The Psychology of the Chess Player

by Reuben Fine

Book Overview

Just what is the special ability that sets great chess players apart from other men has long been a topic of intense speculation. Unfortunately, very little scientific work has been clone on the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0486215512
• ISBN13: 9780486215518
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Length: 74 Pages
• Weight: 10.10 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Classic...Chess and Unconscious Sexual Impulses

As a psychology major/psychology teacher and amateur chess fanatic, this book by grandmaster and psychologist Rueben Fine is a gem. Without meaning to do so, Fine at once satirizes chess and psychoanalysis/psychology. It is most unintentionally humorous book I ever read. The greatest writer of satire could not have made up the psycho-sexual analysis that Dr. Fine comes up with-classic...

The "Plan Nine from Outer Space" of Psychology Books

This book is psycho-babble at its worst. (Why five stars, then? Read on...) The king, for example, is "really" a penis, and therefore the whole game is "really" an attempt at castration, because both players attempt to mate the enemy king. Castling is protecting one's penis from the castrating father because it "hides away" the game's "penis". Riiiiiiiiight. The queen's power, on the other hand, shows the mother's female power, and players who tend to swap queens early are afraid of women. Well, either that, or they are stronger in queenless positions because they are better in positional endgames than in tactical ones. And what about languages where the piece is not called a "queen" at all, such as Arabic or Hungarian? No matter--the very fact that it's *powerful* is enough for it to symbolize the power of women. Again, Riiiiiiiiiight. Worse than such nonsense is Fine's buying of, apparently, every single tall tale of the "crazy chess player" kind and attributing the "real reasons" for the apocrypical story to deep-seated psychological problems. Hence Morphy's "fetishism" with women's shoes (never happened) or Alekhine's "throwing" a king across the room when he lost (ditto) "prove" their sexual masochism and/or sadism; etc., etc., etc. The most puzzling part of the book is where Fine attribues deep, hidden psychological causes for *specific moves* masters made--of course, "proving" them all deranged in some way or another (all except himself, that is). A blunder is never a bluner, but only a result of a deep-seated, subconscious "masochistic" desire to be punished (by that standard, I am the worst masochist in the world...) A move that makes many threats isn't just a (usually) good move, it shows the deep-seated "agression" of the player, while a quiet winning move shows his "sadism". And so on and so forth. This sort of thing would, perhaps, be understandable if the writer was ignorant about chess. After all, total ignorance of, say, politics or economics didn't stop psychoanalysts from "proving" what the "deep psychological reasons" for war or capitalism (or whatever) "really are". But Fine was a very strong player! He, of all people, should have known that chess masters do not think like that. Of course his excuse is the pychoanalyst's eternal excuse: you may not *think* you think like that, but that just proves you're "in denial" about the "deep subconscious roots" of your actions. On the other hand a total stranger, like Dr. Fine, from decades and continents away, can effortly tell us the "deep subconscious reasons" some master "really" made a certain move. How did Fine aquire this magical ability? From St. Freud, of course. For the third time: Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. In short, this books does, indeed, show us something about the psychology of the chess player. It shows us just how confused and laughable an obviously intelligent man, and a very strong chess player to boot--Dr. Fine himself--could become once he fell into the sil

Incredibly funny book (by accident)

Anyone who finds "psycho-babble" amusing will be laughing their head off while reading this book. Examples : From page 12 : (the King) "stands for the boy's penis in the phallic stage, and hence re-arouses the castration anxiety characteristic of that period." From page 25 : The libidinal conflicts gratified in chess center around those common to all men at the anal-phallic levels of development, particularly aggression, narcissism and the attitude towards the penis." I know this book is meant to be serious, but it is incredibly funny.

An Interesting and Controversial Reading

Dr. Reuben Fine attempts to analyze both the game of chess itself and its peculiar appeal s, particularly to male players as opposed to females, trying to isolate its inner meaning, and to categorize and understand the special combination of characteristics that make up aches champion. Among the chess players studied by the author are Lasker, Capablanca and Botvinnik. All in all, the analysis made by the author about the psychological characteristics of a chess player makes an absorbing, interesting, and unusual reading that could be consider both stimulating and controversial for us: the chess lovers.