Some Specifics pertaining to Chess Mastery and Lasker's Theory of Chess Struggle

Consider the original position: crowded! Only sixty-four squares for thirty-two pieces, which comes to one meagre unoccupied square per piece. Where will they all find scope? In the original position only the Pawns and Knights can move at all.

An egregious justification for death-kill in real life, the universally condemned notion of the need for lebensraum is the critical fact for surviving a serious game of international chess. Fortunately you have some time in such a game to stake out some space for yourself. Make the most of it and pray your opponent prefers a cramped position.

But watch out! That guy playing the Rat (the Modern Defense) may have a twisted mind. He may thrive--instinctively, psychologically: this is who he is, for God's sake!--on hideous infighting, on cut and thrust, on perfectly real bunches of nasty little tactics that most people's minds wouldn't consider even if bending over backwards (figuratively speaking).

We picture the chessmaster as pure intelligence effortlessly sifting possibilities (we call them variations). And there is that. Last time I visited the social spaces on the upper floors of Evans Hall (the Berkeley citadel for mathematicians) there was a chess set, and the time before that the professors were playing gleefully. But a somewhat lesser intelligence will also thrive on the board, with a little experience, provided it is bent on surviving on the squares, provided it is that kind of mentality that naturally maps its primitive survival instinct onto a pointlessly competitive little board. Beware.