Things Chess players can learn from 2 year old baby
Amazing Things Chess Players Can Learn from a 2 year old baby!
Recently I came across a two-year-old child and after observing his daily activities, I was amazed at what we can learn from him.
Here is the list of practical tips, that I learned from the baby.
Chess playing is a habit that will not be easy to quit.
Because, apart from playing in tournaments, you can also play online with other players, not only from your country but the entire World.
Being a chess player is in itself a big achievement, because very few people in the world have the playing acumen and skill needed for Chess.
You can learn the tactics of Chess from your daily life activities like when watching TV or watching movies; all it needs, is just a keen sense of observation, that is!
6 Things Chess players can learn from 2 year old baby
1. Never complain.
Have you ever observed a two-year-old child going about his daily routines?
If anything, he’ll never complain. Wait… you’ll say, a baby could cry – but that is not complaining!
He is only expressing his emotions by either laughing or crying.
The same concept we can apply, in our chess growth process, – that is – we can take all our responsibilities for our losses (and wins) on our shoulders.
So that we never complain about any shortcomings or bad luck, for lack of success in Chess.
Friends, no one will spoon-feed you, even a good coach will not want to do this – he will and must, guide you.
The rest is your work.
2. Just One Target.
A two-year-old child has just one target – once he/she asks for anything, Then come what may – that ‘anything’ is the main desire for him.
When you started playing chess, what was your target and your dream?
Remember that, all the time.
There is an Indian mythological tale in the Mahabharata (revered lore in Indian tradition).
When the famous teacher Guru Dronacharaya asked his best disciple Arjuna, what he had seen when he ordered him to attack the target with his arrow.
Arjuna answered coolly – “The only thing I see is the sparrow’s eye”.
The same thing is also applicable to our chess pursuits – single-minded focus.
Have you ever wanted something desperately and after some time, not so much?
A child has a fixed time for getting up early in the morning, taking food at a fixed time, and then sleeping at a fixed time.
If you don’t have time for your chess training, then you won’t make any progress, which you were thinking at the start of learning chess.
This is all about doing the same thing daily – and – finally one day you become an expert in any field.
There is one good saying – “to become an expert in any field you need to put in just 10000 hours of intense practice”.
Do it daily and see the leap in your performance after 6 months.
5. One baby step at a time.
Have you noticed how a child is always living in the present moment? Babies demonstrate remarkable persistence when learning new skills.
Like crawling or walking. Likewise, chess players can learn to persevere through tough games, setbacks, and challenging positions, developing resilience along the way.
The child only takes one small baby step at a time and does not crave immediate success in whatever he wants.
If he observes a toy at the far end of the room, he does not run.
He takes whatever is possible in small steps towards that toy, and goes with a one-minded focus.
Babies learn by trial and error, repeatedly trying until they succeed. Chess players can adopt this mindset, especially in analyzing games, learning from losses, and refining strategies through experimentation.
That is how we must be in our chess preparation and training.
Small steps are needed daily.
Science has proved that anything done daily for 21 days in a row becomes a habit, and if you start small it is easier to create a habit.
A child doesn’t have anything to worry about. Like when to eat or how to eat, etc.
You should also not have any worries about whether you can achieve mastery or not.
At Golden Chess Centre, we ask parents and the students, not to look at the results.
Babies are fully present in whatever they’re doing. Similarly, chess players can benefit from focusing entirely on the current position on the board, without getting distracted by past mistakes or future possibilities.
The game quality, is what the coach looks into, not the match points.
Results will improve automatically if the quality of your game improves.
And looking at results will only add up to the pressure.
In Chess, results depend on just one last mistake and if the student keeps training persistently in a disciplined way, even that mistake will be removed by sheer dint of hard work.
Let not success excite you, or failure pull you down.
The Amazing Things Chess players can learn from 2 year old baby are worth keeping in your mind.
When the players see that they are not able to win a particular opponent then they go into a QUITTING mindset. Quitting is a very easy thing. But principle motto of life says – “WINNERS NEVER QUIT AND QUITTERS NEVER WIN.”
Golden Chess Centre conducts regular training sessions for dedicated and upcoming chess players in Nanganallur, Madipakkam, Adambakkam, Moovarasampet, Kilkattalai, Kovilambakkam, Puzhuthivakkam, Ullagaram and Pazhavanthangal – Chennai,
There are online sessions for serious chess players who live out of Chennai and if you need to join one, please click here.
Have you ever wanted something really bad and after some time, not so much?
