There is one Zen story that includes the game of chess. A Zen master instructed a beginning student to play chess with one of the senior students. Then he told them that the loser would be killed. The student played chess with more concentration devoted to the game than he had ever done before in his life. As he nervously played and shaked his pieces, sweat started to pour off his forehead and all over. He was playing for his life, literally. Then he started winning, his position was very good. And then he started to have compassion for his opponent, not wanting him to be killed, so he purposely made some blunders. The game was a test and no one was killed. The point of the story is that full concentration is needed in every facet of life to succeed and the importance of compassion. Today modern athletes often evoke this Zen attitude, attempting to feel that they will literally die if they do not make the next shot or score, etc.

http://www.d-chess.com/thezenofchess

 

Kill or be killed does not sound very Zen to me...

Vance: you do know that the japanese samurai class took up zen with great interest right? 

 ZenofChess:  You can find this story in greater detail and better form in various places on the net =)

I am glad you are pursuing this interest in zen and chess.  I read your article at the link above, and it's a little shaky.  You made many conclusions that are kind of absurd if you know chess.  First of all, chess players walking back and forth would never be confused with walking meditation in zen buddhism.  They are done for entirely different purposes, in entirely different circumstances.  The only similarity is that both people are walking back and forth.  It's really a stretch to claim any connection here.

  Second, korchnoi's 3-0 comeback against Karpov was not unprecedented in chess.  Maybe the yoga helped him, but saying that the reason he made a comeback is because he realized the value of yoga is absurd.  

 

   I'd like to offer you another area to pursue in your connection with Zen and Chess, which is the idea that lightning chess is similar to zen spontaneity practices.  In lightning chess, the entire game is over in 2 minutes.  You have literally no time to deliberate on your moves, and if you hesitate you die.  I think it could work very well with these kinds of zen practices, though lightning chess should probably be modified on online servers so that you have to move instantly every move and cannot stop and think for 5 seconds if you wanted to.  Also I don't think live chess on chess.com is a very good example of it because the games take longer because of some kind of delay between moves compared to different chess servers. 

Actually no, I did not know that.  Thank you for enlightening me!