‘You don’t play the board; you play the opponent’

On the sidelines of a talk with Duke University neuroscientist Dr Murali Doraiswamy, five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand dissects the fascinating connect between life and chess, and yes, The Queen’s Gambit

Last weekend, as part of Brainwave, New York’s Rubin Museum of Art’s annual programme series that investigates how minds shape everyday experiences, chess champion Viswanathan Anand was in conversation with Duke University neuroscientist Dr Murali Doraiswamy. During the virtual session that was viewed by audiences from Moscow to Munich, Anand decoded his approach towards problems on the chessboard and how the solutions are applicable as much in life, while Dr Doraiswamy shed light on how the mind works, and its correlation with chess.

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The session reminded this writer of why young Indians from the 1980s and ’90s took up chess, wowed by Anand’s wizardry while he decimated Grand Masters double his age. Chennai-based Anand recalled the early days of attending international junior chess tournaments, discussed the gender gap in chess, and how computers changed the game forever. “In my teens, the average age of the world’s top 10 players was 34-35 years. Now, it’s 22, and that includes outliers like me!” Anand later obliged Dr Doraiswamy by reliving a few epic combinations on the chessboard, including some that he played as a seven-year-old.

Edited excerpts from an interview. 

Has The Queen’s Gambit helped popularise chess, especially among the younger lot?
The web show gave a huge boost to chess; it was almost as if chess had requested for this push. The story about a genius who is attracted to chess and finds a connection right away; it reminded me of the great Bobby Fischer, especially because the show is set in 1950s-60s America. I think apart from young people, the show has also clicked with many who had played chess in the past; they were able to reconnect strongly and appreciate the game through this series.

Dr Murali Doraiswamy

What life lessons can chess teach us in today’s times?
Chess is a cruel, unforgiving game. You can play 80 beautiful moves. But if at the last moment your concentration flags, you get complacent and make one careless move, your opponent is waiting to exploit that mistake. That is the message that I take strongly—that a game isn’t over until the opponent resigns. You get no prizes for making a lot of good moves; you only get a point at the end of the game when your opponent resigns. That’s very useful to keep in mind with everything [in life].
The importance of focus, of respecting your competitor, and of understanding your strengths and weaknesses, and then coming up with a realistic plan apart from taking into account who you really are before you face the opponent—all of this can be applied to the world today as we deal with the pandemic.

Also Read: Viswanathan Anand: Chess can have a wider audience
 
How does a chess player develop the ability to memorise and catalogue patterns on the chessboard?
It’s about repetition and familiarity. Repetition refers to when you see different patterns on the board. Of course, in the beginning, people will give you the basic version of certain patterns and ideas. And then, you see it being applied once, twice, thrice, and so on. It’s like learning a language—if you get to apply it once on your own, it will get even more firmly imprinted. As you get stronger [at the game], you will be able to cross-apply it. So, the ability to apply an idea or a concept in a different position from the one where you saw it; that is where you have tremendous growth as a chess player. Secondly, it’s about familiarity—the longer you know some idea, the more you will see it everywhere.
 
When you play chess at the highest level, what skills help you outthink your opponent?
A good understanding of your opponent is key. It’s where you have the ability to imagine what the opponent is aiming for, being able to put yourself in their mind for a second and see what the chessboard looks like to them. This is also something that you develop around their work. If you study their games, you study what they might be exposed to, then you get a sense of where they might be heading.
 
Tell us about how you got interested in chess.
My mother introduced me to the game. I was lucky that she came from a chess-playing family. She would play with her father and younger brothers. At a young age, I joined chess clubs, and got deeply involved. It was love at first sight because after learning the game, never once did I fall out of interest with it. I was surrounded by good chess players within my family, including my parents and uncles who all helped me sustain the interest.

Parental support is very important. It was a big help that both my parents supported me because chess at the time was viewed as an exotic pursuit. When you’re so much in love with the game, it’s not a nice feeling if your parents are hesitant or ambivalent about your choice. But they were truly happy that I was playing chess.

Log on to: Watch Anand and Dr Doraiswamy discuss chess and the mind here on https://rubinmuseum.org/mediacenter/the-brains-gambit

Also Read: Capture the kingdom

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