When we were just children we had many small desires like buying a comic, a doll or a toy, and we nagged our parents really bad. As teenagers, we wanted to be highly popular and admired by all, an intensity that you may all still retrieve when you see your child doing the same or see your old school pics. Sure enough this desire to be popular, starts to ebb by the beginning of college years. So my thoughts started on what to do When Priorities and Desires Change. How to understand yourself ? How best to aim our desires in a positive direction and focus especially in the game we all love so much – Chess?
So yeah, our desires and their importance fade with time. For example, I am sure as teens, we day-dreamed about a fabulous looking partner. Then came the desire for passionate and intense partners. Even this disappears, albeit to muffled tones at times. Isn’t it a funny thing to talk about when we discuss the way our desires shift or diminish with time?
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Desire may be hugely interpreted as the push and pull of hormones and that is a conception that many of us have been having for a long time. However in due course of time, people understand that their lives are defined by striving for excellence, when we see other successful people and wish we had done something worthwhile when there was still time. Not that we have any shortage of time now but then at age 30 or 40 the enthusiasm fades off for the majority of us.
Everything happens in auto pilot mode and we enter the cocoon of routine.
Additionally, there is another problem that we as chess players, face. We have always wanted to be skillful at many things. We climb up the rating ladder. And after working hard to achieve some chess expertise, we have something called ‘stagnation’ creeping in. We now stop engaging in the activities as such, and this makes me wonder if we would have loved the process as much equally, as if the success we found, was easier to attain. I am also guilty of such stagnations in my life and it takes a great effort to come out of it alone.
Does desire equals a love for the process, for the journey or the attainment of the goal?
With things we never had, it’s harder to find out whether the desire will reduce with time, but core desires are much akin to the desire for love and happiness than the desire to master a skill, which is less of the heart and more of the mind matter – controlled by conscious thinking.
When asked during an interview how he managed to reach the top as a professional Chess Grandmaster, Botvinnik replied with a single word, “Desire!”
All great success ultimately begins with just a small idea, a seed, so to speak, but what makes ideas become reality, is the fuel of human desire. Just an idea alone can give you a temporary feeling of inspiration, but a burning wanting desire is what gets you through all the perspiration necessary to overcome the numerous obstacles along the path.
One secret to overcome stagnation is Clarity – or – refinement of desires. This comes from contrasting experiences, so if you want more clarity, invite more of the new by embracing and accepting new experiences. This is especially crucial for people in their teens and 20s. Your brain learns a lot from experience. If you lack any new experience, then how can your brain know its most important calling? Of course it cannot — you need to train it more.
How are you supposed to discover your favorite hobbies if you do the equivalent of doing just one chore every day? How are you going to discover your favorite food(s) if you are eating the same diet, every single day?
So my suggestion to you when Priorities and Desires change is – do anything and everything if it’s totally new to you.
Like playing a blitz game if you have never played it before or playing a slow time control if you not done it earlier.
The benefit is that you’ll give your brain a lot of experiences to compare and contrast. This will help you choose and fix your tastes.
Then the desire to learn will be long lasting and new everyday, every time.
Rethink about the ambitions/goals you’ve set for yourself. (You have set goals, haven’t you? If not, then do set them first). Before fixing your priorities and goals answer the following and act accordingly:
How committed are you to achieving these targets?
Under what conditions would you call it quits?
What if you could significantly increase your desire to achieve these targets?
What if you wanted them so badly that you would never ever give up chasing those targets?
When you are truly 100% committed to attaining your targets/goals, you move from doubt to knowing for sure. If you want something really bad, then quitting is simply out of your mind.
You either discover a way or make your own path to reach there. You are ready to pay the price, whatever it takes to reach your destination.
Some hugely inspiring books that have motivated me on my path –
Learning from Chess Champions and World Chess Championships
Question from VM: I have a doubt regarding learning from Chess Champions and World Chess Championships. Reading all games from world champion is really time consuming process and also tough to understand without the help of annotations. Also many opening lines played before are dropped at high level due to suggested improvements by chess engines. Do you still recommend it? If so what is the order to read? Are there any sites that have world champions games annotated (or at least all world championship games games annotated). What learning process can we can follow (for 1800 player) – VM (Coach and player).
Answer: Whoa! That was a beautiful questionnaire raised by you VM! In fact if I understood you correctly, it has four questions embedded in it.
Is it a recommended practice (even nowadays) to look at annotated games of World Chess Champions and Championship matches given the fact that many old points of analysis have taken a change with new lines overtaking the old ones?
What is the order to read/look at World Chess Champions games?
What learning process would one have to follow if he/she is around 1800 rated chess player?
