Guest Post by NicklethroweR
During the last 18 months or so I’ve heard a lot of talk about chess. This guy or that guy is playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers or some mastermind is playing 3 dimensional chess, etc. I find it odd that these statements are made given that only a tiny percentage of Americans know how to play chess with that number sitting around 5% or slightly over 14 million people. This is too bad because if the population, as a whole, had a better understanding of chess then the actions of President Trump would make perfect sense.
It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal
-----------------------------------------------------
To donate via Stripe, click here.
-----------------------------------------------------
Use promo code ILMF2, and save up to 66% on all MyPillow purchases. (The Burning Platform benefits when you use this promo code.)
History: The school district where I was employed drastically cut its music programs and decided that chess would be an appropriate alternative to music instruction. I was not entirely opposed to this as there were published research papers extolling the virtues of chess and there appeared to be a direct relationship between playing chess and higher academic achievement. Besides, anyone can play chess while not everyone has the dexterity to be a musician. Wishing to be part of the solution, I agreed to become a coach and took on after school chess programs on three different campuses.
Our school district was kind enough to foot the bill for some necessary chess coaching and needed chess supplies. Not only that but I had the great fortune of having World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov’s former full time coach as my new teacher as the former Russian coach had relocated to the very city where I lived and had been contracted by the School District to get us up to speed. Private lessons with Kasparov’s coach! Can you imagine it?
It took my new coach all of about 30 seconds to figure out my level of chess competence which was not very high and I will paraphrase what he said next: “You are not very good and there is not enough time to teach you the correct way. But, I can teach you simple rules that will enable you to defeat anyone that doesn’t study chess full time.” He called his method “active chess” whereas a weak player like myself could use a simple formula to play the most aggressive game possible and win against stronger players. He believed that strategy flowed from tactics and his method allowed for a very fluid game of strategy. So, what did he teach me and how does it relate to our president? Is Trump playing chess?
Chess is a game where the number of possible positions rises at an astronomical rate. By the 2nd move of the game there are already 400 possible positions and after each person moves twice, that number rises to 8902. My coach explained to me that I was not trained enough to even begin to keep track of those things and that my only chance of ever winning was to take the initiative and never give it up. “You must know what your opponent will do next by playing his game for him.” was the advice I received.
Now, I wont bore you with the particulars but it boiled down to throwing punches each and every turn without exception. In other words, if my opponent must always waste his turn responding to what I am doing then he never gets an opportunity to come at me in the millions of possibilities that reside in the game. Again, if I throw the punch – even one that can be easily blocked, then I only have to worry about one combination and not millions.
My Russian chess coach next taught me that I should Proudly Announce what exactly I am doing and why I am doing it. He explained to me that bad chess players believe that they can hide their strategy even though all the pieces are right there in plain sight for anyone to see. A good chess player has no fear of this because they will choose positions that are unassailable so why not announce them? As a coach, I made all of my students tell each other why they were making the moves that they made as well as what they were planning next. It entirely removed luck from the game and quickly made them into superior players.
My Russian coach next stressed Time as something I should focus on to round out my game. He said that I shouldn’t move the same piece twice in a row and that my “wild punches” should focus on getting my pieces on to the board and into play as quickly as possible. So, if I do everything correctly, I have an opponent that will have a disorganized defense, no offense and few pieces even in play and this will work 9 out of 10 times. The only time it doesn’t work for me is when I go against players that have memorized hundreds of games and have memorized how to get out of these traps. With all that said, let’s see if President Trump is playing chess.
First, we can all agree that Trump, if nothing else, throws a lot of punches. We really saw this in the primaries where barely a day could go by without some scandal that would supposedly end his presidential bid. His opponents and the press erroneously thought that responding to each and every “outrage” was the correct thing to do without ever taking the time to think whether or not they had just walked into a trap. They would use their turn to block his Twitter attack but he wouldn’t move that piece again once that was in play but, instead, brought on the next outrage – just like my coach instructed me to do.
