What Grad School Taught Me About Chess
Check your ego at the door.
As I’m heading into my final year as a master’s degree candidate in Harvard Extension School’s Creative Writing and Literature program, I’m noticing how writing within a community of “improvers” has some interesting parallels with chess improvement.
My classes so far have included a lot of workshops, which are centered around writing, critiquing, and revising stories. This process is surprisingly similar to chess coaching, post-mortems, or game reviews. But often, chess players aren’t taught the best ways to approach these partnered or group analysis sessions to make the most out of that time.
It may seem like trying to improve as a chess player is completely different from trying to improve as a writer, but I actually think chess improvers can learn a lot from the methods used in high-level creative writing workshops.
Hear me out.
The Writer’s Silence
One of the first rules I learned in writing workshops was the writer’s silence. When your classmates and professor are talking about your writing, you, as the writer, do not speak. At all. They will discuss your work for thirty minutes or an hour, and you won’t say a single word.
At the end of your workshop session, you may have a brief opportunity to ask or answer any questions, but the expectation is note-taking and humble acceptance of all critiques. You can sort out the good advice from the bad later.
Typically, workshops run in a way that allows for both praise and criticism, so it’s far from a net-negative experience. Everyone in the class wants to become a better writer. It’s kind of a transaction—you give your peers your best advice, and in return, you graciously accept theirs.
At first, it’s really hard to sit there and listen to your classmates and professor tear apart your writing sentence by sentence, no matter how kindly they phrase their edits. You’re bursting at the seams to explain yourself when they’re confused, or protest when they suggest leaving huge chunks of a story on the cutting room floor.
But now, I look forward to hearing what others think. If my goal is to publish for a wide audience, my stories need to be the best they can be for that audience. Peers and professors in a writing workshop can illuminate the places that need work, and getting defensive isn’t a helpful reaction.
The Chess Improver’s Silence
If you have the opportunity, especially with a stronger player, to hear their thoughts on your play, the silent-mental-note-taking strategy is a good default, rather than giving argumentative excuses for your moves.
I’ve had a few experiences working with coaches, including Nate Solon and Midas Ratsma, and I’ve treated those sessions kind of like a writer’s workshop. Mostly I’m content to just hear what they have to say, although I do interrupt to ask clarifying questions so I’m sure I understand the concept they’re trying to explain. But I think if you go into a coaching session with the intention of justifying your blunders or just wanting to hear praise, it’s not worth hiring a coach.
Making Analysis Time Worthwhile
I’ve also found it helpful to ensure that I’ve done everything I can on my own to improve before seeking others’ advice. That means weeding out the simple things—the red highlight of a misspelled word or a one-move blunder.
In my writing, I go through multiple rounds of edits on my own to get the grammar, spelling, readability, structure, and other basic craft elements are up to par before submitting my stories for workshop. Then, I’m ready for feedback on elements that are less clear from my perspective—pacing, stakes, character arcs, and so on.
In chess, when I have an opportunity to review with a coach or stronger player, I try to choose a game that involves a more complex error in thought process than I can solve in a few seconds myself. If a game ended due to missing opening principles or traps, middle game tactical blunders, or messy time scrambles, the fix is self-explanatory.
Instead, when picking a game for a coaching session, I aim to gain insight on things like choosing better candidate moves, calculating more accurately, or understanding strategic concepts. These aren’t easily fixable mistakes; they’re elements a human can explain better than an engine.
Are You Trying to Impress or Improve?
At large tournaments, or on popular livestreams, or even in coaching sessions—anywhere that invites amateurs to submit their games for a master to review—I’m surprised how often players submit a game they won rather than a game they lost. I always wonder what these players are expecting to achieve. Probably an ego boost, hoping the master player will be impressed with their tactical prowess. But if you’re looking to improve, why not take full advantage of your time with a stronger player to pick their brain and gain some personalized advice?
In creative writing, ego must be left behind if you hope to break into the field. The process for traditional publication, through well-established publishing houses or literary magazines, involves an unbelievably high number of negative responses. You may spend days preparing a pitch, after months or years of editing a story, only to receive dozens and dozens of generic rejections before a single positive response.
This process has certainly given me a hard shell when it comes to receiving chess criticism. The great thing about chess is that it is so objective. In most critical positions, there is a right move and a wrong move. So, if your coach or the computer says you chose incorrectly, it’s your job to accept this and then understand why, so you don’t make the same kind of mistake again.
If your goal is improvement, I’d recommend taking a walk on the writer’s side. If you can have an attitude of open-mindedness to criticism of your play, you’re much more likely to hear some sparkling gold advice along your improvement path.
In Case You Missed It
I wrote a guest post for the official Chessable blog!
Back in December, I had a great chat with Dr. Can on The Chess Cognition Podcast
Watch my most recent YouTube video, where I deep-dive into “critical moments” in chess