Before the endgame, the gods have placed the middle game.
—SIEGBERT TARRASCH
Abraham Lincoln began his famous “House Divided” speech in 1858 with a brilliant observation: “If we could first know where we are going and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do and how to do it.” Lincoln might have added that it’s worth knowing not only where you are going, but where you are. Planning and innovation both require solid grounding in the present. We can know “whither we are tending” only when we know where we are.
Over the centuries, countless methods have been developed to explain the game of chess to students and help them to better understand the path they are on in each game they play. One of the most durable methods is to break the game into three parts, or phases: the opening, the middle game, and the endgame. There is no agreed-upon formula for determining exactly when one ends and another begins, but without question each phase has distinctive characteristics and each poses problems that benefit from different modes of thinking.
Know Why We Make Each Move We Make
Simply put, the opening is the phase of the game where the battle lines are drawn. The pawns establish the contours of structure, the pieces get off the back rank and take up hostile or defensive positions. The opening, though, is far more than a trivial mobilization of forces. It establishes what sort of battle is to come and is the first and best opportunity to move the game into channels where you are better equipped to fight than your opponent. The opening is the subtlest, most difficult phase of the game, especially at the highest level of competition.
An essential element of this starting phase is the actual opening— the term we use to describe the hundreds of predetermined sequences of moves—the set plays, if you will—that great chess players have devised to begin games. These usually have names, such as the aforementioned Dragon variation. These proper names can derive from the player who coined the variation, the city or country where the originating game was played, or a literal—or poetic—description of the position. The Dragon variation is said to get its name for the way the alignment of the pawns looks like the constellation Draco. The names of the openings make up much of chess players’ jargon, populating our discussions with everything from the Sicilian Dragon to the Maroczy Bind, from the Marshall Attack to the King’s Indian.
Players, even club amateurs, dedicate hours to studying and memorizing the lines of their preferred openings. This knowledge is invaluable, but it can also be a trap. Many make the mistake of believing that if they know what a famous Grandmaster played in this exact position back in 1962, they don’t have to think for themselves. The theory is this: if they can just follow the games of great players, move by move, for as as long as they can, and if they remember more than their opponent, he’ll eventually make a mistake.
In competitive play, though, that theory rarely holds up. Long before a player becomes a master, he realizes that rote memorization, however prodigious, is useless without understanding. At some point, he’ll reach the end of his memory’s rope and be without a premade fix in a position he doesn’t really understand. Without knowing why all the moves were made, he’ll have little idea of how to continue when play inevitably advances beyond the moves he was able to store in his memory.
In June 2005 in New York I gave a special training session to a group of the leading young players in the United States. I had asked them each to bring two of their games for us to review, one win and one loss. A talented twelve-year-old raced through the opening moves of his loss, eager to get to the point where he thought he’d gone wrong. I stopped him and asked why he had played a certain pawn push in the sharp opening variation. His answer didn’t surprise me: “That’s what Vallejo played!” Of course I also knew that the Spanish Grandmaster had employed this move in a recent game, but I also knew that if this youngster didn’t understand the motive behind the move, he was already headed for trouble.
This boy’s response took me back to my own sessions with Botvinnik thirty years earlier. On more than one occasion he chided me for committing this same sin of blind emulation. The great teacher insisted that his students recognize the rationale behind every move. As a result, all of us learned to become great skeptics, even of the moves of the best players. We would discover a powerful idea behind each Grandmaster move, but we also found improvements. We studied, we questioned, we grappled with the idea behind a series of moves, and eventually we could build our understanding and create more and better strategies.
For players who depend on memorization, the opening ends when their memory runs out of moves and they have to start thinking for themselves. A rote opening might carry you to move five, or even move thirty, but this practice always inhibits your development as a player. It is one thing for a world-class player to rely on memorization; he already knows all of the whys behind the moves. For your own development it’s far more important to think for yourself from the very start.