Second, Trump is very vocal in what he is going to do. Just like I had my students announced to each other their plans, Trump has been nothing but transparent about what he intends to do. After all, announcing your plans only works if your position is unassailable. It demoralizes your opponent. You rub their face in it. Another benefit to being vocal is that it encourages your opponent to bring out his favorite piece to deal with said announced plans. This is a big mistake as any good chess player will quickly recognize which piece his opponent favors and then go take them.
Time has been the one area that our president is having problems. Executive Orders and Twitter Wars have pushed the opposition off balance but he has not been able to use this time to get all of his pieces into play. The Justice Department (his Queen) is still stuck behind a wall of pawns. Furthermore, only 5 of his 15 Cabinet picks have been confirmed as of this writing. Without control over these departments, the president can fight a war of attrition but he really can’t go on the offensive. In chess, I will gladly trade a piece for a piece if it means you have to waste your turn dealing with it. It isn’t a long term strategy if you do not have all of your pieces ready to go.
In the end it would appear that Trump is playing the kind of game that I was taught to play by my coach. His opponents are never given time to mount an attack. Their queen – the MSM has been removed from the board and their favorite piece – the Celebrities are locked in a war of attrition while Trump gets the rest of his pieces on the board. Remember, these are all Tactics but Strategy flows from Tactics. Sooner or later the Left will find itself in some terrible position and the Strategy to drain the swamp will present itself.
Also, since I did mention Garry Kasparov’s, he had this to say on his Twitter feed just yesterday.
“It’s the birthday of Ronald Reagan, whose courage and moral clarity helped win the Cold War & free many millions from Communist servitude.”
Damn right Garry, damn right.
Excellent analysis.
My father taught me how to play chess by never allowing me to win. I had to play him for years, losing every single game until one night, to his complete surprise, I got him into checkmate by playing my own game.
I did the same with all of our children- even though my wife thought it was cruel to beat them again and again and never give them a win.
The thing is, when they finally do get the win, they earned it. They not only learned the game, but they developed the discipline to stick with something even though there was never any payoff for years.
I’m only guessing at this, but I think Trump was doing the exact same thing with business and that was perfecting his game before he went for the biggest deal of his life and from where I sit it looks like he is clearing their board- that move on Elizabeth Warren last night was masterful.
“even though my wife thought it was cruel”….made me think of the teachers that give every student a star. This assures a stone wall will appear later in life for those that did not deserve the star.
Post is very insightful.
I had to laugh at this. I taught my son to play (I’m not a great player BTW) by beating the socks off of him every time and showing/explaining to him where and why he lost. My wife also thought I was mean spirited. He then turned around and taught his little sister to play.
Circle of life baby….
A little aggression can go a long way. A friend of mine named Rick and I took fencing in college, the dainty stuff, foil and epee. We never got to square of in class, so we decided to grudge match it before class. We were doing foil, which all scoring hits are jabs, I didn’t worry about scoring, I just whipped him into submission with the sword, cutlass style, and once he was terrorized, scored my points. He learned, though. We had a class tournament that started the next day, he drew the top guy in our class, and replicated the beating I put on him, the poor guy he was fighting was dumbstruck, and lost to a much lesser, but far more aggressive opponent.
LOL – “Cutlass style” – Love it!
Yes, very nice analysis! I am a chess master and have taught about 1,000 younger kids to play, and coached them on teams..Chess tests everything about you, not just analytic ability and memory, but also character, fighting spirit (perhaps most important in tournaments), and staying power. Snowflakes don’t last….Parents tell me that they see the value of such a discipline at home…Finally, chess is more difficult than anything in the school curriculum, so it is a real challenge for the brightest kids, who are often coasting through school otherwise….
Great comment. I’m glad I learned to play chess.
Absolutely. When it comes to chess, go full tilt. Rock your opponent on his/her heels. Let them know you’re coming out swinging and unless extremely savvy, they’ll be immediately be on the defensive, and anyone who understands tactics recognizes this is NOT where they want to be.
Chess is the best strategy (and tactics) game in the world. It’s sad that so few in this country are exposed to it and that number is declining.
