not so much that we concentrate in order to play chess, but that we play chess in order to concentrate.

Csikszentmihalyi points out that flow comes about when skill level and challenge are well matched, which means that you are more likely to experience flow from a close game than a complete mismatch.

First, if you don't already have one, buy a chess clock.

Next, get into the habit of sitting down, selecting a problem, setting it up, setting tbe clock, thinking, stopping, comparing your analysis with the source analysis .•. and keep doing this. It will be hard, and you will not really be 'learning' anything through this. But, as I've said before, chess is about skill - what you need is not 'know-that' but 'know-how'.

if you systematically solve problems like this one, you are more likely to think in terms of perpetual problem-solving when you get to the board

Chess books tend to be marketed along the lines of: 'You are a chess player. As a chess-player you need to know certain things. This book will give you what you need to know. Once you know it, you will have an advantage over your competitors. They don't know it. so your results will improve. If they have bought the same book, and do know it, then you might be interested to look at some of our other books...'

'a Genius Complex' - It comes about by studying lots of GM games and trying to emulate. Another analogy would be trying to speak a language and knowing some very sophisticated phrases but not really having a firm grasp of the language more generally...

He's in zuggie? (short for Zugzwang)

priori

What stops you, I think, is a combination of not really believing you'll get it and not really caring. Is that too harsh - or is it somewhere close to the truth

pawn-structure, hanging pieces, diagonals, king safety, transitions, exchanges, prophylaxis, attack, defence is the problem of 'cognitive load' - a metaphorical term that refers to the amount of information in the mind at any one time.

concepts like 'two bishops in an open position', 'backward pawn' , 'open file' and 'endgame'

quotation by Huang-Po: ''The foolish reject what they see, not what they think; the wise reject what they think, not what they see.

The only plan that is worth having is an adaptable plan, and one that takes the oppo nent's ideas into account.

studying examples of prophylaxis in the Dvoretsky/Yusupov literature

'planning in pencil and playing in pen'

in the process of rejecting a move, we wrongly throw out a whole idea

White's advantage is largely superficial. He has more space, but Black doesn't have any real problems finding room for his pieces

You may reasonably expect a man to walk a tightrope safely for ten minutes; it would be un reasonable to do so without accident for two hundred years. BERTRAND RUSSELL (on the prospect of nuclear war)

have noticed that players from the former Soviet Union use the word 'perspective' a lot when they are considering positions. whenever I have heard them use the term in English it is associated with 'things to look forward to' or 'capacity to improve the position'

We of ten reject moves because they don't look right, or they look ugly in some way that we can't fully explain. However, chess beauty lies under the surface of appearances, and to make full use of our resources we need to be able to find the hidden beauty in moves that seem to be ugly on the surface.

forms part of White's idea of advancing his h-pawn to attack Black's vul nerable g6/h7 complex

Chess is hard because it is so easy to confuse moves with ideas, to play purposefully without becoming too attached to a plan, to keep control of the game, and to suspend our aesthetic judgement about moves and positions.

get through 'the exponential jungle'

the model is not sup posed to be prescriptive, and is by no means flawless

useful for 'unlearning'

[Giorgi Chimakadze · Rating 5 out of 5]

Philosophy meets chess <3

[Giorgio]

A very intersting book on chess for advanced players giving an original perpective of the game. Encourages you to think with your head and not to learn uncritically.Recommended.

[Allan Fisher · Rating 4 out of 5]

A clever philosophical approach to chess. Rowson deals with the human element in playing this game....

[maarten mellegers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ik zag deze in mijn boekenkast staan.
En ik dacht deze heb ik al gelezen.
Dat bleek inderdaad het geval te zijn,.
Althans ik heb in ieder geval alle partijen ingevoerd.
Het is een bijzonder boek wat schaken vanuit een psychologisch oogpunt bekijkt.
VOlgens mij heb ik een andere versie van mijn vader gekregen.
Om daarna deze weer via mijn broer te hebben ontvangen.
Maargoed het is een goed geschreven en uitgebreid boek bestaande uit drie delen.
Ten eerste de capaciteit om te verbeteren.
Hoe zorg je dat je beter wordt in schaken
Daarnaast komt de mentale toolkit aan bod.
Ten slotte komt het verschil tussen zwart en wit aan bod.
Bijzonder geestig geschreven en dit boek heeft mij inderdaad anders over zwart en wit doen laten nadenken.

[David Teague · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book encourages the reader to think differently about the game i.e. White's supposed opening advantage, the initiative etc.

Rowson is an academic as well as a strong GM, and he has obviously thought deeply about the game. He manages to bring in ideas from psychology and philosophy to encourage the reader to approach games and positions with a fresh perspective. An example is the idea of the "stories we tell ourselves" whilst studying or playing.

The book also contains many games with excellent, instructive notations.

Not the usual sort of chess improvement book, but highly recommended.

[Jonathan SG · Rating 4 out of 5]

For people, as my, that enjoy of this difficult and magnificent game will be find the book very helpulp, although for moment (mainly in variant lines) is a little heavy.
There are many ideas about how learn and unlearn, think about chess in different ways -as the title book hints-. I have to say that is so difficult improve in the game, but the book definately had been influenced my game.

[Petar Bošnjak · Rating 5 out of 5]

a must-read for every chess player

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of best original works ever published in chess scene. If you like literature, if you like chess, if you want to improve this is pure gold for you.

[Gintare Cross · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book! I will definitely re-read it in the future.

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Began reading 30 June 2009. After reading the first half of this I returned it to my friend. It's a great read because it frankly addresses the question Why is it that adults so seldom improve at chess, even with disciplined study?

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

A provocative philosophical approach to the game of chess. I am among those who found it intriguing.