Chess: The Game Within the Game

Relations are the very fabric of reality. Chess game is also a rich tapestry of relationships, embodying relationalism par excellence, including the static structure of pieces, the antagonism of competing plans, and strategic dialogue, where every move is a statement, counter-statement, or question posed by one player to the other. A counterpunkt.

Today, we are going to see that there exists a sort of micro-dialogue in the chess player’s mind, as well.

In Dostoevsky’s works, micro-dialogue often manifests as a rapid, layered interplay of conflicting thoughts, akin to a debate within oneself. Translated to chess, this could mirror the grandmaster’s internal dialogue: weighing options, anticipating opponents’ responses, and wrestling with uncertainty.

Grandmasters’ thought processes indeed resemble this. They don’t just calculate moves; they engage in a mental "conversation" involving pattern recognition, positional evaluation, tactical foresight, and psychological intuition. This isn’t a linear process but a fluid, iterative one, much like Dostoevsky’s characters navigating moral or existential dilemmas.

Bradler. Monology (2017)

Fortunately, there are annotated games where grandmasters reveal this monologue, or microdialogue-like thinking through commentary, offering a window into their minds.

Here is a notable example of grandmaster games with commentary that reflects this internal interplay. The 1971 Candidates Quarterfinal match between Mark Taimanov and Bobby Fischer was a pivotal moment in chess history, marked by Fischer's unprecedented dominance and the severe consequences Taimanov faced upon returning to the Soviet Union after losing the match 0-6.

The Soviet chess establishment was stunned and humiliated. Fischer’s victory was seen as a blow to Soviet chess dominance, which was a point of national pride during the Cold War. Taimanov, a respected grandmaster and concert pianist, bore the brunt of the blame.

Taimanov was stripped of his title as a Merited Master of Sport of the USSR, a prestigious honor. His state stipend, provided to top Soviet athletes and cultural figures, was revoked. He was banned from international travel, severely limiting his chess and musical careers.

Let's hear Taimanov's internal micro-dialogue as found in Taimanov's Selected Games, Cadogan Chess, 1995.

"This is perhaps the most painful game of my entire career. It caused me acute suffering at the time and tormented me for many years..." —GM Mark Taimanov

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Diagram not only reflects the culminating and turning point of this game, and the match as a whole (later Fischer himself admitted: "This was the turning point of the match. Taimanov missed a win by 20.Qh3"), but also begins the count-down to all the unforeseen and dramatic troubles that later befell me, and about which I have already informed the reader. 

I recall that at this juncture I was experiencing a genuine competitive thrill – I judged the position to be highly promising, I was happy with the success of my opening discovery, and I quickly grasped the idea of increasing my initiative with 20 Qh3; in short, I was confident of success. Who could imagine that it would all end in ruin?! Disillusionment set in from the moment I joyfully evaluated position and embarked on a concrete calculation of variations. It was obvious that after 20 Qh3, given the threat of 21 Rxh6+, there were only two defences - 20...Nf6 and 20...Rf6. And it was they that I began examining, happily convinced that neither attempt would be able to cover the gaping approaches to the black king. 

20...Nf6 did not indeed shake my optimism. The following variations, found without difficulty, 21.Bc3 Bd7 (21...e4 22.Bc4!; 21...Qe7 22.Nf3!, and 21.Ng4 22.Rg6!) 22.Ne6! Bxe6 23.Rxe6 is clearly advantageous to White. 

But after 20.Rf6 I simply could not find any decisive continuation. At first, it seemed that 21.Qh5 was good, but on closer examination, this did not appeal on account of 21...Bd7! 22.Rxf6 Qxf6 23.Nf7+ Kh7 24.Nxh6 Bxh6 25.Bxh6 Qg6! Then the idea of 21.Nf7+ Rxf7 22.Bxh6 occurred to me, but the refutation 22...Bxf6 was immediately found. Finally, I hit on the best plan - 21.Bc4! Indeed, along with the fact that the white rook seems immune (21...Rxc6 22.Nf7+), the simple 22.Rxf6 is now threatened, and neither 21...Bd7 22.Bxd5 nor 21...Bb7 22.Rxf6 Qxf6 23.Rxf5 is possible. So, had the desired solution been found? But I was bothered about 21...f4, and to everything that I turned over in my mind, alas, objections were found. 