The Russian master’s advice is quite sound, and will work against 99% of your opponents a fair amount of the time…Against good players, however, B class and up, it is suicide….
Funny, while on deployments in the Army, a chess board would always be present. Even the guys who never played chess learned to play quickly, and instinctively took this approach to playing. Matches would be wildly unpredictable, with the guys who had played chess their whole lives losing to newbies half the time, even if they had to tell them half-a-dozen times they can’t move that piece there.
It probably helped that we were trained to do our job (combat engineer) as both very small units (squad/team/sub-team) and as large units (company to regimental size), and always as “tip of the spear” (First In, Last Out), with the average ASVAB score (army IQ test) higher than that needed to get into Special Forces or any other specialty.
Maybe it was just boredom, maybe Risk games took too long, maybe the Bones games ended with too much heat when the hispanics kept getting beat at their own games, but chess became the go-to game to pass time.
Although I appreciate the analogy the writer is making, IMO what Trump is doing is more akin to Col John Boyd’s concept, OODA. Trump is simply burying REgressives with his fast moves and agility. By the time Tapper is calling Trump out, saying hey, we really did report terrorism(in about 1/2 the cases Jake) Trump is heralding DeVos as his new Sec/Education.
So today while the teacher’s unions have their collective hair on fire, Trump announces that the moslim Brotherhood are being considered as additions to the list of foreign terrorist groups.
And so it’s gone. A Winner Wonderland for us.
As the writer points out, when Trump has his team fully assembled, the incoming will be overwhelming.
Good point. I think Trump has combined both. Trump is inside the opponents’ OODA loop and he moves on multiple fronts simultaneously (the aggressive chess analogy). The press and Democrats have not caught on. Look at the Red Baron, Rommel, Patton, Alexander, Genghis Khan, Grant; they all employed the same approach, be aggressive to get inside the OODA loop, stay aggressive to stay within the OODA loop, when you see the strategic opening-take it. The geniuses, though, also anticipate the opponents’ blunders and ready their next punch to exploit the blunder even before the punch is thrown.
Trump has only been in office about a month.It will take him some time before all the ducks are in a row and ready to go.B y the third month his administration should be up and running full speed. Building the wall or Fence on the southern border is most important.Then stopping legal immigration should be the next project .This should be common sense but that seems to come and go.
“Common sense is judgement without reflection , shared by an entire class ,an entire nation ,or the entire human race “Gianbaltista Vico (1688-1744)
I don’t think he is playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers. I think he thought this job would be like any other CEO or owner position, and doesn’t like having his hands tied by massive barely-functioning bureaucracy or by a system of checks and balances. Especially since Obama largely got to flout all that while he was in office, but Trump can’t even get simple cabinet positions filled.
As much heat as the liberals are keeping on I’ll honestly be surprised if he doesn’t try to resort to some sort of martial crackdown, and end up impeached and labeled a wannabe Julius Cesar.
Trump knew he would be facing extreme resistance from the left, he didn’t expect them to cooperate at all and knows they probably never will.
If he had serious Republican and conservative support he could probably win, but he doesn’t.
The majority of Republicans and conservatives -the ones in power, not necessarily the ones on the street- don’t want him to succeed, they want things to stay as they were but with themselves in charge, so the probability of him winning the game is probably only around 40% or less: Possible but not probable.
Even here he faces stiff criticism and some people would rather see him fail than succeed at what he is doing. I’m expecting his approval to drop into the 40’s in the next few weeks which will fuel and give momentum to the anti Trump movement on the streets, in business and finance, and in Congress.
He was expecting pushback at the legislative levels, I don’t think he was expecting government wide pushback, or paid rioters breaking up every vaguely conservative conversation nationwide.
You’re probably right about that.
Not really. He expected lots of resistance, as in the call by the World Bank guy or whoever it was that said the elites need to “rise up against the masses”.
In a Next News Network video and a few others I’ve seen, they’re reporting, per the FBI, major arrests will occur soon involving Pizzagate, and McCain and Graham and Pelosi are involved and about 27 others lawmakers and 40 others. They will help clear the swamp and maybe get things moving ahead.
