Chess for Zebras, Introduction

After hearing lots of glowing praise for Rowson's book Chess for Zebras: Thinking Differently about Black and White, I decided to give it a shot. This is partly because the praise is often not accompanied by many specific things they liked, or concrete nontrivial take-home messages. That is, the reviews have had a bit too much adoration, not enough content, often discussing only the first chapter (for examples, see Silman's review here (discusses only content in Chapter 1) and the Chessbase review here--nice summary of Chapter 1, but then nothing).

Hence, I bought the book, and will write up brief summaries periodically (eventually of every chapter) to provide a more synoptic picture of the book. While I'll focus on summarizing the book, I'll of course not be able to resist injecting commentary as well.

The book is broken up into three parts. Part I (five chapters) is called 'Improving our Capacity to Improve'. It is a relatively abstract discussion of the psychology of chess and its relationship to chess improvement. Part II (five chapters) is entitled 'A mental toolkit for the exponential jungle' and is more concrete, discussing how to navigate the tortured complexity of the the game of chess (for instance, when it is time to temper your attacking urges and play some defense?). Part III (four chapters) is 'Thinking Colorfully about Black and White', and discusses issues surrounding which color you are playing.

Next post will be a summary of Chapter 1, 'What to do when you think there's a hole in your bucket.' Summaries will come every week or two.