I was watching the move The Art of War the other day and started remembering several occasions where people said something along the lines of reading The Art of War will improve your chess.(Funny thing, everyone of them who said this couldn't play chess )
Anyway, has anyone here read The Art of War and applied it in any meaningful way to your chess game?
I read a few sections of it, but stopped because I could not find any use for it in chess.
I have read it.....
Read it. Some parts of it would apply to almost any sort of struggle or contest, even a game of baseball or tiddly-winks.
"Know yourself and thy enemy, find victory in every battle. Know yourself and not thy enemy, find victory and defeat in equal measure. Know thy enemy but not yourself, find defeat in every battle." Sun Tzu (something along them lines)
"The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy. To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself. Thus the good fighter is able to secure himself against defeat , but cannot make certain of defeating the enemy." Sun Tzu (positional chess?)
The Art of War is more applicable to Go than chess. Chess is tactics and a small amount of strategy compared to go. I remember watching a documentary about it where they said Sun Tzu was playing go while his enemies were playing chess (this was not a compliment to chess).
I was watching the move The Art of War the other day and started remembering several occasions where people said something along the lines of reading The Art of War will improve your chess.(Funny thing, everyone of them who said this couldn't play chess )
Anyway, has anyone here read The Art of War and applied it in any meaningful way to your chess game?
I read a few sections of it, but stopped because I could not find any use for it in chess.
I've read it and have noticed several applications in daily life (including chess). It's required reading at certain military acadamies for good reason, and even businessmen and political figures can find beneficial points to ponder.
My copy, The Complete Art of War, includes not only Sun Tzu's original works, but also those of his direct descendant, Sun Pin [which are titled Military Methods]. In some ways I found Sun Pin's continuations of Sun Tzu's texts and theories to be even more applicable to modern situations, but they by no means overshadow the value of Sun Tzu's Art of War.
I can see many of the lessons of Sun Tzu and Sun Pin applying directly to the chess battlefield in countless meaningful ways. If you pay close attention you can see direct corrolation between the battlefields they speak of from ancient China to those of a modern day chess game.
"Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night,and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt." Sun Tzu (chess as i know it)
"In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity." Sun Tzu (middlegame)
"When your army is many, make it look to be few. When your army is few, make it look to be many" (When up in piece count, act deceivingly inept, and when down in piece count, act as if it is intentional and you have a trick up your sleeve) 
You can draw some inspiration from the Art of War, but bear in mind that it is not a chess book and wasn't specifically written for chess. If there is any benefit, it would be marginal compared to reading real chess books. But the Art of War is a good read and can broaden your horizon.
"Unhappy is the fate of one who tries to win his battles and succeed in his attacks without cultivating the spirit of the enterprise; for the result is waste of time and general stagnation." Sun Tzu (cheaters)
You can draw some inspiration from the Art of War, but bear in mind that it is not a chess book and wasn't specifically written for chess. If there is any benefit, it would be marginal compared to reading real chess books. But the Art of War is a good read and can broaden your horizon.
Agreed. It certainly wasn't written with chess anywhere remotely in mind... but like I said earlier, the book can impact your life in many different ways, be it as a military leader, a businessman, even in aspects of manipulating people to unwittingly bow to your will through trickery and deceit. So it stands to reason that lessons from the works can also be applied to chess.
On the topic (sort of), was chess even around in the time of Sun Tzu? More specifically, if it was already an established game, was it still confined to other regions or would it have been found among the rulers of the Chinese dynasties of the period? Hmmm... I'll have to look that up out of curiousity's sake...
Uh oh... General Westmoreland... 
(He should've studied Sun Tzu a bit better, it might've saved some of the 58,000+ lives lost in Vietnam...)
Sun Tzu lived during 500 b.c. Don't know if they were playing chess, maybe something similiar. I do know that Go was being played around 200 a.d.
I read The Art of War, and I think you have to remember that Sun Tzu is talking about the grim task of killing people. Books have been written that propose similarities between warfare and business, but if you know your adversary and not yourself in a business setting you might lose an account. If you lose a battle, your army might be slaughtered, your wife raped repeatedly and you children sold into slavery. War is unique in human experience
Phil Jackson made it "must read" for his Lakers.
Nice video rabbit.
I always like how dramatic these videos can be; "And it's tactics and strategy, not overwhelming firepower that causes the U.S. to ultimatley lose the war in Vietnam. A loss that Sun Tsz predicted THOUSANDS of years earlier."
Yeah.
I like how they simplified chess to the process of just going around and killing pieces.
Don't they know that chess is a gentlemen's game and that true gentle men don't just kill for the sake of killing?
No, we use lots of strategy and tactis to carefully, and percisely kill just enough of the right pieces to achieve victory.
I was watching the move The Art of War the other day and started remembering several occasions where people said something along the lines of reading The Art of War will improve your chess.(Funny thing, everyone of them who said this couldn't play chess )
Anyway, has anyone here read The Art of War and applied it in any meaningful way to your chess game?
I read a few sections of it, but stopped because I could not find any use for it in chess.