The purpose of the opening isn’t just to survive the beginning of the game, it’s to set the stage for the type of middle game you want—or the type of game your opponent doesn’t want. To know what this is requires preparation, study, and opposition research. Which openings does tomorrow’s opponent play? What happened the last few times you played each other? Can you find a new idea in one of these openings that might give you an early advantage? What types of position does he dislike? Which opening choice can lead you into those positions? If you make the right decisions at the outset, you can narrow the field of view and begin unfolding your strategy with care and precision.
Creativity in the opening phase is now most often cultivated in the comfort of home instead of in the fires of competition. Computer databases contain almost every serious game ever played, including, thanks to the Internet, those played just yesterday. You can call up your opponent’s entire career in a second and look for tendencies, weaknesses, holes in his opening repertoire. Then you head to the board to face someone who has done exactly the same research on you.
By the time a player becomes a Grandmaster, almost all of his training time is dedicated to work on this first phase. The opening is the only phase that holds out the potential for true creativity and doing something entirely new. For finding something that no one else has found. Although the area narrows each year, there remains a great deal of unexplored territory. You can set off on your own without anyone knowing what you are working on. You can look for traps and new ideas and then return from your explorations ready to spring them on your opponents. It’s as exciting as being an inventor in a laboratory, trying out ideas in the privacy of your own creative space. Who among us wouldn’t agree that he is at his most imaginative when he is away from the office or his regular place of work? With so much precedent and history available at anyone’s fingertips, the power of surprise is more difficult to harness, but it also packs a greater punch when you do find something new. So dedicate yourself to making the time, finding a space in which you can think and learn, and finding new ideas with which to shock your adversaries.
Art Is Born from Creative Conflict
It’s generally agreed that the opening phase is over when the pieces have left their starting squares and the king has castled out of the center to safety. Now we come to the middle game, in which the forces become engaged. The pieces have been developed, the kings are safe (or, for more excitement, are not), and the battle lines have been drawn. It’s time for the forces to meet and for blood to be spilled. It is a time for creativity, fantasy, and energy. At the start of the game the pieces are inert. The opening coils the spring, putting the pieces in position to release their energies. In the middle game come the explosions.
It is rare to be exactly where you want to be after the opening phase has ended, and it’s almost impossible for both players to be happy. Your opponent is always countering, interfering with your plans, and vice versa. This means fresh evaluations are always required. You must constantly process new reports from the front. Even if you have been in this exact position in another game, it is critical to evaluate it anew, especially since your opponent is also aware you’ve been here before and may have prepared something nasty. The thing that worked last time may not work this time, precisely because it worked last time. Survey the landscape, examine the imbalances, and formulate a strategy.
Our MTQ analysis is similar to what those in the corporate world call SWOT reports, which stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats. The difference in chess is that your opponent’s every move, decision, and action is right there before you, all the time. Still, you must simultaneously analyze both positions—his and yours—before you can formulate and execute your strategy. You must also be aware of any immediate need for action. Do you need to put deeper strategic concerns on hold and respond to imminent danger? Can you create a threat that will force your opponent on the defensive and out of his game plan? If there aren’t any immediate tactical considerations, you can continue developing your strategy and pushing toward your intermediate objectives—the process you began in the opening.
All of the elements that elevate chess to an art are native to the middle game. Poor opening research can be overcome by tactical brilliance. Deep calculations can operate in harmony with daring visions. Total disaster lurks around every corner as the dynamic force of the pieces is maximized. Battlefield commanders take over from armchair generals. More than anything, the middle game rewards action over reaction. It is the attacking phase, and the fight for the initiative is paramount.
The middle game requires alertness in general and alertness to patterns in particular. These are general ideas that anyone can learn with practice; the more you play, the better you become at recognizing the patterns and applying the solutions. That is, to find similarities to positions you have seen before and then to recall what worked (or what didn’t work) in that situation. There is still potential for great creativity, if you are able to relate known patterns to new positions to find the unique solution: the best move.
In the business world, for example, a company enters the middle game as soon as a product is launched into the market. Preparation is over and now it’s time to maneuver with advertising and price points. How is this product similar to previous ones? How is it different? What has worked before and how can this campaign improve on past efforts? Every decision in this phase is largely based on our ability to find parallels. The touch of genius comes in extending them beyond what others believed possible.