Are there any Websites that have these games with annotations?
Before I jump into my suggestions – keep in mind that more books have been written on Chess than all other sports and games combined!
And even though I have approximately 2000 to 3,000 chess books, some of my friends have far more than that! In fact, my collection is considered to be just average!
Okay… but why I am talking about this here?
Just to drive home a point that chess is not dogmatic and fixed – in parameters. There is so much diversity, that it is mind-boggling.
And since you asked from a 1800 rated player’s point of view I will suggest answers based on that point of view.
Question # 1: Is it a recommended practice (even nowadays) to look at annotated games of World Chess Champions and Championship matches given the fact that many old points of analysis have taken a change with new lines overtaking the old ones?
Answer: Depends on your objective. First off, a few basic facts so that you and I are on the same platform of understanding.
At at 1800 Fide Rating you will be pretty decent tactically and also have a decent idea of strategy in action as far as your repertoire is concerned. So if your interest in World Champions is merely for documentation purpose then by all means go through their games in chronological order – or – as per your favorite players list.
Opening lines may change but middlegame/endgame ideas and tactical themes will never change.
You said – “Reading all games from world champion is a really time consuming process and also tough to understand without the help of annotations”.
It’s crucial for all chess players to find something that they like, that they are passionate about, and that, they truly enjoy learning and playing Chess and try to become better at that, every single day.
That is how you attain your goals, and so when you choose to look at World Champions for inspiration it is a commendable decision. It may be difficult and time consuming. But it is worth every second when you see the results coming.
So, find your passion, set your goal and make good, healthy choices along the path like learning from Chess Champions and World Chess Championships, and you will find success following you like a shadow.
The way to learn from un-annotated game(s) will be outlined in a later article.
But if you have access to a good source of annotated games such as
then it is easy to understand the advanced strategy of these high level games.
You said – “Also many opening lines played before are dropped at high level due to suggested improvements by chess engines”.
Let’s worry about the high ground when we get there and let’s not worry about the Engines’ suggestions – that can happen when we are beyond 2300.
The Engines may be very strong tactically – they can find the best move in a messy position but they cannot explain why it is a good move!
If you were to blindly follow only the top theory then you will be deeply disappointed when you play against a club player. Because you will be at a loss on what to do in case your opponent deviates from the main lines which is what usually happens in the below 2200 rating ranges.
Coming to Engines suggesting improvements, those suggestions will work well for them not for us humans who cannot play like an engine every time.
So use the Engines with great deliberation – better still to avoid them studiously and leave that to the trainer.
If however your purpose is learning from Chess Champions and World Chess Championships and brush up your thinking abilities in Chess, then why study just just World Champions?
Why not learn from a 25oo rated Grandmaster’s games or a 2300 International Master?
In fact you will be motivated when you are able to solve positions or guess their moves since theoretically you are playing far above your level of understanding. And gain much needed confidence that is essential for chess players.
You will see that even Grandmasters are human and are liable to make mistakes.
So the answer to your first question is a broad yes, with a caveat. That means, to look at only champions’ game may actually deprive you of much needed practice which you strongly need as your opponents may not be GMs or IMs too.
So look for the learning wherever you find it. Don’t restrict yourself to just the cream. After all the GMs have all been there through that path and learnt it the hard way. So you may not be an exception. Of course I am not suggesting you look at games played by players lesser than 1800 or even 2000. I would suggest as a general rule of thumb to look from 2200 upwards.
You can learn from almost every game and everyone above your rating level. But that does not mean that greater the difference the more you can learn! There is a limit to everyone’s grasping power and you need to go step by step.
This way you will be pulling yourself up from a length of 400-500 elo and that will be your GYM Stretching exercise regimen for successful chess muscles.
Question # 2 – What is the order I would suggest to look at World Champion games?
Answer: Very simply put, in the exact chronological order that they were champions. Once more I would suggest looking at the bigger picture, by looking at the top 10 players of every WCC era. It will provide you will all the necessary fodder in your chess training regimen. Prepare a dossier of interesting positions or points of analysis and that will be your ready-reckoner before your next tournament.
For example if you start with Steinitz then also look at (not necessarily in the same order as below).
Emanuel Lasker
Mikhail Chigorin
Harry Pillsbury
Siegbert Tarrasch
Wilhelm Steinitz
Paul Morphy
Joseph Blackburn
Louis Paulsen
Adolf Anderssen
Johannes Zukertort
The reason I suggest looking at the same chronological sequence of champions is because you will then understand the evolution of Chess thinking, that actually simulates a chess player’s evolution from an amateur to a Master. In those days there was no technical help in the form of computers but trust me, when you look at their games you will wonder how deep they could play.