22.Qh5 could be met by 22.Bb7 23.Bxd5 (23.Rxf6 Qxf6) 23...Qxd5. 

22.Qh4 - by 22...Bb7 23.Nxe6 Qd7. 

22.Qd3 - by 22...hxg5 23.Rxf6 Bxf6. 

And finally, 22.Qf3?! - by 22...Bb7! 23.Rxf6 (23.Ne6 Qd7! 24.Bxd5 Rxf6!) 23...Nxf6! 24.Nf7+ Kh7 25.Qxb7 (25.Bd3+ Kg8!) 25...Qxd2 26.Qxa8 Qd4+ 27.Kh1 Qxc4. In all these variations, Fischer would emerge unscathed. 

This was staggering! All my understanding of chess, all my experience, and feeling for the game convinced me that the position should be won, and yet no concrete way to victory could be found. Having become disillusioned with 20.Qh3!, I began examining other ideas - 20.Rd1 and 20.Bc4, but also in vain. And here, I have to admit, I was seized by a feeling of helplessness, of despair: Is this Fischer invulnerable, is he somehow bewitched? I again returned to 20.Qh3, again worked through dozens of variations, and again without success. And meanwhile, the clock was ticking-time trouble was approaching. According to the arbiters' estimate, I pondered over this position for 72 minutes! Perhaps in all the fifty years of my career, I have never spent so much time on one move! 

And I simply collapsed psychologically. My energy dried up, apathy set in, everything lost point, and I made the first move that came into my head, which, of course, was a losing one... 

Chess Mood, by Irene Smirnova

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So, where is the truth? Is the critical position really all right for Black, and with such a lag in development can it really be held? Of course not! Chess has its inner logic, and when one of the sides has a clear positional advantage, it is bound to bear fruit. The whole question lies in finding this solution, one which in the given case, was camouflaged in a mass of tempting possibilities. At the time, I was unable to find it at the board. But time passed, passions died down, and objective analysis gave its results. It turned out that, when sorting through the numerous branches, in the variation 20.Qh3 Rf6 21.Bc4 f4 I probably wanted to achieve too much and, having lost my objectivity (excessive optimism sometimes leads to an overestimation of one's chances!), I missed a continuation. which, although it did not lead to the desired forced win, would nevertheless have guaranteed a clearly better ending. In short, after the essential introduction 20.Qh3 Rf6 21.Bc4 f4 I should have played 22.Rxf6! Bxh3 (if 22...Qxf6, White has the decisive 23.Qd3 Qxg5 24.Qxd5, while 22...Nxf6 23.Nf7+ transposes into the main variation) 23.Nf7+ Kh7 24.Nxd8 Nxf6 (or 24...Bxf6 25.Nc6 Be6 26.Re1, while 2...Rxd8 can be met by 25.Rc6 Bd7 26.Bd3+ Kh8 27.Rc2) 25.Nc6 Bf5 (if 25...Ne4 26.Bd3 Bf5 27.Bc3!) 26.Nxe5, and here White has every reason to count on success.

Alas, I did not play 20.Qh3!, and all the attractive and complicated variations of this unusually interesting position remained behind the scenes, neither found in full, nor published by numerous commentators. And the entire game has remained an unsolved puzzle for 20 years...

photo Larry Sultan (1946, Brooklyn – 2009, California)

This mental back-and-forth monologue by Taimanov is a fascinating example showing how the inner turmoil turns into a kind of dialogic dance—where the chess player wrestle with themselves as if in conversation. It’s not just a monologue, it’s a clash of voices—anticipation, doubt, strategy—all fighting in the player’s head.

Any memory of your own micro-dialogue that you wish to share?

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