“I first fell in love with chess as a fourteen-year-old sophomore at Brooklyn Technical High School. After an easy route at the hands of a classmate, I came across a chess book in the school library, and my love affair with learning everything I could about the game has not stopped to this day. I’ve shared the life lessons in this book with players everywhere from New York and Detroit to Kingston and Zanzibar, and I’ve spoken about the connections between chess and business with companies such as Amazon, Google, and Pinterest. Chess has changed me in fundamental ways, and its eternal truths have helped me navigate the complexities of life’s paths in more situations than I could have imagined.
While I believe in the uplifting power of chess ‘to make people happy,’ I have also witnessed the transformative power of chess in classrooms and prison cells. Thinking like a chess player can make you a better decision-maker, problem-solver, and strategist. It can help you think before you leap while also trusting your intuition, map out the future while staying firmly rooted in the present, and master yourself while seeing the world through the eyes of others. It is a game that can provide a lifetime of joyful entertainment while also being a serious discipline that can change lives.
Move by Move is a collection of the most compelling lessons chess has taught me. It contains insights on managing chaos and complexity, balancing sacrifices and risks, analyzing backward to solve problems, and embracing imperfection. You’ll learn how to build a winner’s mentality and how not to be derailed by success. You’ll come to understand the most critical elements of strategy and why learning through loss is a key path to greatness. And maybe most important, you’ll learn that to get to the top of the mountain, you must first conquer yourself.
I hope these lessons change your life the way they have changed mine.”
~ Maurice Ashley from Move by Move
Maurice Ashley is a Chess Grandmaster, a chess commentator, a national championship coach, and an author. In 1999, at the age of 33, he became the first African American Chess Grandmaster in the game’s history, and in 2016 he was inducted into the US Chess Hall of Fame.
As you know if you’ve been following along, my 11-year-old son, Emerson, is REALLY into chess. He wants to become a Chess Grandmaster like Maurice.
So... When I saw that this book was coming out in one of Emerson’s Chess Kid newsletters, I immediately got it. I read it in a single sitting. It’s FANTASTIC. (Get a copy here.)
As per that intro quote above, it’s packed with wisdom on everything from how to embrace the power of mistakes (and the inevitability of losing!) to improving every day through the power of focus and endless learning.
It’s packed with Big Ideas. I’m excited to share some of my favorites so let’s jump straight in!
P.S. Check out our Notes on The Art of Learning by *another* legendary chess player, Josh Waitzkin—the kid featured in the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer!
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