Observation....perception...in Chess!?

"Part of normal human development is learning to notice less than we are able to. The world is awash in details of color, form, sound - but to function, we have to ignore some of it.....Yet, the world still holds those details. Children sense the world at a different granularity; attending to parts of the visual world we gloss over,; to sounds we have dismissed as irrelevant. What is indiscernible to us is plain to them...." - Alexandra Horowitz (On looking)

Well, "looking", "observing", "perceiving"....are the keyholes of any act of creation.

These terms are diverse and deep in what they mean to us....different people.....and at different times and situations!

Trying to understand them on face value.....reducing them to merely what they mean as per the definition, in the act of creation, will be a gross injustice that we do to what we try to create....or simply create!

In most of the cases, when we create or describe a creation, we will find words grossly insufficient to express what we experience!

So, the act of creation precludes the banal meaning of the terms that I listed above,....in the beginning and gives a different connotation to the same words by the act and the process of creation!

....and for this to happen, or allow us to indulge in the act of creation or revel in a creation, we need to attain or more precisely fine tune our devices.....the organs that we use to "look", "observe", "perceive".....so that they escape all boundaries and attain the ability to comprehend the expanse of creation and creativity in a qualitatively different way!

In short, we need to see through the eyes of a child!

.....and believe me, this is the most difficult thing to do for an adult....as they assume their knowledge...prescience  - which is a garbage - as a prerequisite !!

Leonardo da Vinci, as they say, would cease to think of painting when he dissected (he dissected dead bodies, defying "the crime"' worthy of capital punishment, in his quest to understand the human physiology so as to attain near perfection in his creations!)....in fact, he was studying the nature of human beings. "art inclined" surgeon Sherwin Nuland writes, "More than most of his contemporaries, Leonardo realised that a good painter must comprehend the principles of perspective, the use of light and shade, and even the way in which the eye physiologically perceives an image. Hence, he studied geometry, mechanics, the flight of birds, animal and plant biology, optics,, military engineering, hydraulics, architecture....in short he began to see ART from what might be called the SCIENTIFIC point of view....and SCIENCE from the viewpoint of an ARTIST"

I do not differentiate Chess from Art....and I prescribe to the methods of Leonardo and we do a gross injustice to chess by not exploring and experimenting its hidden dimensions ....merely for the sake of "points" and "ratings"......


Take for example:

Black to play.....


Anybody who sees this position for a few minutes, will easily find that Black is in dire straights....
....and possibly start analysing what went wrong in the opening phase and spot some reason in the development of the theory in this variation and point a finger at a particular variation, move....so on and so forth.

Well, theory of chess is far advanced and so it should be....can be, no one can help it. But if it is so advanced, and accessible to every tom dick and harry, every master (I am not including others for the convenience of argument) who gets access to it should be getting great positions out of opening and not struggle....and let us not speak about ratings....

Great Tarrasch said, "gods have placed middlegame, before the endgame..." and I wish to add ...."gods have placed middlegame, after opening & ...."


The Black Queen travelled to a5 and returned back to d8 and captured the White Bishop on c8. The Knight on c7 travelled via f6-e8-c7.....and is raising its head to see that all roads are blocked for his further jumps....

The other Knight on b8 has all roads blocked by his own soldiers.....and Black finds his King squirming....as White is far ahead in terms of storming his fortress!

So much for the agony....and whom do you think is sitting on that side of the board....!


The great Spassky! And the White player is Averbakh and the tournament is all important USSR championship!

These days, every patzer assumes the liberty and audacity to question the decision by the great masters of the past....why even present, when the game is going live on Chess24 or any other portals with the aid of the side bar which denotes the state of the position and quality of the move to them....

Remove that bar......they will be clueless....

Now see what Spassky does...in the above position.....

16.....Nc6!!

Averbakh has to grab that Knight, else it will jump to d4 and turn into a nemesis!

17.dc6 bc6; 18.Nh4 Qe8; 19.hg6 hg6; 20.Qg4 Rb8; 21.Nd1?!

It is easy to question this move on hindsight.....but sitting on the board, against great Spassky known for his fierce attacks giving an open file for his Rook and mobile centre.....playoff game in the USSR finals...with so much at stake....

.....the mere Knight plus may not weigh much....to muster the courage to play 21.OOO! which, incidentally would have secured advantage....but.....

.....you need to take into consideration the proclivities of a player....Averbakh disregards bloodshed!

The game ended in a draw....after swinging both ways.....in 73 moves.....

I can cite innumerable examples from the annals of chess.....

To understand what I mentioned in the beginning, keep observing any game that you study repeatedly.....at different times.....you will start discovering different meaning.....and even established masters will start approaching the game of chess and the position in front of their eyes in tournaments, with a differently abled "look....ing".....for to look is static....and the life rests in that......"ing" which denotes flux!


Let me device an oxymore....
"Chess is simply a complex game"