The Tao Of Chess: 200 Principles to Transform Your Game and Your Life

by Peter Kurzdorfer

Chess mastery has been recognized since ancient times as an unparalleled way to learn political strategy, but until now no book has explored the life lessons chess teaches and how they can transform lives. In The Tao of Chess, Chess Master Peter Kurzdorfer seamlessly blends the wisdom of a time-honored spiritual quest for truth with 200 principles that will improve anyone’s chess game. By following the author’s principles, readers not only come to enjoy the game more, they develop a habit of seeking underlying truth—whether in a chess game or a real-life situation. The Tao of Chess is full of pithy advice such · Understanding is more important than memory
· Fortune favors the brave
· When you see a good move, wait and look for a better move
· Mistakes tend to come in bunches
· Trust your intuition; it’s usually right Authoritative and easy to follow, The Tao of Chess will turn every reader into a master strategist!

Genres: Chess, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Games, Gaming

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[George Stenger · Rating 2 out of 5]

I teach a grade school chess team and have read more than a dozen chess books in the last six months. Most of them were excellent. However, this book fell far short. It has a hodgepodge of chess information that lacked cohesiveness. I can't imagine the target audience for the book.

The positive is that the Kindle version only cost $.99 on Amazon.

[James Tomasino · Rating 1 out of 5]

I love eastern philosophy. I really love chess. One would figure that this book would hit some magical combo-zone and have me praising and sharing it with all my friends. Unfortunately, The Tao of Chess fails on the most important parts.

I'll admit it, the premise is fantastic. I've felt for a while that chess carries enough complexity to warrant numerous metaphors worthy of contemplation. In fact, I've already begun picking apart aspects of chess to use as a martial arts structure in my novel. Perhaps this is the same line of thinking that lead Peter Kurzdorfer to write this book. Honestly, I think the idea can work well, he just didn't pull it off here.

You see, Mr. Kurzdorfer writes as a man who knows his chess aphorisms well, as a player who can show you games to illustrate a point, as a Master of the game. What he does not do is write as a student of Tao.

Each of the 200 chess "principles" is followed by a short explanation. Often he cites a game to illustrate the reasoning behind it. Finally, the author gives us a sentence or two attempting to connect the chess principle into real life. Unfortunately, these connections are shallow at best, often completely missing the point. Rather than spend a few paragraphs describing the emotional state of the game, the psychology of position, the depth and beauty of the constant ebb-and-flow that makes up every single game, he chose to say things like, "Successful people go after what they want, and in that they resemble successful rooks. Unsuccessful people don't go after what they want nor do they freely interact with others. In that way, they resemble unsuccessful rooks."

Not only does this type of insight fail to capture anything worthwhile that might arise from the chess principle of placing rooks on open files, (No mention of clearing your paths before putting your strongest forward efforts into something? How about the idea of looking for openings and opportunities to strike fully? Or maybe you can think of it less aggressively as an acknowledgement of your most peaceful path.) he instead chooses to blurt out a ridiculous claim that has no basis in anything. Unsuccessful people don't interact freely with others? What on earth is that about? It's meaningless and downright wrong.

Perhaps if he had titled this book: The Superficial Life Metaphors of Chess, I would have been more satisfied. Though I'd be hard pressed to find even that level of usefulness in here.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to admit that the "transform your life" part of this book is just downright laughable, but that's not the reason that I got it.

It's one of the few chess books that's on my primitive level and has a lot of basic advice that's been helpful to slowly improve. For example

#5: "Leave the pawns alone, except for the center pawns and passed pawns."
#20: "Do not move pawns in front of your castled king."
#25: "When ahead in material, trade pieces, not pawns."
#26: "When behind in material, trade pawns, not pieces."

etc.

Decent advice... but it didn't "transform my life" :)

[Carl Palmateer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book for beginners and a decent refresher for intermediate players. A collection of 200 aphorisms to help reinforce basic concepts and winning precepts. Whether this will work for you depends on how you learn. It is important to remember this is more of a refresher and cannot take the place of studying games and diligent practice.

[Pedro Roman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Man took me forever to read this book but once I truly sat down with it I’ll say it’s helped me go from beginner to somewhat of an intermediate player. Lots of great quotes that apply to life not just chess as the book’s cover says. Highly recommend it for people who want to learn how to play chess after they’ve learned how the pieces work and special moves. I know I’ll be coming back to it to internalize and understand its principles better.

[Christopher Reid · Rating 3 out of 5]

If this was cut down to about 30 pages, it would be a nice little masterpiece.

