Think Like A Grandmaster

by Alexander Kotov, Bernard Cafferty (Translator), John Nunn (Editor)

A classic, now available in modern algebraic notation for the first time! Few books have had as much impact on chess literature as the first edition sold out within months, and it was immediately recognized as a masterpiece of chess instruction. Twenty years later, it remains a bestseller in the field and one of the best practical training manuals available.

Genres: Chess, Nonfiction, Games, Education, Reference, Technical, Sports

187 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Alexander Kotov (1913—1981) - a Soviet chess grandmaster.

RUS: Александр Александрович Котов

Reviews

[notgettingenough · Rating 5 out of 5]

A couple of nights ago, Carlsen was making Ponomariov wish he'd never been born. It was the 2009 Tal Memorial. We all watching knew that Carlsen knew exactly what he was doing as the punchdrunk Ponomariov kept staggering to his feet to make one more awful move. It was too easy.

22 Bb3. Wow. It was SO easy. Carlsen could make such a slow move in the middle of what looked like delivering a series of knockout punches? We were all too impressed for words. The kid really knows what he is doing.

And that was it. He didn't know what he was doing. Ponomariov had a reply which would have put him right back in the game. 22....Bb7

But Ponomariov didn't see that. Carlsen got back on track and won 9 moves later.

p. 52 Kotov quotes Botvinnik 'Smyslov was so demoralised by the speed with which I made my moves...'

Oh Ponomariov. Surely you've read Think Like a Grandmaster?

If you were a chess child of the 1970s you would have. Kotov was the man. Think Like a Grandmaster was the book. The one we read a hundred times. It was the one that made me feel entirely inadequate and yet I'd go back again and again for more torture. It was the book that made us all feel like Russia was the place to be.

Revisiting it as an adult I'm wondering whether I got any of the really useful advice from it that I'm nodding my head at now.

If I did, how is it that I'm sitting here now thinking 'yep, I've done that. And that. And, oh dear. I've done that one too'. The fact is, I guess, Kotov doesn't so much stop you doing the things you shouldn't, as make you know that's what you'd done.


p. 61 'On the contrary they were over-confident, complacent in their recogition of the fact that they had a marked advantage, and so their vigilance was blunted.'

1978 I'm playing a national championship, fancied to win it, though that is probably only because I'm rated better looking than the rest of the field. Arrive at the table definitely the worse for wear. Maybe even still drunk from the night before, but no matter as I'm playing Big Bertha. So called on account of Bertha being a tiny elderly lady who'd played many, many national championships and never gained so much as half a point. Never got close. Little did she know it, but her luck was about to change.

The arrogance of youth. What does it matter what I do? Any random collection of moves will be enough to win this game. I make some random moves. And suddenly, when it is too late, I realise that the position is so closed that I have no way of breaking through, not now, not if the game is to last a hundred more moves. Fuck. Sorry, I was born vulgar. Let me just repeat 'fuck' quite a few times.

We adjourn. I investigate various ways of putting myself into a losing position in order to have the possibility of a win. I go back to the game. Bertha's having none of it. I have to hand it to her. She wants this half point far more than the hypothetical one point I offer her. At 2am I grimly shake her hand. Big Bertha continued to play national championships and this was her only half point ever.

What a lesson!!! Fantastic lesson which I will take to my grave. Never again will I ever be over-confident. Kotov told me. But the bottom line is you have to do it. That's what burns it into your soul.

p. 64 '...a striving for false brilliance...is to be condemned as false practice. Moreover a striving after brilliance arises from a wrong attitude of mind.'

2001 Another national championship, but this time bridge. I'm playing the final against the then world champions. I have always taken this particular advice of Kotov to heart. Let's face it, it goes with not being over-confident, and as you now know, the last time I was that, was 1978.

Early in the match I am faced with a choice. I can play a simple finesse. I can play a squeeze. The two are even money. So, what do you do? Kotov's looking down on me, of course. He always is. 'False brilliance, false brilliance, false brilliance. Beware, beware, beware.' Okay Kotov. I hear you. No showing off against the world championships. I take the finesse. It loses. The squeeze was the way home.

So now where am I? The world champions probably think I'm not good enough to play a squeeze AND I've lost my chance to do something flash against them. Fuck, Kotov. What are you doing to me???

