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Chessplayers have long sought methods of improving their play. In pursuit of that goal, some classics have been written. These include the Modern Chess Instructor by Steinitz, My System by Nimzovich and more recent works by Kotov and Yermolinsky. On May 15, How to Think in Chess (288pp., $24.95, Russell Enterprises, Inc.) will be released. Authored by Polish InternationalMaster Jan Przewoznik and Marek Sosynski, it deals with the problem of improving a chessplayer's thinking so that he or she will be better able to better cope with the complexities of the modern game. The authors: Jan Przewoznik, champion of Poland in 1979, is an International Master and one of his country’s most prolific writers on the game. Marek Soszynski is a philosopher, having specialized inaesthetics at universities in England and Poland. He was a strong player on the British correspondence chess scene and makes his living as a writer, translator, and website designer. ChessCafe.com is pleased to present an excerpt from this new book. Interested readers will also be able to take advantage of a special pre-publication offer (see ordering information at the end of the article). Enjoy...The ChessCafe.com E-mail List:
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How to Think in Chess
by Jan Przewoznikand Marek Soszynski Excerpt: Introduction
How to think in chess? This question has the broadest possible range. At one extreme it refers to the immediate problem facing every chessplayer with an ounce of fight left in him – what move to play next on the board. At the other extreme it refers to the lifelong problem facing every player with an ounce of ambition left in him – what move to make nextin one’s development. If you want to get better, you have to change. And you have to change because some of what you do now is flawed or second-best. But which part of your thinking is not quite right? Know thyself is a developmental principle familiar since the days of Socrates, and its worth is repeatedly proved in many walks of life. It is obligatory in chess training, when it is worthwhilenoting not only what you do, but also how you are doing it, how you think, and how you solve problems. This very necessary self-knowledge applies both to minute details (of individual moves, and immediate game plans) and to the overall picture (of your character, and your future chess career). Unless you know where you are, and

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where you want to go, progress is impossible. Let us begin with the thinking that takes place during a game. The moves on a chessboard can be praised or criticized in isolation, but they are the result of thought processes that can and must themselves be investigated. Here we draw on the classic research ofthe Dutch psychologist and chessplayer, Adriaan de Groot. Around the time of the famous AVRO tournament in 1938, and later, he was able to question several of the world’s top players (Alexander Alekhine, Max Euwe, Reuben Fine, Salo Flohr, Paul Keres, and Saviely Tartakower) subject them to various chess tests and then compare their responses and results with those of weaker players (such as twofemale Dutch champions). One outcome was unexpected. To put it very briefly, when deciding on a move, the stronger players did not calculate any deeper than the weaker ones. The Grandmasters could memorize positions from typical games very well indeed, and seemed to have a huge internal store of arrangements and patterns of pieces (or "chunks"), but de Groot did not find that they analyzed more or...