Sing Your Way to Better Play: Nursery Rhymes for Board Scanning
Special thanks to Dalton Perrine
“It is not unimportant how we are habituated from our early days; indeed it makes a huge difference—or rather all the difference.”
—Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
“Plop, plop, fizz, fizz …”
—Popular American antacid commercial
You hear a lot of things in a chess club. Chess lingo. Pieces coming down. Clock taps. Good-humored laughter over stepping into a tactic. Stories of chess players, old and new, great and small.
You might even hear music. One of our club’s members likes to play old rock ’n’ roll at sociable, pleasing volumes from his phone, which sits snug inside his inner jacket pocket while we play in our brightly lit corner of the public library. Every time I hear “Gimme Shelter” by the Stones, I now think of Saturday-morning chess. (I now like to imagine the Kings shouting, “Gimme shelter!” right before castling!)
When I was new to the club, our musical member politely asked me several times if the music was interfering with my concentration. “Not at all,” I told him. In fact, I tell him, I think he’d make a fine DJ. (I mean it, too. He picks good stuff.)
Sometimes, among the stories and lingo and Elvis, you hear just what you’ve been needing to stop struggling so much and start cooperating with a better process.
A few months into my adult reconnection to chess, I lost a game at the club and was bemoaning Yet Another Blunder. (I don’t mind losing, truly, just not losing like that.) Feeling a little discouraged, and by now evidently feeling a little comfortable with the players I meet week after week, I recall joking at my own expense about whether I was cut out for the game.
“Nahhh,” our chess expert spoke up, waving away this oh-so familiar self-doubt he had heard a million times from a million other players in relaxed, soothing tones. “It’s just your bad habits.” Casual, at ease, as mastery has earned the right to be.
Another word from the chess expert to reframe everything. Bad habits.
Certainly, I understood those. Habits are understood. Habits are science.
Science.
Music to my ears.
Gimme shelter in these new habits.
“Habits”? Then There’s Hope!
Recently, I spoke with a psychiatrist who shared that some several hundred repetitions of an action would be needed to turn that new action into habit. According to one of her colleagues, she further shared, the requirement for the number of repetitions goes down considerably when you change one thing about that action: you turn that action into play.
So, let’s say I wanted to build a better board-scanning habit so I won’t lose games through hanging a piece. I’ll need several hundred repetitions of a more effective board-scanning process, one that catches each position’s decisive elements.
Great. First, let’s find a board-scanning process.
Hey, look, here’s a great one!
That’s great. What if I could accelerate that a bit? By making it playful? Making it fun?
New Habit, Playfully Acquired
According to our authority, we can accelerate habit formation through play. While she could not be exact when I asked her about the details of her source, she said that the difference between habit acquisition through repetition without play and repetition with play is discernible in her regular practice. I’m intrigued, of course, and I’m intrigued about the possibility of making anything habitual through play, since play is so very light on cognitive load and good for memory.
Surely it would be great to get to the “shelter” of these good habits quicker, like castling into them.
But how do you play with a board-scanning process? How do you castle into it?
You sing one.
Back to Nursery School—Where Ideas Formed through Rhyme
Or, Better Habits: They’re Just a Song Away, They’re Just a Song Away
Kids love rhyme. We all know this. Older people like rhymes, too. Teachers and marketers have an interest in crafting rhymes because they are hard to forget, and anything that’s hard to forget is that much more likely to influence behavior. All the more when people seem to think that anything put to rhyme is, on that account, reasonable, making use of what rhetorical scholars call “tacit persuasion patterns” (Lanham 119-136).
So, in the interest of play, and memory, and better chess habits, here are some nursery rhymes you can try if you, like me, could use this board-scanning process. The rhymes centralize the importance of good habits and the questions shared by Perrine:
- The centrality of habits (things we do all the time)
- Question 1: What did my opponent’s last move do?
- Question 2: What forcing moves do I have?
- Question 3: If nothing tactical: what improves my position most? (plan/pieces/weaknesses)
- Question 4: Blunder check: How does my opponent respond to my move?
Welcoming New Habits
To the Tune of “Oh, you dear Augustin”
These are the habits, the habits, the habits!
These are the habits we’ll use to play well.
We want a good game
So good thinking’s our aim!
These are the habits we’ll use to play well.
Commentary: Repetition of the word “habit” intentionally reinforces how important “habit” is. If your students are kids, you can talk about how repeated actions are very important. Aristotle emphasizes that even good character comes through repeated good actions. Want to be just? Do what just people do, and keep on doing that, The Philosopher says (Aristotle, 1098a, 1103b).
Want to be a good chess player? Do what good chess players do, and keep on doing that.
Notice, too, the language says “good thinking.” This places emphasis on the way of approaching the task of board scanning, not on any player’s “native intelligence” or “natural talent.” Emphasize a growth mindset and focus on effective steps. Redirect all talk betokening a fixed mindset toward a growth-mindset frame. This is crucial: it is why the chess expert’s relaxed comment, “it’s just your bad habits,” sounded so inviting, so musical to me: it meant I still belonged here, blunders and all.
