Garry Kasparov's How Life Imitates Chess

I finished reading How Life Imitates Chess a few months ago, and finally had the chance to go through my notes this afternoon during lunch break.

Having followed the world of chess ever since I was a teenager, I’ve always been interested to know how great chess players think, to know their opinions about life, to know the things they went through to achieve their extraordinary skills… and this book offers exactly that.

Garry Kasparov wrote about his experience, his thinking process, and how he applied all those things into various aspects of life. These are my favourite quotes from the book:

Ch1 – The lesson
p14
It’s not enough to be talented. It’s not enough to work hard and to study late into the night. You must also become intimately aware of the methods you use to reach your decisions.

Ch2 – Strategy
p19
“Why?” is the question that separates visionaries from functionaries, great strategists from mere tacticians. You must ask this question constantly if you are to understand and develop and follow your strategy.

Ch3 – Strategy and tactics at work
p36-37
… our goal is to improve our position. You must avoid creating weaknesses, find small ways to improve your pieces, and think small – but never stop thinking.

Ch4 – Calculation
p50
A computer may look at millions of moves per second, but lacks a deep sense of why one move is better than another; this capacity for evaluation is where computers falter and humans excel. It doesn’t matter how far ahead you see if you don’t understand what you are looking at.

Ch5 – Talent
p65
Break your routines, even to the point of changing ones you are happy with to see if you can find new and better methods.

Ch6 – Preparation
p73
If you said you ddn’t have enough time, that meant you were not well organized.
…
Botvinnik summed up his philosophy by stating, “The difference between man and animal is that man is capable of establishing priorities!”

Ch7 – MTQ: Material, time, quality
p96
But I believe that by using your time wisely you can put all your material to your best advantage and achieve the ultimate goal of quality. That’s the promise of the material-time-quality concept–in chess and in life.

Ch8 – Exchanges and imbalances
p102
If we can detect or cultivate a weak spot in our opponent’s position, we can then attempt to transform our position to take advantage of that weakness.

Ch 9 – Phases of the game
p112
So dedicate yourself to making the time, finding a space in which you can think and learn, and finding new ideas with which to shock your adversaries.

Ch11 – Question success
p135
Question the status quo at all times, especially when things are going well. When something goes wrong, you naturally want to do it better next time, but you must train yourself to want to do it better even when things go right.

Ch12 – The inner game
p145
That’s why I always think of Simon Bolivar and remember that experienced soldier who studies the battlefields in the aftermath of the war returns with both wisdom and renewed courage.

Ch13 – Man vs. machine
p166
Weak human + machine + superior process was greater than a strong computer and, remarkably, greater than a strong human + machine with an inferior process.

Ch14 – Intuition
p178
As they develop, our instincts–our intuitive senses–become labor-saving and time-saving devices; they literally cut down the time it takes to make a proper evaluation and act. You can collect and analyze new information forever without ever making a decision. Something has to tell you when the law of diminishing returns is kicking in. And that something is intuition.

Ch15 – Crisis point
p184
But in fact, crisis really means a turning point, a critical moment when the stakes are high and the outcome uncertain. It also implies a point of no return. This signifies both danger and opportunity…

Another thing I like about this book is that it also validates my belief on the importance of wanting to improve the way you do things, and also on the importance of understanding what you are doing.

And regarding Garry’s current involvement in politics… as much as I wish him all the best, I’m afraid this is one battle he’s unlikely to win despite his brilliance (and I’d love to be proven wrong!). Politics defy any form of logic and reasoning, chess is a much more peaceful world in any way.

Quotes By Morrie Schwartz

My favourite quotes from Tuesdays With Morrie (video):

The Syllabus

pg 10

“Do I wither up and disappear, or do I make the best of my time left?”

The Audiovisual

pg 18

“Accept what you are able to do and what you are not able to do”; “Accept the past as past without denying it or discarding it”; “Learn to forgive yourself and to forgive others”; “Don’t assume that it’s too late to get involved.”

pg 21

“There are some mornings when I cry and cry and mourn for myself. Some mornings, I’m so angry and bitter. But it doesn’t last too long. Then I get up and say, ‘I want to live . . .’”

The Classroom

pg 33

“I’m on the last great journey here–and people want me to tell them what to pack.”

pg 34

“Have you found someone to share your heart with?” “Are you giving to your community?” “Are you at peace with yourself?” “Are you trying to be as human as you can be?”

pg 35

“Dying, is only one thing to be sad over. Living unhappily is something else. So many of the people who come to visit me are unhappy.”

pg 36

“I may be dying, but I am surrounded by loving, caring souls. How many people can say that?”

pg 40

“Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to something else. Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldn’t. You take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted.”“A tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band. And most of us live somewhere in the middle.” “A wrestling match. Yes you could describe life that way.” “Which side wins?” “Love wins. Love always wins.”

Taking Attendance

pg 42

“The culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn’t work, don’t buy it.”

pg 43

“So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they’re busy doing things they think are important. This is because they’re chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”

The First Tuesday We Talk About The World

pg 51

“One day, I’m gonna show you it’s okay to cry.”

pg 52

“You asked about caring for people I don’t even know. But can I tell you the thing I’m learning more with this disease?” “The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.” “Let it come in. We think we don’t deserve love, we think if we let it in we’ll become too soft. But a wise man named Levine said it right. He said, ‘Love is the only rational act.’” “‘Love is the only rational act.’”

