From Russia with Love |
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| Monday, 21 October 2013 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 By GM Daniel Gormally, England, FIDE 2504   "From Russia With Love" features a brilliant chess combination I saw the documentary film "Senna" the other day, and it's just as brilliant as its reputation. Ayrton Senna was a Brazilian racing driver who died tragically young in 1994 in a terrible formula one accident. Tragic were it not for the fact he packed more into his 30 odd years than most people would do if they were given 100 lifetimes. What stood out for me in this haunting documentary was Senna's love of the pure experience of combat, without the need for any extras. What restricted and frustrated him was that motor racing didn't always come down to who was the better driver- it was often more about who had the better technology, who had the better car. He wanted badly to prove that he was the best driver, if you stripped away everything else. Nowadays when you play chess the actual act of playing is just the final part of an overall and draining process. There's the preparation bit. Spending hours on the computer before the game, painstakingly looking for any weakness in your opponent's armour. The pure joy I felt when I first discovered chess, the raw excitement of seeing a brilliant combination for the first time when I was just a kid, has long gone. I first fell in love with chess when I saw the film "from Russia in love" when the Sceptre double agent Kronsteen, played an combination that was lifted from a famous Spassky-Bronstein encounter. I was astonished and overjoyed by this in a way I'd never been now. Now sadly, It's a case of "seen it all before".  Spassky - Bronstein, 1960, 15.Nd6!! View the game Chess has just become a war of attrition. I suppose life is like that, it's a grind. But every now and then you yearn for that primal sense of combat- that you shrug off the burden of preparation and you just play. Next time you have a game of chess try it- don't prepare at all, don't spend hours and even days worrying about it- just sit down and play. You'll be surprised at how exciting this sense of freedom will feel. Incidentally, Peter Zhdanov made very similar observations recently about how players have become obsessed about preparation these days to the extent that they forget what they actually got into chess for- to play. He wrote: "Most of the pros that I have talked to (including GMs rated 2700+) claim they dont spend much time studying chess. Instead, every year they play 80-100 tournament games and do their homework (game analysis; updating their opening trees) while preparing for the next event. If they fail a competition, they shrug and go for another one. This real-life experience is by far more useful than slacking at home and dreaming about potentially showing up at the Tal Memorial and beating everybody. " Spot on, even if I don't believe the 2700s who claim they don't prepare a lot. That may be bravado- to try and create the impression that they are so gifted that they can just turn up and win without any preparation. Believe me these guys work very very hard. But the argument is valid- to really improve you need to play. Originally published in GM Danny Gormally's blog Other posts by GM Danny Gormally: The England Chess Team & Jack Wilshire Should the grandmaster title be scrapped? ECF Book of the Year? Is being a chess pro worth it - continued? Is being a chess pro worth it? An Elitist Game? Does hard work in chess pay off? World Cup Final preview World Chess Cup Semi-Final preview World Chess Cup Quarter-Final preview World Chess Cup 1/8-final preview Why are Russians so good at chess? British Champs-2013 Ghent and now the British I'll never be fat again! Lessons learnt! The sad case of Borislav Ivanov: Part II Does Anyone Have a Cure for Anger Problems? The Depth of Chess Fundraising in chess Nurturing a Chess Prodigy The Sad Case of Borislav Ivanov 4NCL Impressions: no country for old men - Part II 4NCL Impressions: no country for old men One move, one line - Part II One move, one line Candidates Final Review & Preview of Upcoming World Championship Match Would Carlsen have beaten Capablanca?
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