The Psychology of Chess1

Browsing recently through a book store, I chanced to come across Reti's “Masters of the Chessboard.” Being but an amateur in the game and not particularly interested in its further study, I was hardly attracted to it because of its value as a guide in learning chess, although even a very casual perusal of the book reveals it to be very superior in this respect, but by the author's scattered remarks which throw very interesting light on certain aspects of the psychology of the play. Because of the meagerness of the literature available, it seemed desirable to bring together and cement these bits of psychologic insight and reconstruct out of this a minor contribution to the psychology of the game.

Art and science have combined to provide both pleasure and profit in playing chess. Every game, in a way, is a contest of nerves as well as wits, and chess especially so, for properly played it requires the summation of the best emotional energies of the individual no less than singular clarity of mind and excellent reasoning.

But life itself in all its complexities may be reflected in chess as in a mirror. More than any other game, chess may be viewed as a struggle between two personalities, and there is no play that allows greater opportunity for free play of individuality and creative power than chess. The study of the manner in which each player plays soon reveals particular personality make-up that mark him off sharply from other players. Every player has a style of his own even though he may not be specially aware of it. Some players are essentially artistic and temperamental, preferring to play graceful games, indulging in certain combinations more for the romantic love of combination as such and not because such combinations are logical outcomes of attack—and how often they are easily led astray by beautiful combinations while the most elementary moves are overlooked. Other players are clearly