Good on you Nickle!
Great contribution and enjoyable, and also, food for thought.
Someone said, Trump is in office a month, …and some are already
predicting impeachment. Absurd. We really do live in crazy times.
What is this? Instant gratification or bust?
Yes, Trump aka Fists of Fury, great entertainment and great analysis on your part NT. As most of you know, when so many here said Trump was unelectable, I made the argument that not only was the God-Emperor electable , but he would destroy the old cuck driven GOP. Both happened. Now here we are with the warriors of left and right clearly defined, swords drawn, shield walls raised,staring one another down across a battlefield littered with broken careers. What now? Compromise ? Been there done that. Nothing good came from submitting to tyranny of the deviant feckless albeit global corporatist controlled mob
Civil war? Certainly seems headed that way.
The next question is, was civil war (Ordo Ab Chaos) the plan along? Master three dimensional chess then?
[img
[/img]
Ah… sounds like the protocols of the learned elders working to perfection.
Flash- How do you explain this Elliot Abrams (super neocon) at the Dept of State which cements further endless war. Looks like the NeoCon Repugnants are still VERY MUCH in charge.
Bill Hicks= Alex Jones
“… and I will paraphrase what he said next: You are not very good and there is not enough time to teach you the correct way.” —— article
What the coach actually said; —- “You suck diseased donkey dick and there isn’t enough time in eternity to teach how to defeat even a deranged dodo.”
I’m not a joiner. I was involved in only two clubs in my high school career. One of them was chess. I couldn’t defeat a dodo either. (The other club should be obvious to those who know me.)
Terrific article. I hope the sites which publish TBP articles will pick this one up.
You got the big M for masturbation, specializing in the single overhand stroke?
“You must know what your opponent will do next by playing his game for him.” I’m confident that Trump knows his opponent(s) and all the pieces on the board – the judiciary, the media, the Dems, the establishment repubs, the never Trumpers. He understands the impeachment strategy. I think he also knows “the people”. I’m watching for that moment when he successfully mobilizes the people. That is when real things happen at lightning speed – for better or for worse. That is when we will see his enemies swept away – for better or for worse.
And he is doing things right, doing what Reagan did, appealing directly to the American people (albeit, in a better way than Reagan, through social media), and explaining what he’s doing and why.
Thank YOU NT! I think you are spot on. This has been my take as well since early on. Very well presented. Five stars.
Well done.
“…but Trump can’t even get simple cabinet positions filled.”
What are you talking about TPC? He just got the one person confirmed that everyone said was dead in the water, and everyone else he’s put up is either in already or simply awaiting confirmation.
Are you experiencing a Mandela Effect?
My point was that the simplest of tasks is a battle-royal, and the foot dragging will get more effective as time wears on.
I’m experiencing the “Trumps not our savior” effect.
Also the “PESSIMISTIC” part of my name is not here in irony. The 4T will turn bloody, Trumps not our savior, and my lunchbreak will be cut short by some asinine problem that could have been avoided if our operators just opened their eyes once in a while.
In all history, reason never won one war…not one. Trump is our savior, because until we can do better, he is the only one -in the material -world we have. Ideology ain’t worth a shit in shield wall.
Yes, but Alfred the Great prayed to God and was able to break those Viking shield walls.
Greetings,
If we stick with the chess analogy then things should begin to get easier once Trump gets all of his pieces in play. The Left has already lost its Queen which is the MSM. She can shout from the pile of pieces no longer on the board but another Walter Cronkite “the war is unwinnable” moment is not gonna happen. The press has cried wolf so many times as to have zero credibility. That leaves the Left with their favorite piece which are the celebrities. The power of the celebrity is greatly diminished without a trust-able MSM to promote their gibberish. It leaves their silly opinions for the gossip columns rather than where people are having serious discussions. Madonna can adopt 1000 children from Africa if she wants but it wont matter one bit. Not anymore.
The Left gladly handed over its Bully Pulpit to the Media & the Celebrities and did so because it has nothing but old, tired and out of touch grandparents for its leadership. The next round of attacks will overwhelm them as well.