Talk that way to others who struggle with a fixed mindset as well as with chess: in time, they will thank you for such beautiful music. So, too, will their game.
Understanding the Opponent’s Last Move
To the Tune of “Frère Jacques”
Why’d they play that? Why’d they play that?
Look around! Look around!
Before you start your frettin’
Scan for what they’re threat’nin’
Till it’s found! Till it’s found!
Commentary: Repetition of “Why’d they play that?” encourages the player to make this question the automatic response to an opponent’s move. “Why” encourages curiosity instead of fear (“before you start your frettin’”). Repeating “look around” should call to mind the entire board, not just one quarter or side.
Importantly, this rhyme promises an answer: “Scan for what they’re threat’nin’ | Till it’s found, till it’s found.” Emphasize that “scan” means a systematic, thorough going-over. It is NOT (I repeat, NOT) skimming (despite beginning with the same consonant sounds!).
Repetition emphasizes look—and look again.
Seek, dear chess player, and you will find the threat.
Finding Forcing Moves
To the Rhythm of “Mary Had a Little Lamb”
A player had a little plan
So they could cause me woe.
So everywhere my pieces went,
There’d be no place to go!
But then I found a forcing move
To interrupt this plot:
A check, a capture, or a threat
May stop them on the dot!
Commentary: Notice the rhyme mentions the opponent’s plan first. If we have followed the first step, then we know (or have a very good idea about) what that is. (Skilled chess players are impressive, yes, but no one can read minds.) Notice, too, how the rhyme reinforces a goal of grabbing space: “So everywhere my pieces went, | There’d be no place to go!”
As a result of taking our first step, we have a clearly defined objective that we should get busy trying to stop. A forcing move—a check, capture, or threat—here takes on its rationale: it is a targeted interruption to the opponent’s plan.
Not all players understand this, so let us not let this point slip past us unnoticed. A chess maxim is “patzer sees a check, patzer plays a check,” the idea being that unskilled players think checks are good to play almost simply for themselves (Seirawan 5). To the contrary, checks are a “hold it right there!”—where you must “hold it right there” (the rules say you must answer a check**)—and so, to a lesser extent, are captures (recaptures are commonly forced) and threats (the possibility of losing a piece is not something to ignore!).
Importantly, the rhyme uses the word “may” in the final line: because there are such things as cross-checks (eep!) and other forms of counterplay, not all forcing moves will come out to the advantage of the one who plays them. These are just things you see, here and there, as you keep playing, and it is always nice to have the warning ahead of time that such exceptions can happen.
Maturing players know—no, are learning to recognize—when it’s a good idea to interrupt a plan, and when to continue with their own.
Improving Position
To the Tune of “Hush, Little Baby”
When you find no forcing move,
Could your position improve?
A piece is standing in the way?
Find another place to stay.
A square might need a “Keep Out!” sign,
Guards to watch would be just fine!
Before you move to grab some space:
Lend support to your next place!
Does your opponent want to trade?
Friend, now don’t you be afraid:
If they want things simpler now
Just make sure that you’re not down.
If you are, then say, “No thanks,”
Find another file or rank!
If you’re up, or neck-and-neck,
Take the trade, oh, what the heck?
Do you have an open file?
Rooks will say, “That’s just my style!”
Count defenders and compare:
Is someone else needed there?
Snipe hostiles from far away:
A long-range piece might save the day!
Maybe your friend’s shouting, “Yelp!”
And you need to send him help!
But even if you sound retreat,
Doesn’t mean you say, “Defeat!”
For when it’s time to seek new squares
You can make your friend beware
The best defense? Sometimes offense!
Pause to use that common sense!
Every piece now has a job
Ready now for any prob.
There is so much you can do
When you calmly think it through.
Commentary: The tune of “Hush, Little Baby,” a nursery rhyme that is famously long, worked well, since the options for improving a chess position are much longer than simply checking, capturing, or making a threat. These options are far from exhaustive, and I highly encourage you to come up with such rhymes to improve your position yourself!
And here’s a hint: when you play a game have a new idea about improving your position, jot it down. Such sound advice had I from one of Seirawan’s books: writing down chess ideas during study has connected me more deeply to the game, and to my own thoughts about it, than I anticipated it would. Allow me to recommend pairing this advice with a dedicated chess composition book. Take those wonderful ideas. Put them to rhyme. Silly is good. Silly is hard to forget.
Blunder Check
Classic limerick format
There once was a player who blundered
When he did, how he stormed and he thundered.
But once he began
To carefully scan
His game play improved—and no wonder!
Commentary: This final “nursery rhyme” makes use of the limerick form. People often enjoy composing limericks, and I encourage the practice for any number of things you’d like to remember well. Tonally, limericks are especially light and fun, and it’s probably a good idea to make blundering—which happens to every player, especially beginning and intermediate players (you are not alone, dear struggling player)—a little less scary by (1) setting it to a funny, light-hearted form, (2) making light of the frustrations that come with blundering as a general experience and an ultimately unserious matter worthy of observational comedy,* and (3) show the clear cause-and-effect relationship between better scanning—better habits—and the sense of relief that comes with knowing your play is improving.
