4) Flatten your heart
To flatten your heart is a saying from Chan Buddhism. There are equivalent sentimentsin other cultures but none which seem quite as good to me. There's also the
Samurai maxim: "The angry man will defeat himself in battle as in life." But this
only deals with one emotional state, that of anger. Flattening the heart is more all
encompassing, meaning that feelings such as an excess of joy should also be
avoided lest this in turn weakens vigilance for the next battle.
When someone flattens their heart it does not mean they should become like a
robot, without any emotions. It is more a case of not being distracted by the highs
or lows that life throws at them. As soon as they allow their mood to become dependent
on external events, which lie beyond their control, they will be giving up
their mastery of life and find themselves buffeted around wildly.
A good example is when someone gets upset by something that's said to them
and spends the entire day brooding over it. Essentially they are losing a day. They
may believe that their day has been ruined, but essentially they are ruining it
themselves by the way they react.
One magnificent example of this being applied to the chessboard was Savielly
Tartakower's victory in the Hastings tournament of 1945/46. Here is what Tartakower
himself wrote about it:
"My success was explained by some well-wishing chroniclers from the psychological
point of view as due to my will to win; whilst from the technical point of
view emphasis was laid on my creative and imaginative treatment of the endings
which procured for me many an additional half point (against Denker, Prins, Sir
George Thomas and E. G. Sergeant).
"Nevertheless, in my opinion the true cause of my triumph resided in the
moral basis I had imposed on myself throughout the contest. As I had rightly
supposed, the effects, or, at any rate, the depressing recollection of the great
miseries, losses and anguish that were suffered during the war with Hitler still
weighed heavily on the spirits of all the participants, even including those coming
from the neutral countries (Sweden, Switzerland) or from fortunate America.
"Consequently, I resolved to concentrate all my efforts on not thinking about it
at all; that is to say, on banishing it from my memory for the duration of the tournament,
all these phantoms of the recent past: and this ensured my tranquillity of
spirit and serenity of mind, both attributes so vitally necessary for any victory in
the realm of sport."
Read More:
THE RULES OF WINNING CHESS Part-1
THE RULES OF WINNING CHESS Part-2
THE RULES OF WINNING CHESS Part-3