Question # 3 – What learning process would one have to follow if he/she is around 1800 rated chess player?
Answer: I would suggest that first of all any learning must be consistent. No huge gaps in the schedule and no jumping between books. You can read as many books at a time as you want, but remember to finish them. As far as the learning process is concerned the answer is huge so it warrants a separate article by itself.
Question #4 – Are there any Websites that have these games with annotations?
Answer: The immediate one that comes to my mind is www.pgnmentor.com. You have all the players games listed and you can use a firefox addon like Down them all or Flashgot which helps in downloading all the files from a page automatically.
Bottomline: You can learn from almost every game and everyone. Play against people from all different levels at different time controls from all around the world. It’s when you go beyond the 2300 stratosphere that you will have to change the training schedule and syllabus.
Let me know if you have any further questions about learning from Chess Champions and World Chess Championships or any other points that are unclear! I will try my best to answer you in coming articles.
Some of the books I have enjoyed personally are listed below.
Your mind is much more powerful than you think – It works the way it wants till you wake up.
Mind is the magical wand that fulfills all your desires. You will be amazed at the potential of your mind. Its ability to absorb, analyze and use any such information at the appropriate times, is what makes it effective in completing a complex task.
So is it that simple to just train the mind and achieve success? Maybe it is the secret… ?
Nothing could be further than the truth. Or rather the complete truth.
Mind is much more powerful than you think
The fact is that our brain is intrinsically lazy and mechanically wants to shut out hard work. So anytime you want to do any thing that involves the brain you tend to yawn and feel sleepy.
It is the mind’s way of telling you – ” Hey dude! I think we can take a small nap instead of doing this boring stuff.” And you feel that you are tired and ought to sleep instead of doing that work at that time.
However try this small experiment and see what happens. Start doing something that is not demanding for your mind (to work) – like watching a good movie or listening to music. You will see that you are back to the normal alertness that you are accustomed to daily.
So the trick is to make the mind believe that your work is interesting instead of tedious/boring. And that can be only brought about by approaching all such work in a passionate way.
Here are some tips that will stop that ‘yawn’:
1. See through the noise.
This means that whenever your mind wants to sleep think if you are really sleepy or is the mind playing any trick. Even though the topic is interesting for you (that is why you are reading this article in the first place), you are unable to stay focused and this implies you don’t find the study interesting. Instead go for a more interactive way to deal with the topic like listening to a video about that topic or in the case of Chess, trying doing some online play for a few minutes.
2. Feeling drowsy after having food?
Eat dry fruits daily for better energy levels the whole day.
If you are experiencing such a problem, try to rest for 15 minutes soon after lunch/dinner. That will not just help you rejuvenate your mind, but will also prevent any time loss. Try to optimize your food in such a way that it does not lead to drowsiness such as:
Avoid excessive fat and carbohydrate content and choose something that will keep you active for the duration that you want to study.
Do not overeat under any circumstances. Large meals can cause severe drowsiness, as your body takes blood energy from your brain and other functions to engage in digesting your food in the stomach. It’s a delicate balance. Eat less, not enough energy to keep your brain effective; eat more, get all sluggishness, digesting that food.
More of salads and fruit slices to provide micro-nutrients. Especially the dry fruits that are healthy like walnut, almonds, figs etc.
Sprouts are good too but in the breakfast time.
3. Choose that subject that interests you more.
That will also help you save some time so that you can study the less interesting subjects when you are really active and can manage long hours without getting sleepy. A boring subject will only make you yawn more. And in that case you need to see if the mind is really feeling sleepy or if it is playing any tricks on you.
4. Exercise can also affect how you feel.
If you can exercise regularly, then this can help you maintain energy levels naturally, but again, watch your eating as you may have a large meal because exercising makes you feel hungry, but you are using up more energy to digest it, and this may lead to a sleepy lazy feeling. The trick is in making small bursts of food eating and satisfying your hunger pangs in moderation.
5. Sleep well.
Quality sleep is more important. If you do get enough sleep, but you don’t get good quality sleep then this will also make you sleepy during the day. The reasons for lack of quality sleep are
A small amount of light in the room.
You are watching TV or computer just before going to bed.
You are eating too close to bedtime.
You are thinking about too many things so your brain is keeping you semi-conscious thinking about many things.
You are overweight / have a genetic predisposition to snoring.