My opinion is that chess is less a game of strategy than it is of adaptation and awareness. 90% of the time when I lose, it’s because of something I didn’t see coming because I wasn’t focused enough on the fucking game.
Good point.
Trump knows and he didn’t get rich by being dumb. He knows what it will take, bury them all just a sorry lot of commies and the schools that they went too.
We have a general, Trump, and a battle plan, defeat the socialists. Now we need to generate some colonels, majors, captains, lieutenants and sergeants. Bannon makes a decent strategist for most purposes; Conaway a good communications lead. We need people who can take one task (like DeVos, dismantle the DOEd) and carry it to completion, then take on another task. When we have a bench with depth and ability we can move from challenge to challenge and roll back the depredations of the Left as the opportunities arise.
It was done to us; we can undo it the same way. Defund, de-legitimize, dismantle and disperse, until the Republic returns in a form which works.
I hope that’s the plan.
Senate Confirms Attorney General Jeff Sessions…
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2017/02/08/senate-confirms-attorney-general-jeff-sessions/#comments
I have to say that the strategy described is only so effective because as you said, less than 5% even know how to play. Against decent players, I would say these are principles but not rules. This should be evident from the instruction to telegraph your plans in advance because you are coming from an unassailable position. You are only coming from an unnassailable position IN ADVANCE if they are hopeless and can be counted on not to react well. I guarantee if u use this against the computer you lose, against the computer you need to be very careful and have a complicated plan to get all your ducks in a row before the attack. I also have to wonder, unless the goal is to play tournaments, why get coaching? It seems that defeats the whole purpose of developing your thinking and mental modelling ability, by taking a short cut.
I also taught my son by beating him again and again, but it was taking longer and longer to do it, until he forced a mistake and won. Why so tough? Because the world is not going to go easy on him, you won’t win anything without being better than another guy chasing the same thing.
Greetings,
You miss the point. Announcing your plans with regards to Chess Instruction is beneficial because it removes luck from the game. I cant depend on sneaking one past you if I tell you what I’m doing and what I’m going to do next. It forces me to actually have positions that are unassailable as I can’t depend on the hope that my opponent wont figure out what I am doing.
The other thing I’ve learned from this is that people will bring their favorite piece out early when taunted in such a manner. I don’t have a favorite piece myself but the moment I figure out yours, I will come and take it or make you waste moves trying to keep it safe.
Of course, this wont work with someone that studies chess as they already know why I’m doing what I’m doing. That’s fine, I still have an unassailable position – I just have no need to announce it. Again, Trump is not a career politician and doesn’t have time to learn to play their game. His only hope is to tie his opponents up and wear them out and make them all play HIS game.
What worries me about the facile chess analogy is that they said the same thing about Obama: “oo he’s playing eleven-dimensional chess”.. when nothing could have been further from the truth. Trump may well be just a crass NY developer striving for what crass NY developers usually strive for. Mr. “Mad Dog” Turgidson is showing to be a poor “eleventh-dimensional” choice, among others.
Greetings,
This is an easy one- just apply those statements I made to Obama and see if they are true.
NickelthroweR……congrats!…saw where you got picked up on LewRockwell. Btw, which abbreviation do you prefer, if you do care…..NT…..NR…..? Trivial question I realize…..just trying to extend a mild courtesy. Again……congrats!
Is that Jack Perry? I read Lew Rockwell several times a day. I think Jack Perry is a great addition. Extremely insightful. If not Jack Perry, which article was it?
Halfway down the page. Heading of ‘Trump’s no grandmaster’…..
Piffle. Bridge is the ultimate mind game, not chess. Chess eats shit. Now then …
“The majority of Republicans and conservatives -the ones in power, not necessarily the ones on the street- don’t want (Trump) to succeed, they want things to stay as they were but with themselves in charge, so the probability of him winning the game is probably only around 40% or less: Possible but not probable.”
—-Anon
Bullshit. Trump is in the ultimate bid of seven no-trump (an actual, real bid in the game of Bridge) in his tilt against the windmills. He will make the bid and win. Again. And those “Republicans in power” will be his allies. They too will win.