The Second Tuesday We Talk About Feeling Sorry For Yourself

pg 61

“Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people to trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too–even when you’re in the dark. Even when you’re falling.”

The Fourth Tuesday We Talk About Death

pg 81

“Everyone knows they’re going to die, but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently.”

pg 82

“The truth is, once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.”

pg 83

“Because, most of us all walk around as if we’re sleepwalking. We really don’t experience the world fully, because we’re half-asleep, doing things we automatically think we have to do.”“Well, the truth is, if you really listen to that bird on your shoulder, if you accept that you can die at any time–then you might not be as ambitious as you are.”

pg 84

“Even I don’t know what ’spiritual development’ really means. But I do know we’re deficient in some way. We are too involved in materialistic things, and they don’t satisfy us. The loving relationship we have, the universe around us, we take these things for granted.”

The Fifth Tuesday We Talk About Family

pg 91

“If you don’t have support and love and caring and concern that you get from a family, you don’t have much at all. Love is so supremely important. As our great poet Auden said, ‘Love each other or perish.’”

pg 92

“This is part of what family is about, not just love, but letting others know there’s someone who is watching out for them. Knowing that your family will be there watching out for you. Nothing else will give you that. Not money. Not fame. Not work.”

pg 93

“There is no experience like having children. That’s all. There is no substitute for it. If you want to have the experience of having complete responsibility for another human being, and to learn how to love and bond in the deepest way, then you should have children.”

The Sixth Tuesday We Talk About Emotions

pg 104

“If you hold back on the emotions–if you don’t allow yourself to go all the way through them—you can never get to being detached, you’re too busy being afraid. You’re afraid of the pain, you’re afraid of the grief. You’re afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails.”

pg 105

“I thought about how often this was needed in every day life. How we feel lonely, sometimes to the point of tears, but we don’t let those tears come because we are not supposed to cry. Or how feel a surge of love for a partner but we don’t say anything because we’re frozen with the fear of what those words might do to the relationship.”

The Seventh Tuesday We Talk About The Fear Of Aging

pg 118

“Aging is not just decay, you know. It’s growth. It’s more than the negative that you’re going to die, it’s also the positive that you understand you’re going to die, and that you live a better life because of it.”“You know what that reflects? Unsatisfied lives. Unfulfilled lives. Lives that haven’t found meaning. Because if you’ve found meaning in your life, you don’t want to go back. You want to go forward. You want to see more, do more. You can’t wait until sixty-five.”

pg 120

“You have to find what’s good and true and beautiful in your life as it is now. Looking back makes you competitive. And, age is not a competitive issue.”

The Eighth Tuesday We Talk About Money

pg 125

“These were people so hungry for love that they were accepting substitutes. They were embracing material things and expecting a sort of hug back. But it never works. You can’t substitute material things for love or for gentleness or for tenderness or for a sense of comradeship.”“When you most need it, neither money nor power will give you the feeling you’re looking for, no matter how much of them you have.”

pg 127-128

“If you’re trying to show off for people at the top, forget it. They will look down at you anyhow. And if you’re trying to show off for people at the bottom, forget it. They will only envy you. Status will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone.”

pg 128

“Do the kinds of things that come from the heart. When you do, you won’t be dissatisfied, you won’t be envious, you won’t be longing for somebody else’s things. On the contrary, you’ll be overwhelmed with what comes back.”

The Ninth Tuesday We Talk About How Love Goes On

pg 133

“I’ve got so many people who have been involved with me in close, intimate ways. And love is how you stay alive, even after you are gone.”

pg 136

“Part of the problem, is that everyone in such a hurry, People haven’t found meaning in their lives, so they’re running all the time looking for it. They think the next car, the next house, the next job. They find those things are empty, too, and they keep running.”

The Tenth Tuesday We Talk About Marriage

pg 149

“If you don’t respect the other person, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. If you don’t know how to compromise, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. If you can’t talk openly about what goes on between you, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. And if you don’t have a common set of values in life, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. Your values must be alike.” “And the biggest one of those values.” “Your belief in the importance of your marriage.”

The Eleventh Tuesday We Talk About Our Culture

pg 156

“Every society has its own problems, The way to do it, I think, isn’t to run away. You have to work at creating your own culture.”

The Audiovisual, Part Three

pg 163

“Be compassionate, And take responsibility for each other. If we only learned those lessons, this world would be so much better a place.”

The Twelfth Tuesday We Talk About Forgiveness

pg 164

“There is no point in keeping vengeance or stubbornness. These things I so regret in my life. Pride. Vanity. Why do we do the things we do?”

pg 167

“Make peace. You need to make peace with yourself and everyone around you.”

The Thirteenth Tuesday We Talk About The Perfect Day

pg 173

“That’s what we’re all looking for. A certain peace with the idea of dying. If we know, in the end, that we can ultimately have that peace with dying, then we can finally do the really hard thing.” “Which is?” “Make peace with living.”

pg 174

“As long as we can love each other, and remember the feeling of love we had, we can die without ever really going away.”“Death ends a life, not a relationship.”

pg 177-178

“There is no formula to relationships. They have to be negotiated in loving ways, with room for both parties, what they want and what they need, what they can do and what their life is like.”

pg 178

“Love is when you are as concerned about someone else’s situation as you are about your own.”

I read Tuesdays With Morrie back in 2001, this book is a humble reminder every time I jump on the wrong direction in life.

This book is my bible.