Research has found that sleep and wakefulness are not two different states. They have a gradual overlap, and if you are feeling sleepy in the daytime, then your brain is wanting to go into ‘self repair’ mode job that it undertakes at night. It is hinting you to give it the time to do so, and if it isn’t allowed to repair it may fail through one of a number of chronic conditions that are piling up.
So take heed and follow these steps and see your chess pursuits showing positive growth. The changes will be reinforcing and keep persevering till you maintain this process automatically. Truly the Mind is much more powerful than you think
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There is always a dearth of quality chess material for training once you climb up the ELO ladder. When my students join they are raw beginners but later I find it difficult to set them challenging tasks as they slowly master the techniques. And therefore I keep looking out for new avenues for training them with. Today I have a reason to be thrilled. I have seen Dvoretsky’s latest book on the art of prophylaxis that seems to have come after a long hiatus. Dvoretsky’s latest book on the art of prophylaxis is something that most of chess books have been lacking and that isRecognizing Your Opponent’s Resources: Developing Preventive Thinkingwhich is by the way the title of Dvoretsky’s new book.
Victor Kortchnoi once said with great insight –If you do not check what your opponent is doing, you will end up complaining about bad luck after every game.
So understanding your opponent’s next move could be or what agenda he is trying to accomplish, is one of the most important core skills required climb up the ELO ladder. It is what makes a difference between a good chess player and a strong chess master.
The reason why many students stagnate is because they are aware of most of the direct methods of attack and will thrive in many a tactical melee, but give them a position where they are at the receiving end of the opponents’ blows, or where the tactics are not yet present on the board, they will be all at sea.
What is special about Dvoretsky’s latest book on the art of prophylaxis ?
What is prophylaxis in chess?
I have a 1200 player who attacks ferociously with tactical claws that will tear any ripe position apart. One day when we played a game that was steered into positional waters, he was stuck for 2 hours in getting the best move! I had to reset the clock many times as he was floundering for a move and in exasperation he asked me (after having reset the clock for the 4th time) – “What is the move I must play here, Master?” – to which all I could say was “I think your best move is to resign as I myself do not know how you are going to disentangle from your mess”.
That is the power of prophylactic thinking for you.*
Dvoretsky is known for advocating the art of prophylaxis as a key to mastery in the higher levels of chess playing arena. To put it in his own words (Secrets of positional play), Prophylaxis or prophylactic thinking is “the habit of constantly asking yourself what the opponent wants to do, what he would play if it were him to move, the ability to find an answer to this question and to take account of it in the process of coming to a decision.”
Dvoretsky is very famous for his classical books that are considered as must-read for those beyond 2000 ELO upto 2400 ELO. In this book, Dvoretsky embarks on a classical but neglected training on this theme, with high-quality training material for independent analysis.
Contents of the book – on the subtle art of prophylaxis
Each chapter has a introductory theoretical section followed by plenty of exercises, from easy to difficult. Each chapter begins with a small explanation on the chapter’s theme, and this is followed by positions for solving with their solutions.
This book consists of four chapters, all dealing with identifying what your opponent’s next move or moves could be. They are:
Pay Attention to Your Opponent’s Resources (180 problems).
The Process of Elimination (106 problems).
Traps (36 problems)
Prophylactic Thinking (154 problems)
To summarize –
The best part is that among the approximately 500 exercises, there are opening, middlegame and endgame positions. This provides you with challenges in searching for a move and calculating variations as per the given pointers, that will help you at any stage of the game, be it the opening or the middlegame or the Endgame scenario.
The crux of the book is the solutions offered for the training position which are very detailed, as is typically expected of Dvoretsky’s work. Throughout the book, the author guides us by leading us through the schematic thinking for a solution in each position, to show how a player can come to the right choice of move at the board.
Recognizing Your Opponent’s Resources is a must buy as it comes from the master himself. I suggest going through this book with your student if you are a Coach or Trainer – this will open up a few hidden insights in his/her chess brain.
*I keep harping on positional play many times and prophylaxis is my main forte while playing with some upstart students, as it is a complex concept. And whenever they start watering in the mouth with an upcoming tactical warfare and an impending win over me, I pull the plug, and play positionally to get the grip back. That way I enjoy the looks on their face when they hit a wall. This actually makes them understand that tactics has to coupled with positional concepts for chess mastery.
Order Dvoretsky’s latest book on the art of prophylaxis from the Bookdepository if you are in the UK.
You said – “Reading all games from world champion is a really time consuming process and also tough to understand without the help of annotations”.
You said – “Also many opening lines played before are dropped at high level due to suggested improvements by chess engines”. 