Book it, folks. If you voted for Trump, you voted for a winner. As he so famously said during his campaign, “We’re gonna win so much, we’ll get sick of winning.” Rock on.
NickelthroweR,
Who is the Russian trainer? Does he have a book out? If not, is there a similar book?
Thank you.
Greetings,
The sad part of this story is that I can not remember the guy’s name. I was lucky enough to have half a dozen 1hr private sessions with him. I could go a month without seeing him and he’d set up a board and then review the game we had played the month previous going over all of our moves and doing all of this from memory.
I’d have to say that where I get hurt the most is endgame. I just refuse to memorize all the possibilities like the Masters will. This hurts me in tournament play as a good player will study my tactics to see what kind of strategy it supports. From that they can pretty much guess that I want it over before it gets to end game. All they need to do then is trade down and wait.
I just looked at my previous post. Pardon the inane question. Sleep deprivation got me. Do keep up the good work!
Active chess? Who is the coach that you mentioned? Has he written a book on Active Chess?
Very nice post, well written, and a good read…
This was terribly written. It contains numerous grammatical mistakes.
Out of every one hundred men,
ten shouldn’t even be there.
Eighty are just targets.
Nine are real fighters
and we are lucky to have them
for they make the battle.
Ah, but the one – One is a warrior,
and he will bring the others back.
–Heraclitus, greek philosopher, around 500 B.C.
PLEASE brush up on your English before writing an article. I can’t even make it through the first few paragraphs because of the grammatical abortions.
You should know the beats experimented with grammatical distortions (not abortions) which led to an expanded level of creativity. Grammar cock-blocking is the sport of folks who are mentally impotent.
“PLEASE brush up on your English before writing an article. I can’t even make it through the first few paragraphs because of the grammatical abortions.”
—-Adam’s second complaint about Nickel’s grammar
WTF are you talking about, Adam? I see some punctuation mistakes and a few minor faux pas, but other than that, it’s a fine read. You know what a “fine read” is, tough guy? The writer successfully communicates his message!!!!
Most people here are pretty damn smart, so if you’re going to criticize someone for grammar, at least have the courtesy to provide an example or two. Otherwise, STFU.
When I was on the Chess team, my go to move late in the game, where I usually was down a piece or two, was to accidently knock over the board.
Oops! Some got wise and started recording the moves. Cheaters.
NT,
Greetings,
You made Zero Hedge.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-09/trumps-game-chess
Well done!
Wow indeed. I read all three sites though I only have an account to comment here at TBP. Those guys at ZH go at it in their comments section like it were an olympic sport.
I wonder if Robbo should do an article on his favorite Olympic sport? And yes, that’s the only thing I like about him.
For the record, I really enjoyed the article, Nickel, even if I didn’t necessarily agree with it, nor have the time to contribute much the comments.
There are some major flaws in your chess argument. First of all chess is a game. A tactic in a game not necesserly applies and works in politics. You are using the chess as a metafor for politics. Metafors are some times used to simplify matters and making the understanding of an issue easier. But it does not mean the strategy, tactic or rules applied to the metafor will work in the main subject. Correct reasoning is an art which must be based on as much as possible facts with trust worthy references.
A major flaw in today’s published articles in the conservative spectrum side of politic is trying to make “stuff” more simple and looking for simple solutions to the most complex issues. This is exactly the point that Mr Trump is trying to do. I agree he does not know what he is doing and just throwing some punches in the air with some “bad” moves.
Greetings,
Chess is not just a game. Outside of playing a musical instrument, it is the only other activity that engages the entire brain. Read some of the studies related to chess. Reading, math and even I.Q. take big leaps when chess is studied.
Chess is about forcing your opponent to do exactly what you want them to do. It is about leaving your opponent no option but the one you’ve chosen. This is not a game of chance but a game that pits my brain vs. your brain. Nothing is hidden – everything is on the table for everyone to see.
That we’ve mostly abandoned it in this country is one of the reasons we’re 40th in the world in math.