I have no doubt there will be more sins to confess here. That's enough for one day.

A few days later...

pp71-74 The blind spot. What are blunders all about? One of the useful pieces of advice Kotov gives here, is having analysed your variations, go back to the beginning, write down your chosen move and look at it as a patzer would. You've analysed the unobvious, now it is the obvious to consider.

Could one apply that to bridge? I'm thinking of a couple of serious sorts of blunders that are perhaps related to this whole business of looking ahead.

Early 1980s. I'm trying out for the State women's team. I think for a long time about whether to bid a grandslam or defend the sacrifice my opponents have made at the six level. Nope, I decide in the end, it isn't right to bid one...and I pass!!! I clean forget to double. My partner starts crying. 3am I wake up in a sweat, not so much about my bid, as about having made my partner cry. Note to self before going back to sleep: give up women's bridge.

Early 2000s. I'm in an international tournament in Japan. I ask my partner for aces, he responds and I think for a long time about whether to bid a slam. Eventually I decide not to...and I pass!!! We are not in our suit, we are in his blackwood response. Boys don't cry. Male partner, in a 4-2 fit at the five level, comes heroically close to making. I have to explain to our teammates. They are New Zealanders. Have you seen Once Were Warriors?

I don't know if one would be allowed to write down a 'move' in bridge in this way, but for now I don't see why not.

Then, there is this fascinating blindspot which has never happened to me, but to several of my partners, so one assumes it is a commonplace.

Late 1980s. It's the Zonal in NZ. My partner Michael is in 3NT. One by one he calls for me to lead from the suit he is cashing. Eventually he simply forgets to call for the last one. It is a crucial trick, he's lost contact with it for eternity, and now he goes down. Ouch.

Early 2000s. It's the playoff to be the State open team. My partner Chris, is in a slam, and he simply forgets to cash a winner which is now stranded in dummy. One down. This shakes me up more than him, so for the last set I sit myself out and leave him in. We win the playoff.

Mid 2000s. It's Stage 3 of the Australian Teams Trials. We are not in contention, but how we play this match may well decide who gets to play in an Australian team for the Commonwealth championships. My partner, Simon, is in 3NT, I'm cashing his long suit one by one as he calls it. Eventually he simply forgets to call for the last card in the suit. 3NT redoubled goes down when it was gin. Our opponents get into the team.

Having read Kotov I'm coming to the conclusion these are all about the same thing: looking ahead and then forgetting the obvious. In this case, as can happen in chess too, one forgets exactly where one is up to and plays moves critically out of order. In the case of a trick being stranded in a hand which no longer has a point of contact, this is disaster!

There is an obvious simple answer in the case of running long suits. Declarer should not call for them one at a time, at least if inclined to make this terrible error. Simply state at the start that dummy should 'run the suit'. This would be music to my ears as I have become habitually nervous when declarer is running my suit in dummy. Big sigh of relief when that last one hits the deck.

I recall, further, one time when I also failed to cash a long cashing suit winner in dummy. It was like this. Important tournament: Summer Nationals in Brighton. I call for the last of a long suit in dummy, only to discover that the card has completely disappeared! It was there. And now it isn't. There is a loser in another suit sitting in dummy instead. It transpires that my well-meaning but rather deaf partner, Joyce, has discarded one of her winners as I was drawing trumps instead of the loser I had called for. Not exactly my fault, you might say, but I should have been checking. Never blame partner if you can blame yourself.

[Ettore Pasquini · Rating 2 out of 5]

Here's the short version of this book:

- be humble or perish
- when it's your turn to move, build a tree of analysis (or plant a house)
- evaluate a branch once and only once (doing it twice is a waste of time)
- beware of the blind spot (it exists)
- if a position is closed and lacks hand-to-hand contact between the forces, moves involving positional factors are likely best
- don't leave your pieces hanging
- never rely on your opponent making a mistake
- don't play wishful-thinking chess
- if your opponent spends a long time and then sacrifices a piece, and if you know his analyses to be often exact, you should probably trust him and refuse the offer straight away
- possession of an open file/diagonal is only meaningful if it can be used for some strategic purpose
- don't leave your pawns on the same color square as your remaining bishop
- in a rook ending, keep your rook behind a passed pawn, either yours or your opponent's
- make a plan between move 6 to 10;
- a plan is essential, but be flexible to change it
- if the centre is closed, baring your king is not very risky, but you must stop your opponent from opening it on the side where you are attacking
- if the centre is open the role of the center is greater
- during the end game, bring the king out toward thr center
- basic rule of endings: don't hurry (Capablanca repeated moves often returning to positions he had had before)
- know all the main lines of a couple openings and the basics of the others