What little concrete study of the middle game there is comes from its evolution from the opening, one of the key transition points. The opening serves only to establish the outlines of the middle game, so it can be useful, even essential, to push your study of the opening phase into the “real world” of middle-game action. This is why it is so important to study complete chess games, not just look at the opening moves. This is also why business schools have largely switched to the case-study method instead of focusing on theory. All the study and preparation in the world can’t show you what it’s really going to be like in the wild. Observing typical plans in action, mistakes and accidents included, is vastly superior to ivory-tower planning.
Make Sure a Good Peace Follows a Good War
Much beloved by writers, politicians, and businesspeople as a metaphor, the endgame is simply the result of piece exchanges. When the dynamic potential of the armies has diminished to a minimal level, the middle game has ended. The energy and tension of the middle game with all its elements of surprise, attack, and defense give way to a technical phase. When only the last few survivors remain on the battlefield, raw logic and calculation take over. And then we are in the endgame.
There is still a great deal of uncharted territory in the opening phase of the game. New ideas, new concepts, new plans in old and forgotten variations, there is still much to discover in the opening. The tactical patterns and strategic concepts of the middle game have been well mapped out by generations of Grandmasters, although there are occasional fresh twists. In the endgame, however, the plans and possibilities are open and known to all, an almost mathematical exercise. This isn’t to say that everything is predetermined. With flawless play from both sides, the endgame will advance toward a predictable conclusion. But since humans are flawed, damage can be inflicted or repaired. Even if one player is at a clear disadvantage, he may simply outplay his opponent.
The endgame represents the treaty negotiations after the fighting has ended. The masterful French diplomat Talleyrand pulled off just such an endgame coup at the Congress of Vienna in 1814–15. France went into the conference with low hopes. After its defeat in the Napoleonic Wars, it was a disgraced and occupied nation that could expect to have little influence at the congress that would reshape Europe. And yet the wily Talleyrand (having craftily maneuvered to have Napoleon removed from power) managed to divide the conquering allies and create new alliances that preserved most of France’s territorial boundaries. France had entered the negotiating phase, the endgame after the wars, with a losing position. But with almost nothing in MTQ assets at his disposal, by skillful maneuvering Talleyrand changed the fate of Europe.
The opposite course is also possible, sadly. Few things are more tragic than playing a strong opening, a brilliant middle-game attack, then having the win evaporate with one wrong move in the endgame. This happened to me on no less a stage than my world championship match against Nigel Short in London, 1993.
In a fierce opening duel I confronted a new opening idea Nigel had introduced earlier in the match. I got a significant edge out of the opening and in the middle game successfully resisted his attempts to get things back on track. I brought a material advantage into the endgame. The game had simplified down to just one rook for my opponent and a rook and two pawns for me. (We don’t count the kings as they are always on the board.) It was a winning position and I was only waiting for Short to resign—that was my first mistake. We were both on autopilot for the final moves, and not until after the game did someone point out we had both blundered horribly near the end. Even with just two pawns and two rooks on the board I had made a slip, playing a “natural” move with my pawn that permitted Short a defensive maneuver that would allow him to draw the game. But Short, also blind to the opportunity, responded with his own “natural” move. He resigned a half dozen moves later.
How could the world champion and his challenger both miss something so important in the endgame despite having so few pieces on the board to create complications? I think it’s because the aridity of the endgame, its lack of dynamism, leads players to become blind to opportunity. The technical phase can be boring because there is little opportunity for creativity, for art. Boredom leads to complacency and mistakes.
The same is true in the workplace. If one is faced with a repetitive job, it can be difficult to stay alert to opportunities to solve problems creatively. Your instincts slowly go numb when every analysis returns the same answers over and over. What should be a search for excellence and the best solution eventually turns into a “good enough” mentality. We must strive to keep things fresh so we can rely on and enhance our instincts instead of falling into mental ruts. General Electric’s Jack Welch once sent the senior manager of an underperforming GE sector on a month’s vacation so he could come back and “act as though you hadn’t been running it for four years.” Many companies regularly rotate managers or have programs where top executives drop in on other areas so problems can be seen through fresh eyes. If we don’t stay sharp, the edges begin to blur, and subtle differences fall through the cracks, differences that can be critically important at decisive moments.