Don’t “Take” Time; “Fill” It
Let me close this blog entry by way of an analogy, comparing struggling chess players to struggling writers. Secondary and college English teachers often impose place page-number minimums and maximums. Typically, it’s the minimums still-learning writers struggle with. The reason? Almost always, the still-learning writers have not yet developed effective invention strategies—ways for “coming up with” ideas.
To be sure, writing in mature ways calls for a lot of tasks and subtasks. Building a case through (1) establishing an exigence, (2) reviewing prevailing issues, (3) taking a clear stance or announcing some clear purpose, (4) developing a case and weighing evidence, (5) summarizing, citing, and situating sources according to recognized conventions, (7) organizing the presentation of evidence and claims in psychologically inviting ways or arrangements, (8) anticipating and answering objections, (9) selecting words and phrases that do not obviously betray values or outlooks unacceptable to your audience: these and more besides all are subtasks the growing writer must learn to perform capably, seeming to move easily among and between these tasks in a way the reader feels is smooth, edifying, sensible, perhaps engrossing.
Such mastery takes time, situated practice, community affording growing practitioner access to expert direction and feedback, encouragement, and a fair amount of passion.
When writers develop effective invention strategies, that is, when they have ways of discovering possible relevant lines of argument, page requirements simply take care of themselves. (The point of a page minimum, of course, is to encourage thoroughness; the page maximum is to discourage self-indulgence.)
For beginning writers, “write more” or is never a helpful thing to say. “Here are some invention strategies,” with an example, is much better. One helpful invention strategy is the critical question. Argumentation theorist Douglas Walton, for example, recommends the following critical questions of any cited expert authority (in the list below, E = expert and A = proposition):
-
- Expertise Question: How credible is E as an expert source?
- Field Question: Is E an expert in the field that A is in?
- Opinion Question: What did E assert that implies A?
- Trustworthiness Question: Is E personally reliable as a source?
- Consistency Question: Is A consistent with what other experts assert?
- Backup Evidence Question: Is E’s assertion based on evidence?
(Informal 218)
Walton is a proponent of such “schemes” for critical questions because, he explains, they have a way of going over even the implied premises in an argument so that they receive the same due attention the explicit premises receive (Argumentation 21).
Jeremy Silman is certainly right that “a chess player is nothing without patience” (Amateur’s), but that patience is best spent developing the habits that will simply serve you at the board. The hard part comes in building the habits, not from taking habitual actions. (By definition, habits—once formed—require little conscious energy.) If you are simply in the habit of asking these questions, and in this order, at your turns, you can’t help but “take your time.”
“Take your time” or “slow down” at the chessboard are true, but not targeted, no more than “write more” is targeted. Instead what chess players need are better “invention strategies” (the Latin invenire means to “come upon” or “find”) in the form of questions that generate the relevant ideas that a chess player can consider and implement. Like Walton’s schemes, Dalton Perrine’s recommended four-question protocol ensures that players exhaust the “premises,” the ideas that will form the basis of their opponent’s and their plans.
Somewhere on the Internet, some clever person stated that “if art is how we decorate space, music is how we decorate time.” I’m grateful to our club’s musical member whose song selection has forever changed my associations of “Gimme Shelter” to a slogan for “Castle the King!” I’m also grateful to Mother Goose, whose silly rhymes bounce merrily in my brain, just as they have since childhood, serving no obvious practical purpose. Surely a form that makes such nonsense memorable can make something so useful as a better board-scanning protocol memorable!
Go ahead, then, and try decorating your time at the board with music, even a little nursery rhyme. Fill the time with song, then follow the song. Castle into the shelter of better habits. You’ll take all the time you need to find—to invent—the right move.
Footnote
*I am reminded that, in my translation of Aristotle’s Poetics, The Philosopher writes this of comedy, where the trajectory is always one of a problem or some misery that turns into happiness. Consider the fortuitous verbiage of this translation: “what we find funny [in comedy] is a blunder that does no serious damage” (1449a). For our positive outlook in a challenging yet beautiful game, let us follow the example of our literary tradition and laugh at our little foibles.
**All chess players deserve to know that “check” is, literally, “shah” (Persian for king). When you announce “check,” you are saying something like, “look to your King!” Shah also gives its name for chess. In name, in practice, and, in history, chess truly is the game of Kings.
References
Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Ed. Roger Crisp. Cambridge UP, 2000.
---. Poetics. Classical Literary Criticism. Eds. D. A. Russell and Michael Winterbottom. Oxford UP, 2008.
Lanham, Richard. Analyzing Prose. 2nd ed. Continuum, 2003.
Seirawan, Yasser. Winning Chess Brilliancies. Everyman Chess, 2003.
Silman, Jeremy. The Amateur's Mind: Turning Chess Misconceptions into Chess Mastery. 2nd ed. Siles Press, 1999.
Walton, Douglas. Informal Logic: A Pragmatic Approach. 2nd ed. Cambridge UP, 2008.
Walton, Douglas, Chris Reed, and Fabrizio Macagno. Argumentation Schemes. Cambridge UP, 2008.