The rest of the book wasn't useful to a beginner like myself. Very hard to follow, and most of the time the author doesn't provide clear suggestions beside "move well!" or "think more!" Plus, it's tacky that he often discusses his own games but in not a single one of them he ends up losing! Come on now.

[Bhakta Kishor · Rating 4 out of 5]

The unparalleled Think Like a Grandmaster by Alexander Kotov explains not only planning and strategy in chess but also the methodical use of time.

Assess the position. Identify the variations to consider. Evaluate each variation for a roughly equivalent period of time. Choose the strongest. Sanity check you haven't missed something. Move.

Repeat, exhaustively, without losing focus, for a multiple of hours.

[Joel]

Recently, I had the chance to re-read some chapters of Sasha Kotov's Think Like a Grandmaster. I had read this book in high school and I remember it having a big impact on me. It was one of the first books I read that exposed me to a range of chess concepts I hadn't known at the time, which I now take for granted.

The book is best known for the system of calculation using Candidate Moves and the Tree of Analysis, but the truth is that the later chapters of the book also contain much advice not directly related to calculation, like tips for playing the endgame (think in terms of schemes, not variations; take your time; and use your king - ideas that Schereshevsky stresses in his book), preparing openings (don't try to master all the minutiae of all the openings; rather have two or three openings you know very well, preferably one that is sharp and technical, and one that is slower and more plan-based, and only explore the other openings casually), adjournments (don't rush to seal, instead let your opponent seal; do the analysis on your own, but use your friends [these days, a computer] to check your analysis; get sleep before the next round...), and much more great advice.

While the book is criticized for it's rigid approach to calculation, it's still important to understand the ideal model of thinking in terms of candidate moves and analysis tree. Even though in practice we don't always follow this approach, it's still useful to understand the ideal model. As an analogy, even though in real life, F=ma is too simplistic of an approach to calculate how objects will behave, it is still important to have an ideal model that can be tweaked later as you get a more nuanced understanding of how things work in real life.

Rereading this book as an adult made me appreciate how valuable this book was for me as a developing player by exposing me to many of the concepts I mentioned above and how it shaped my own approach to chess.

[Del Trigo · Rating 2 out of 5]

El Gran Maestro ruso Alexei Kotov fue uno de los mejores ajedrecistas del mundo en los años cincuenta. En este libro describe el proceso mental que experimenta un Gran Maestro de ajedrez a lo largo de la partida.

[Justin Thickston · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing view of a GM's thought process. The author covers when to play from intuition and when to buckle down and start calculating variations. Author suggests electing "Candidate" moves and performing sufficient calculations for each, only then should a player make a move.

[Travis Timmons · Rating 3 out of 5]

Foundational for many people, but could've just been a longform piece of writing (i.e. a treatise). Too plodding.

[Raymond 8E · Rating 4 out of 5]

helps you to think during the game how to save time and how to get ideas like a grandmaster

[محمد ضاحى]

hi, Am mohamed Dahy welcome to you

[Tarmo Pungas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't get much out of it.

[Iz]

I cannot understand the notation this uses lol

[Roland Reviczki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nagyon sok tudás van belesűrítve ebbe a viszonylag rövid könyvbe. És még ma is releváns!

[Claire S]

Chess is one of those things that attracts and repels me. I've hardly played it at all. If I did play and like it, then that would be really fun, since I don't have it in my life at all. So it's one of those huge potentials..

[Aryan Padhye]

A must read for any chess player. Kotov delineates the methodology behind decision making in chess. The lessons learned in this book are applicable not only to chess, but to numerous other situations as well.

[Thom Dunn]

My 1971 edition has English notation.

[Firas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book in chess

[Rajana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good Book.Re-Reading

[Aryan Prasad · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is highly outdated and many of the techniques present in this book may have been GM's secret knowledge during the time of its printing, but now it has seeped down to the level of novices.