But as it is, most of it is quite obvious (or tautological) and dragged out. Worse than that, it's hard to read at times because it's so vague - Kurzdorfer will make a point and then repeat it several times in different ways (but as if it's actually taking some logical steps). So you start to get confused that maybe you're missing something.

Some parts even get more confusing the more you read them. It feels like Kurzdorfer was at times just writing his exact thoughts without filtering them. It has some of the kinds of repetition that often occur in speech but which are terrible in writing. In that way it also appears lazy, like he didn't plan ahead or consider the structure he was aiming for in any depth - the chapters seem a bit arbitrary, especially towards the end. A classic case of a good chess player not necessarily being that good at explaining or teaching. It often comes across as dumbed-down or trying too hard to include popular phrases and bits of life advice that have no real connection or relevance to the specific facet of chess being discussed.

I definitely enjoyed it overall but that's probably in part because I'm excited about the prospect of getting good at chess. There were some very insightful and valuable ideas and concepts scattered throughout but you never knew when they were coming. It's a good book but with major flaws. The strong qualities are severely watered down by the weak, generic passages that should have been severely edited.

[Rossrn Nunamaker · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Tao of Chess is not a deep work in any way, instead it is a very quick read with general principles. The overall work based on its description is probably closer to a 2 than a 3, but I feel there is value in the work and rated it up.

The 200 principles are divided into two parts and a total of 42 chapters. Each principle has a written description, game explanation (typically some positioned pieces, which color moves and a description of the ensuing sequence), followed by a conclusion and life lesson.

Those learning the game, who know how the pieces move, but haven't studied the game, will find the principles to be helpful in how they approach the game (though they will have to choose which to follow as 200 is overwhelming).

If you've studied either the game or philosophy you probably won't get a lot out of this book, but I find there are always take-aways. For me it was in the organization, which was essentially an inventory of considerations.

[Adam Geisler · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title and organization of this book are a bit gimmicky, a la Chicken Soup for the Chess Soul. Once I got to about the halfway point, I realized that Kurzdorfer was stretching or rewording some of the principles in an effort to reach the magic number 200. Despite its flaws, the book does have some excellent examples of chess wisdom and game applications. The connections to life can be useful in my chess club instruction, but they're hardly transformative. At its best, The Tao of Chess can be a handy volume to turn to for a quick reminder of important strategic ideas.

[Aaron Bolin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a nice easy read with very short sub-chapters. Rather than read it straight through, I'd read a few of the sub-chapters while waiting (e.g., for a dental appointment to begin).

Kurzdorfer provides very focused tidgits of practical advice. I'm not so sure about the "tao" aspect of the book, but I believe that his advice helped improve my chess game just a little.

Some of the chess examples are a little hard to follow for a chess amatuer like me, because the illustrations are sometimes spaced out 4-5 moves --- hard for an amatuer to keep all of those moving pieces straight.

Overall, well done. This was one of the more enjoyable chess texts that I've read.

[David Link · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first chess book I read. I learned some pretty good tips that I incorporate in my game today. Things like a Knight on the edge is not well played, or pawn structure should consider your apointents bishop's color.

[Xavier · Rating 3 out of 5]

While useful and informative, there are moments of repetition and fluff to fill out the clean number of "200 principles". I did learn aspects of chess in this book that I haven't seen on YouTube or read in other books, but much of the philosophy felt more like fortune cookie than Tao

[Joshua Simangunsong · Rating 3 out of 5]

Grazes the combination of tao and chess. However, this book provides foundational principles for a novice chess player.

[Justin Bendana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Felt like giving this four stars but there was several grammatical mistakes and it did not leave me fully prepared with a complete strong chess game. Nevertheless, it gave me a decent introduction into the game of chess and my game has improved to beat everyday people.

Maybe recommend to a friend just starting to chess because of its very very simple ideas and principles.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good book...both for the game of Chess and for Life's Lessons.

It really made me start thinking about board/piece strategy in the abstract rather than short range move planning.

Very, very good book.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

How to think about chess - everyday perspectives that mislead, and attitudes/habits that guide you in the direction of the masters. Again, these principles are easy to grasp yet difficult to master. The difference must be steady practice.

[Lyman Benton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Appreciate this book for what it is: a conceptual pep talk for beginner chess players. Reading this allowed me to view the chess board as an actual battlefield with war strategies, so I found that valuable.

[Buffalonickel · Rating 2 out of 5]

More of a gift or present to a coworker who casually likes to play chess than an actual book you would read yourself.

It is way too basic and cliche-ish for any real student or player.

It is a fun, simple read and looks good on a bookshelf -- otherwise it probably isn't worth the purchase.

[Matthew May · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read, lots of general.principles, good for a beginning player starting to get a bit deeper!