Endgame play is typically seen as binary: good or bad, with little room for style. But the best endgame players find inspiration in the details, in the precision it takes to complete a successful move at a time when the field of battle presents few options. Cautious, patient, and calculating players excel in the endgame. Petrosian and Karpov, for example, were better in this phase of the game than Spassky and I. Attackers who thrive on the dynamism of the middle game and the creative aspects of the opening often find a natural enemy in the sterile endgame.
Of course the best players in history had to excel at every phase of the game to reach the top. There is, however, still room to shine in certain areas. I freely confess that my endgame prowess fell short of my middle-game skills and my opening play. Karpov was stronger in the middle and final phases than he was in the opening, although he compensated by working with well-chosen coaches.
Vladimir Kramnik, who took my title in 2000, has excellent opening preparation, and he shines in the endgame as well. In the dynamic middle game, but only relative to his play in the opening and the endgame, the quality of his play lacks consistency.
It’s a good exercise to break down your own skills and performances this way. What are your strong points? Creative preparation? Fluid action? Calculating details? Do you shy away from any of these areas? Many players depend too heavily on a talent for one area or another, which limits their growth and their success. A tenable endgame is better than an inferior middle game, but if you don’t like quiet positions, you may not realize this until it is too late. You must work to discover and eliminate the weaker parts of your game.
For me this has always meant controlling my desire for action and stopping to consider when it might be counterproductive. My love of dynamic complications often led me to avoid simplicity when perhaps it was the wisest choice. This inclination was strong in me even away from the chessboard, where my instincts were usually correct. My years working to overcome this tendency in my chess has helped me in my transition to politics. I am quicker to realize when it’s time to stop attacking and to begin maneuvering and negotiating.
Don’t Bring a Knife to a Gunfight
One phase often changes to another invisibly—and sometimes changes back with as little notice. What is important is to not make assumptions about a position that depend too much on the characteristics of a single phase. What works to your benefit in the middle game may hurt you in the endgame. And an acute sense of timing is essential. I’ve seen many examples of one player relaxing into a technical endgame only to find that his opponent is still in the creative middle game.
In the eleventh round of the 2002 Chess Olympiad in Slovenia, I had the black pieces against the top German player, Christopher Lutz. The game slowly simplified into a position without queens and only three pieces per player. Lutz brought his knights to the far side of the board where they became tangled up in seeking relatively insignificant gains. In an endgame this loss of time wouldn’t be a major factor. But with his pieces on the other side of the board, I saw a chance to mount an attack on his king.
Even after it was clear what I was trying to do, Lutz underestimated the danger. He was already in endgame mode and wasn’t able to switch back into a dynamic middle-game mentality to react to the threat. My small army soon cornered his king and forced him to resign. Misunderstanding the nature of the position and playing “in the wrong phase” as Lutz did can happen at other transition points as well.
Underestimating dynamic factors also happens in the early stages of play. Even a well-prepared player can delay thinking critically in the early middle game. Routine moves might pass in the opening, but they can lead to unpleasant surprises if your opponent is paying attention to more aggressive lines than you are. That is, if he is already playing the middle game while you’re still in an opening mind-set.
These errors in transition occur in every area that involves planning and strategy. No matter what pursuit a smart planner is engaged in, he takes all three phases into account throughout. What sort of middle game is his opening going to lead to? Is it one he is prepared for? Does he have experience with this type of negotiation or battle or job or project? If so, how did the phases of the “game” evolve?
Austria’s Rudolf Spielmann wrote we must “play the opening like a book, the middle game like a magician, and the endgame like a machine.” Your goal should be not just to perform well in each phase but to make the transitions seamless.
We must now take the results of all this study and evaluation and transform it into action.