Training quote of the day #69: Viswanathan Anand

      

From Mind Master: Winning Lessons From A Champion's Life by GM Viswanathan Anand:

As in any sport, and in life, in chess too learning must be constant – not just new material, but fresh methods of learning too. If I have to name a single virtue that’s carried me through my years of playing chess, it’s curiosity. There has to be a willingness to learn things you’re not good at or you thought you were not good at. The process will invariably involve a certain degree of unlearning, and the readiness to do that is extremely important. If your way of doing things isn’t working, clinging to your conclusions is only going to hold you back. You have to get to the root of a snag in order to make a breakthrough, because it’s possible that what you thought you knew is actually wrong. Unlearning is perhaps the hardest thing to do, but it must be done. Any knowledge, unless updated, becomes worthless.

Pop culture chess: Gentleman of Leisure (performed by Jimmy Buffett)

 

From "Gentleman of Leisure (Lyrics)" performed by Jimmy Buffett (YouTube)

Training quote of the day #68: Viswanathan Anand

     

From Mind Master: Winning Lessons From A Champion's Life by GM Viswanathan Anand:

Unquestionably, talent exists. It’s no myth or hokum. Your talent tells you that you’re cut out for something. It points you towards what you can do effortlessly and what your potential career could be. However, talent isn’t everything. Knowledge and growth don’t come easily. You have to be willing to put in the hours and the effort, sometimes even without visible progress, because one day, unexpectedly, the results will flower. But without that work, it’s unlikely to happen. Eventually, hard work is not just about plugging away at something. It’s thinking intelligently about what you want to achieve, the goals you’re setting yourself, how you’re improving and how you can incorporate all of this into the list of things that will help you scale that peak.

Pop culture chess imagery: Daggers Inn

 

The recently-released indie UK film 'Daggers Inn' - watched on Amazon Prime - has some well-placed chess imagery. In the main title sequence - above is a screen capture from that - a crystal chess set is depicted, along with a knife that is symbolic of later action in the film. The chess set itself repeatedly shows up as a centerpiece on the conference room table of the (evil) law firm at the hub of events in the English village.

Unlike in some other film examples, the chess set is set up correctly and the king is toppled in a later scene by one character in a parallel to the title sequence. The use of the chess board appears to reference the strategic play of the main character, who early on is alluded to be a witch, on a mission of revenge in the village. I gave the film a 4/5 and can recommend it for the proper use of chess imagery throughout.

Training quote of the day #67: Norbert Wiener

Below is excerpted from the Medium.com article by Alvaro Garcia "How to achieve in weeks what others don't achieve in years"

Norbert Wiener, the father of cybernetics, put forward this law in 1943:

“Every self-regulating system needs a feedback loop that translates the result of an action into a signal readable for the next decision cycle.” (Norbert Wiener, 1943)

What does this mean?

He explained it with a rocket. A rocket that does not receive continuous information about its deviation from its trajectory never reaches its destination, no matter how much fuel it carries. The same happens to you with your goals. It doesn’t matter the effort, the hours, the money, the willpower. It will all be wasted if you don’t have a signal that tells you, in time, how much you’ve deviated.

You need to study your own performance every day.